Chapli kebab

the flat Peshawari patty bound with maize flour and coarse coriander seed, studded with tomato and pomegranate, fried in its own rendered fat

Origin: Peshawar & Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

From the journey of Coriander/Cilantro.

The chapli kebab is Pashtun, it is specific to Peshawar, and it is built on a spice most kebab traditions grind to dust: coriander seed, used here whole or coarsely crushed and in a quantity that would look like an error anywhere else. A tablespoon or more goes into a kilogram of meat. It is the flavour a Peshawari will identify the kebab by with their eyes shut, and substituting ground coriander produces something else entirely. The name is usually explained by the Urdu chappal, a sandal, on the grounds that the kebab is flat and roughly foot-shaped. It is a good story and it is probably wrong. The more credible derivation is the Pashto chaprikh, meaning flat, which describes the same thing without the joke. The sandal etymology is repeated everywhere, including on menus in Peshawar, and is worth knowing precisely because it is the kind of tidy folk explanation that displaces a duller true one. Two ingredients make the texture, and neither is a spice. Maize flour is worked into the mince as a binder, which is why the kebab holds together without egg and why it stays coarse rather than becoming a paste; maize has been a staple grain of the north-west since it arrived from the Americas, and this is one of the few celebrated dishes anywhere in South Asia to use it as a binding agent. Dried pomegranate seed, anardana, supplies a sour note that cuts the fat from the inside. Tomato slices are pressed into the surface of the patty before frying and half-collapse into it. It is fried in beef fat rather than oil, traditionally in a wide flat pan set over a fire in the open, and the kebab is cooked in the fat rendering out of it. Namak Mandi in Peshawar is the street most associated with it. The dish does not stop at the Durand Line: Jalalabad and Kabul make the same kebab, and the Pashtun kitchen either side of that border is one kitchen divided by a boundary drawn in 1893.

Ingredients

  • 500 g minced beef, with at least 20 per cent fat
  • 100 g beef suet or fat, finely chopped
  • 1 large onion, very finely chopped
  • 2 tomatoes, one finely chopped and one sliced into rounds
  • 4 green chillies, finely chopped
  • 1 small bunch coriander leaves, chopped
  • 1.5 tbsp coriander seeds, coarsely crushed
  • 1 tbsp dried pomegranate seeds (anardana), coarsely crushed
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds, coarsely crushed
  • 1 tsp red chilli flakes
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 4 tbsp maize flour (makai ka atta)
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 4 tbsp beef dripping or ghee, for frying

Method

  1. Crush the coriander seeds, pomegranate seeds, and cumin coarsely in a mortar. Stop while they are still visibly broken rather than powdered: the texture of the whole kebab depends on this.
  2. Combine the mince, chopped suet, onion, chopped tomato, green chillies, coriander leaves, crushed spices, chilli flakes, and salt in a wide bowl. Work everything together with your hands for a good two minutes, until the fat is evenly distributed.
  3. Add the maize flour and the egg and mix again until the mixture just holds. It should be soft and slightly wet, not stiff.
  4. Rest the mixture in the refrigerator for at least thirty minutes. This lets the maize flour hydrate and makes the patties far easier to shape.
  5. Divide into eight and flatten each into a thin disc about 12cm across and no more than 1cm thick. Chapli kebabs are wide and flat: a thick patty is the commonest way to get this wrong.
  6. Press a slice of tomato into the top of each patty.
  7. Melt the dripping in a wide, flat, heavy pan over a medium-high heat, enough to give a shallow pool rather than a film. Fry the kebabs in batches, tomato side up first, for four to five minutes a side, until deeply browned and crisp at the edges.
  8. Lift out and drain briefly. Serve immediately with naan, sliced raw onion, and a yoghurt and mint chutney. They are eaten with the hands, torn into the bread.

Notes

Fat is not negotiable. A lean mince gives a dry, crumbling kebab, and the extra suet is what allows it to fry in its own rendering. Coarse crushing matters as much as quantity: the coriander should be found in the eating, not merely tasted. Maize flour can be replaced with gram flour at a pinch, though the result is denser and closer to a shami kebab. If the patties break when turned, the mixture was too wet or too warm; chill it again rather than adding more flour.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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