Meaty Comfort Food

গোরুর কিমা 

Lime & Coriander Beef Keema

Beef keema 

Growing up, keema - or minced meat - was only meant for kebabs. I use it in my own recipe for beef kebab, as do the other Bangladeshis I know. But over the years, especially since moving to the UK, I've realised many Asian families, Bangladeshi or otherwise, cook their mince directly.The flavours from the various iterations I've eaten have been simple and recognisable. As such, I've always known that I could re-create the recipe myself from scratch - and indeed I have, if you've seen my Instagram feed. But I wanted the actual recipe I posted on the blog to be traditional, and so I turned to one of my friends for help. He has a go-to keema dish that he uses for dinner parties, and it always goes down a storm. The original recipe comes from his mom, traveling from Pakistan via a few other countries, and I've mostly kept it intact below. 

My friend's mom cooks her keema with peas and potatoes, but my friend usually skips these (too much effort, according to him!). I've added the peas back, because vegetables, but not the potatoes, because carbs. I've made one ingredient swap, from tomato paste to fresh tomatoes, as I never have the former in my kitchen. I've added a cinnamon stick, a personal bias: I never caramelise onions for a curry without one these days! Finally, I've also added lime and fresh coriander - something I've also seen others do - because I like the flavour. I prefer to use lean mince for this dish, but work with whatever you prefer or have at hand. This recipe produces a dish that is very similar to my/my mother's recipe for beef curry. This doesn't come as a surprise - most of the spices used in both recipes are the same. What's worth a mention though is that mince is much quicker to cook, so you're looking at a much shorter period in the kitchen with the below. 

Dhaka-Style Biriyani

মাটোন বিরিয়ানি 

Mutton Biriyani

Biriyani served normally, i.e. not in a flour casing,
because my house isn't try-hard Indian restaurant

This is going to be one of those epic recipe posts. Not so much because I'm going to waffle, but rather because the recipe itself is so long it may as well be a novel. Biriyani I believe needs little introduction: a dish that mixes meat and rice, possibly of Persian origins, it has travelled throughout South and Southeast Asia, and most regions nowadays produce their own varieties. The recipe below is what my mom cooks at home, and is close to what I could call Dhaka-style biriyani - though it is not identical to what you'd get from traditional roadside eateries. I've been building up to this post for a while, watching people cook biriyani and even cooking it with more experienced friends whenever possible. I wanted to wait till I was a reasonably competent cook before I had a go at this myself, so that I wouldn't mess it up and could post an actually workable recipe. 

As luck would have it my mom visited me earlier this year, so the photos you see are of what we cooked together and the recipe below has been signed off by her. A few words of advice though - I used 1.50 kg of meat for 1.00 kg of rice - but be as generous (or stingy!) as you want with the meat to rice ratio. My mom wanted to go for 2.00 kg of meat to 1.00 kg of rice, but I convinced her we shouldn't be eating quite so much red meat. The liver I used is definitely optional - the only way liver ends up in Dhaka biriyani is if there isn't enough of it to make a standalone curry. But liver in biriyani is a weakness of mine, and therefore a quirk in our household. Biriyani houses in Dhaka serve each portion of the dish with potatoes, a boiled egg and a side salad - but I don't mention the egg anywhere below because I don't like eggs have a complicated relationship with eggs.

Finally, I know restaurants around the world serve various types of biriyanis with chicken, fish, vegetables etc., but those didn't really exist back home until recently. Chicken biriyani isn't a thing for example - instead we have a lighter chicken and rice combo sold by biriyani houses called morog-polao (morog meaning chicken). Similarly, we have a fish-based ilish-polao, though this is mostly cooked at home. The spice combinations for these two dishes are different from traditional Dhaka biriyani, and I'm not sure how I would go about cooking them. If you're feeling adventurous, perhaps try cooking a more heavily spiced version of my classic chicken curry into your polao - but you're on your own with that kind of experimentation (though do let me know the results!). 

I Do Still Cook

কষানো গরুর মাংস

Spicy Beef Curry

Spicy beef in a bowl of rice, topped with dried coriander

I realise it's been many months since I've published a Bangladeshi recipe. This post is to make up for that, though strictly speaking it is just a re-worked version of the lamb that was my first recipe on the blog. However, I feel that this makes it a fitting comeback post, and one that captures some of what I've been doing for the last few months. It is true that I've been cooking less, largely due to a very transient lifestyle. But to make up for this, I've been trying to get better at the dishes that I do know how to cook, and one of the results is this recipe below. The amounts here a little more refined from my previous post, which was geared towards a large banquet meal, and the times are adjusted based on experience.

As to what else I've been learning to cook? Well, Thai and Chinese actually - because I grew up in those regions, eating the food but never really knowing how to cook it. I thought I should change that, but I don't think I can justify posting any of those attempts on the blog just yet! 

Ingredients

• 120.00 g onions, thinly sliced
• 1.50 teaspoons of ginger paste
• 1.50 teaspoons of garlic paste
• 0.50 teaspoon of powdered turmeric
• 1.00 teaspoon of powdered chilli 
• 1.00 teaspoon of powdered cumin 
• 1.50 teaspoons of powdered coriander 
• 2.00 dried bay leaves
• 3.00 1.50 cm sticks of cinnamon
• 6.00 cardamoms
• 4.00 cloves
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Salt, to taste
• 500.00 g of beef, diced into cubes
• 1.00 teaspoons of sugar
• 3.00 tablespoons of yoghurt
• 4.00 fresh whole chillies, optional for flavour

Method

• In a non-stick pot, heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil on medium heat
• Add the sliced onion and one cinnamon stick, and fry till browned
• Add the ginger and garlic pastes to the pot, mixing immediately and continue frying for about 2 minutes
• Add a little boiling water to the mixture, stirring it in to form a clumpy paste
• Turn the heat down low to prepare the spices
• Mix the turmeric, chilli, cumin, coriander and salt to taste in a little bowl, then add to the pot, stirring to mix in with the onion base
• Immediately after, add the bay leaves, the remaining cinnamon sticks, 4 of the cardamoms and the cloves, and continue stirring to ensure nothing burns
• Turn the heat back up to temper the spices, adding boiling water periodically to ensure that the mixture remains a thick paste
• Continue cooking the spices for around 25 minutes - or until the "raw" smell disappears, leaving behind a distinct fragrance reminiscent of a cooked dish
• Add the beef, stirring all the while to smear the spices over the meat
• Follow up with generous amounts of freshly ground black pepper, and continue stirring to ensure it is mixed in throughout the meat
• Turn the heat up high to make the dish bubble and heat the beef quickly, and cook at this temperature for 5 minutes, stirring to prevent burning
• Turn the heat down to medium and mix in a cup of boiling water to the pot. 
• Leave to cook for at least 1.50 hours, uncovered to ensure the cubes of meat remain whole
• Add small quantities of warm to boiling water when necessary to prevent the dish from drying up
• Once the 1.50 hours have passed, mix the yoghurt with a pinch of salt and the sugar, and stir into the pot
• Add the fresh chillies to the pot whole - these are mostly for flavour and colour, and not for heat
• Reduce the heat slightly, cover and continue cooking for 20 minutes
• Add a little more black pepper and the remaining cardamoms to the dish, stir and let the dish simmer for 5 to 10 minutes before turning off the heat

Additional Notes

The cooking times above are the bare minimum - i.e. how I'd cook this dish if I was being impatient. In truth, this dish gets better when slow cooked for longer than the time specified, and then reheated several times. As with lamb, beef prepared this way is traditionally bulked up with potatoes. However, we also use pumpkin in my family for beef specifically. This is a healthier option that turns this dish into something a bit creamier and sweet. If you want to add pumpkins, cut them into 1.5 cm cubes and add them to the meat 20 to 25 minutes before taking the dish off the stove. 

Lost in Translation

পেয়াজ পাতা দিয়ে গরুর মাংশ 

Beef With Leeks

Completely unrelated to the post - I need a new wok

Procuring and perfecting this recipe has caused unnecessary anguish in my life - driven primarily by Bengali-English translation issues between my mom and me. I grew up knowing that this dish was beef cooked with "piyaz pata", or translating literally, onion leaves. I'd always assumed that onion leaves referred to spring onions, but no matter how much of it I used, I never managed to recreate the flavours I remembered from my childhood. It was only by chance that my mom offered to teach me how to cook this a couple of years back for the blog, and in the process I realised the onions leaves in question were actually leeks! Queue a fond reunion with a long lost food memory, and a slight improvement to my atrocious Bengali vocabulary. 

This dish is a stir-fry that back home would be categorised as Bangla-Chinese - a type of cuisine reliant on "Chinese" ingredients and cooking techniques - but manipulated extensively for the local palate. Bangla-Chinese has quite a history in Bangladesh, stemming from the old trendy "Chinese" restaurants that sprang up around the city mid 80s and onwards. Even my mom's wedding meal was held in one of them. These restaurants have taken a bit of hit now that a greater variety of venues have set up shop in town, but the food remains popular in Bangladesh. Just Google a recipe for "Chinese vegetables Bangladeshi style" and it'll quickly  become obvious how widespread a phenomenon this is.

Mastering Beef

গরুর চাঁপ 

Tenderised Beef

Apologies for the crappy picture, and all the oil!

I've let myself down a little over the last few years in terms of home cooking beef and red meat. This is unforgivable really, given how beef is meant to be my favourite meat. I've tried to compensate with steak, but no matter how much peppercorn sauce I slather onto a slab of meat it does nothing to recreate the Bangladeshi experience. Until recently any red meat I cooked at home came out smelling just a little off-kilter. I experimented with various modifications to mom's recipes and took on board friends' suggestions - doing everything from adding extra spices to boiling, frying or searing the meat before cooking. In the end, it seems I've found a solution with this beef "chaap" (or tenderised beef) recipe, which I cooked slowly for a significantly longer time than my mom had recommended. 

Fakruddin, at midday before the Ramadan evening iftaar rush

Beef chaap is not an average, everyday dish. It has rich, complex flavours achieved by infusing the meat with an unusual number spices over the length of the cooking process. Chaap is thus reserved for special meals in our family during Ramadan in Dhaka, traditionally bought from Fakruddin’s. The late Fakruddin was originally a chef who ran the canteen at my cousin's old school Viqarunnisa, before branching out to serve food to the public. His sons operate a much bigger business now, built on the back of their father's culinary reputation. Fakruddin is famous for his biryani, but good biryani is easy to come by in Dhaka and it’s his more unique beef chaap that I remember most vividly. Bangladeshi food markets are always heaving during Ramadan, especially near iftaar time. Fakruddin’s is definitely no exception and so it’s always safest to get in early like in the photograph above. By 3 PM the place is packed, and getting to the food counter seems nigh on impossible amidst the crush of people.

Chaap is usually store-bought for special occasions and I've never really heard of anyone cooking it at home. Mom had to resort this as we had no access to Fakruddin while abroad - much like how and why I run this blog now. I don’t know where her original comes from, but I don't consider my version of it complete as some of the spice amounts below aren’t yet very well defined. I will therefore be coming back to this with edits and updates so please check back and for now, proceed with caution!

A Traditional Bangladeshi Kabab

গরুর মাংসের কাবাব

Beef Kabab

The moment where your food is turning out just the way it should :)

I tried to have my house warming (finally!) yesterday night, but the snow conspired against me and we ended up with half the number of people we were expecting. I had still cooked though, so I thought I may was well post recipes for some of the evening's menu. My first post is the traditional Bangladeshi beef kabab, which is hugely versatile because it can be served as a main, side or snack depending on how it's sized and accompanied. I'm afraid I have no photos of the finished kababs to put up, people were already over and I forgot to take any in the mad rush of getting the food ready.

Update (03/06/2016):
I've re-written the instructions below to include some new ingredients, notably the traditional mint that I mention in the Additional Info section. I've also included notes on how to cook this in the oven, and avoid the laborious pan frying. A word of warning though - oven cooking gives this a bouncy kofta-like texture, as opposed to the cakey, meaty mouthfeel of a traditional kabab. 

The First Recipe!

কষানো খাসীর মাংস

Dry Lamb Curry

Dry lamb curry garnished with caramelised onions

I'm a big fan of meat, so I thought I'd make my first post a meat dish. To be honest, I prefer beef over mutton, but we didn't have any at home when we were cooking this. However, the mutton can easily be substituted for beef in this recipe, and I'll write a few words about how to do this at the end. 

I've also titled the dish in Bengali, and put down what I think is an appropriate English translation. I don't like labelling dishes as just curries, because in my opinion it doesn't provide enough of a description.