Maria Nasir
Kababs are an essential part of Pakistani street food culture as well as the star of all festive occasions. But as much as we love kababs, we can’t live without our curries either! We love to mix all sorts of kababs with all kinds of curries – the combination is really the best of both worlds. Delicious grilled meat with a balance of spices and acidity and lots of finger-licking-good curry to scoop up with the bread or pour over the rice.
This Chicken Achari Kabab Curry is a blend of juicy, spicy Seekh Kababs in a Punjabi style Achari Curry. Achari is a combination of spices used to make oil based pickles. The staple spices used are dry red chillies, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds, nigella seeds, cumin seeds and coriander seeds. When used in curries, these spices are used both whole and in ground form. The main five spices are dry roasted lightly to enhance the flavour and unleash the amazing aromas. This versatile spice blend can be used to flavour any dish from lentils and mixed vegetables to grilled meat and curries.
Chicken Achari Kabab Curry has all the lusciousness that you can imagine from a flavourful curry prepared with tomatoes and caramelised onions, made fragrant with a mesmerising spice blend, added to it is the oomph from perfectly cooked kebabs and all this mopped up with freshly baked naans or poured over a mound of basmati rice.
Ingredients:
For Chicken Kabab:
1 kg chicken mince
1 onion
2 green chilli peppers
A small bunch coriander leaves
4 cloves garlic
1/2 inch piece ginger
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 teaspoons red chilli powder
1 teaspoon black pepper powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon green cardamom powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder
Salt to taste
2 bread slices
2 eggs
2 tablespoons gram flour
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Oil for shallow frying (If cooking in a pan)
For Achari Curry:
1 onion
4 tomatoes
1/2 cup yogurt
4 cloves garlic
1 inch piece ginger
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds (saunf)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds (rai)
1/2 teaspoon nigella seeds (klonji)
1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds (methi dana)
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons olive or sunflower oil or ghee (clarified butter)
This Is What You Do:
For Chicken Kababs – Peel onion, garlic and ginger.
Add onions, garlic, ginger, green chilli peppers, sesame seeds, all the dry spices, salt, bread slices and lemon juice to a food processor. Blend to combine everything into a wet sand like mix.
Add the chicken mince to a big mixing bowl. Add the spice and herbs blend to it. Add eggs and gram flour. Mix thoroughly with hands. Let mixture rest at least 30 minutes.
You can refrigerate the mix for several hours or up to a day.
Divide mixture into 24 equal portions. Roll into cylinders and thread onto metal or wooden skewers. Grill on outdoor or indoor grill OR shallow fry on medium low heat in a frying pan till golden brown on all sides and cooked through.
For Achari Curry:
Dry roast, fennel, mustard, nigella, fenugreek seeds.
Peel and slice onions. Peel garlic and ginger.
Heat oil in a deep pan. Add onions, sauté till onions are light golden.
Scoop fried onions out of the oil. Add them to a food processor along with ginger, garlic, tomatoes and yogurt. Puree to make a smooth paste.
Add the paste back to the oil in pan. Add salt, red chilli powder, cumin, coriander and turmeric. Cook till masala gets darker in colour and oil begins to separate on the sides.
Add fennel, nigella and fenugreek seeds. Add enough water to make a semi-thick gravy. Add green chilli peppers and chicken kababs. Cover and let simmer on medium low heat for 5 minutes.
Serve hot, garnished with mint leaves and raw onion rings, with rice or roti.
Serves 6-8