Kashmiri Yakhni

the pale yoghurt curry of the Vale: lamb simmered with ground fennel and dried ginger and no onion or garlic anywhere in it

Origin: Srinagar & the Vale of Kashmir

From the journey of Fennel.

A yakhni is white, and keeping it white is most of the difficulty. Lamb is simmered in water with whole spices, yoghurt is whisked and added off the boil, and the two are brought together over a heat low enough that the yoghurt never splits. There is no browning, no tomato, no chilli powder, and, in the Kashmiri Pandit version, no onion and no garlic at all. That absence is the reason this dish belongs to fennel. The Pandit kitchen traditionally excludes onion and garlic for reasons of ritual purity, and it needed something to supply the sweetness and the body they would have given. What it settled on is saunf and sonth, ground fennel and dried ginger, used in quantities that startle cooks from elsewhere in India: a tablespoon of fennel powder to half a kilogramme of meat is normal, and it is the single loudest flavour in the pot. The pair defines the whole cuisine rather than this one dish. Ground fennel and dried ginger are in rogan josh, in dum aloo, in shab deg, and in most of the Wazwan, the thirty-six-course Kashmiri banquet cooked by hereditary wazas. Kashmiri Muslim cooking uses onion freely and keeps the fennel anyway, because by the time the restriction stopped applying, fennel was simply what Kashmiri food tasted like. It is one of the clearest cases anywhere of a religious rule producing a flavour that then outlived it. The finishing touch is a tempering of green cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon in ghee poured over at the end, and often a pinch of dried mint crumbled across, which is the one green thing in an otherwise entirely pale dish.

Ingredients

Meat

900 g lamb on the bone, in large pieces
700 ml water
2 tsp salt, or to taste

Whole spices

2 bay leaves
4 green cardamom pods, bruised
2 black cardamom pods
4 cloves
1 cinnamon stick

Ground spices

2 tbsp ground fennel (saunf powder)
1.5 tsp ground dried ginger (sonth)

Yoghurt

600 g full-fat natural yoghurt, whisked smooth

To cook

4 tbsp ghee

To finish

1 tsp dried mint, crumbled
0.5 tsp garam masala

Method

Put the lamb, water, salt, bay, black cardamom, and half the cloves into a heavy pot. Bring to a simmer and skim the foam off carefully.
Simmer gently, half covered, for forty-five minutes until the lamb is nearly tender. Do not brown it at any stage; a yakhni is a white curry and browning is the commonest way to lose it.
Whisk the yoghurt in a bowl until completely smooth and loose, with no lumps whatever. Lumpy yoghurt splits.
Beat the ground fennel and dried ginger into the yoghurt rather than adding them to the pot separately, which distributes them evenly and avoids raw spice pockets.
Take the pot off the heat and let it stop bubbling entirely. Yoghurt added to a boiling pot will curdle within seconds.
Now add the yoghurt mixture a ladleful at a time, stirring continuously in one direction after each addition.
Return to a very low heat, still stirring, and bring it back gradually to a bare tremble. Keep stirring for the first five minutes; once it has come up to temperature it will hold.
Simmer uncovered on the lowest heat for twenty-five to thirty minutes, stirring every few minutes, until the sauce has thickened and the fat rises in a clear layer at the edges.
Do not cover it, and do not let it boil. The sauce should reduce and gloss rather than bubble.
Heat the ghee in a small pan with the green cardamom, remaining cloves, and cinnamon until fragrant, about thirty seconds, and pour the whole tempering into the pot.
Crumble the dried mint between your palms over the surface and scatter the garam masala across.
Rest for ten minutes off the heat and serve with plain rice, which is what Kashmir eats it with.

Notes

The two rules are: never let the yoghurt meet a boiling pot, and never brown anything. Whisk the yoghurt entirely smooth, add it off the heat and gradually, and stir in one direction as it comes back up; if it does split, a tablespoon of cornflour slaked in cold water whisked in off the heat will usually pull it back. Two tablespoons of ground fennel sounds like a great deal and is correct; buy it whole and grind it, since pre-ground fennel is flat within months. Dried ginger, sonth, is not interchangeable with fresh here and gives the particular dry warmth the dish depends on. Mutton is better than lamb if you can get it.

The Gastrographer

Name: Kashmiri Yakhni
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 h 20 min
Total time: 1 h 40 min
Yield: 5
Cuisine: Srinagar & the Vale of Kashmir
Ingredients: 900 g lamb on the bone, in large pieces; 700 ml water; 2 tsp salt, or to taste; 2 bay leaves; 4 green cardamom pods, bruised; 2 black cardamom pods; 4 cloves; 1 cinnamon stick; 2 tbsp ground fennel (saunf powder); 1.5 tsp ground dried ginger (sonth); 600 g full-fat natural yoghurt, whisked smooth; 4 tbsp ghee; 1 tsp dried mint, crumbled; 0.5 tsp garam masala

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control