Asian

Beef is eaten by Muslims throughout India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and is often referred to as bara gosht, or “big meat.” It is sometimes “baked” using an ancient top-of-the-stove method known as dum. A tightly closed pot with the meat inside (or it could be rice and meat) is placed over low embers and more charcoal is placed on top of the flat lid. With heat coming from the top and the bottom, a slow baking ensues. When the pot is opened, the aromas permeate the room to great cries of appreciation. I find that an oven can, very conveniently, do a dum with similar results. Serve with rice or Indian breads. Black Beans are also good on the side along with vegetables and relishes for an elegant meal.

This dish is a specialty of the mixed-race Anglo-Indian community and probably started out as a way to use up leftover roasts of lamb or beef. When there were no leftovers and there was a craving for the dish, fresh meat was diced into small pieces and boiled with a little salt and ginger until it was tender, and this was used instead. These days you can buy roast beef from a delicatessen (ask them to cut 1/3-inch slices—you will just need a few) and use those, or make use of leftover meats. There are many versions of the jhal faraizi, most being stir-fries of julienned meat, onions, and both hot and sweet peppers. Jhal means heat from hot chilies, so chilies are an essential ingredient, either in their fresh green form or their dried red form. I found the version below in an old, thin Anglo-Indian cookery book in Calcutta, and this is the version I like best. It is like a hash, only it is spicy! You may serve this at breakfast with or without eggs or by itself with a salad.

South Indian vegetables can be very simply prepared. Here green beans are blanched and then quickly stir-fried with spices. These can be served with any meat, poultry, or fish dish, South Asian or Western.

You need the patties from the preceding recipe and the same pan used for browning them with its leftover oil. This is in fact a continuation of the last recipe and makes for a quick curry, good with rice, bread, and also with fried eggs and toast! So, make the preceding recipe, remove the patties from the frying pan with a slotted spatula, put them on a plate, and proceed immediately to make the curry sauce. For a simple meal, serve with a rice dish and Corn with Aromatic Seasonings.

Chinese influence in India is ancient—the two nations have been trading since the BCs. The older Chinese restaurants in the major cities serve an Indianized version of Chinese food, and Indians at home think nothing of adding a bit of soy sauce to this and that. Here is one such modern dish. Ideally, the pork should be marinated overnight. Plain Jasmine Rice and any vegetable dish would be perfect.

Indians love dried beans and split peas, eating them in some form at every single meal. They are sometimes cooked on their own, but they can also be combined with vegetables, fish, or meat. This recipe is for pork and lentils, but you could use lamb, if you prefer it. Ideally, make this dish ahead of time, as the lentils absorb a lot of liquid after the cooking is done. Served with a salad and relishes, this becomes a meal in itself.

Here I have taken a Pakistani recipe for stir-fried liver made in the wok-like karhai and changed it just enough so Westerners, who like their liver softer and pinker than South Asians do, may enjoy it too. If you want the Pakistani recipe, after the liver has browned, cut it crossways into 1-inch squares and add these pieces to the onion sauce when it is ready. Continue to stir and cook on low heat until the liver is done to your satisfaction. Serve with rice and a salad or a green vegetable.

An Anglo-Indian acquaintance in Calcutta once told me that when he went to buy his sausages from the family butcher, he always took along the spices he wanted as flavoring. He would hand these to the butcher and then watch as his choice of meat was ground, seasoned, and pushed into casings. I made a note of the seasonings and now make those sausages all the time. I do not always bother with the casings. I make sausage patties, using all the same spices. We eat these with eggs on Sundays, ensconced between slices of bread as sandwiches, or I put them into a curry (see next recipe), just as Anglo-Indian families have been doing over the years.

Goat is now increasingly available: it is sold at halal butchers, at West Indian butchers, and at specialty butchers. What you need are some pieces of meat with bone and some without bone. Ideally, the pieces should come from different parts of the animal—some from the shoulder, some from the upper leg, some from the shank, and a few from the neck—and should be cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes. Bone pieces could be larger. I always like to include at least one marrowbone. You can make the same dish with lamb from the shoulder with some bone. Good lamb generally takes about 50–80 minutes to cook, less time than goat. At home, we always ate this everyday dish with chapatis. There was always a dal, such as My Everyday Moong Dal, a couple of vegetables, and some relishes and chutneys. You may, of course, serve a simple rice dish instead of the bread.

This recipe may be easily doubled. I just love it with Tomato Pullao.

Lamb shanks make for some of the best braised meat. The bone and marrow enrich the sauce and the gelatinous nature of the meat nearest the bone gives it a silken texture. In India we braise shanks in dozens of ways. Muslim families sometimes eat the shanks for breakfast with all manner of flatbreads and raw onion relishes. You could serve them with rice as well, such as the Yellow Basmati Rice with Sesame Seeds.

Pronounced “eshtew” by the locals, this aromatic, soul-satisfying stew is a much-loved dish, often eaten by the Syrian Christians of the southwestern state of Kerala at Easter. It has all the spices that grow in the backyards of Kerala homes—cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and peppercorns. It also has the Kerala staple, coconut milk. While it is generally served with the rice pancakes known as appams (“appam and stew” being somewhat akin to “meatloaf and mashed potatoes” or “rice and beans” or “ham and eggs”), plain jasmine rice is just as good.

When this dish is served in the Rajasthan desert region of India, its color, coming mainly from ground hot chilies, is a fiery red. I have moderated the heat by mixing cayenne pepper with more calming paprika. Use a fresh red paprika if you want the proper color. This is generally served with Indian flatbreads, but rice would be fine too. A calming green, such as spinach or Swiss chard, could be served on the side. For more robust flavors, have one of the eggplant dishes with it.

This is a very popular dish in Delhi, where it is made with bone-in cubes of goat meat. I generally make it with lamb. I like to serve this with Indian flatbreads. Store-bought pita bread or tortillas would be good too. A vegetable and a legume should be included at dinnertime.

You need a fair amount of the fresh mint and cilantro here so the meat really tastes both lemony and herbal. The ginger adds to the fresh, cleansing feeling. Serve with flatbreads or rice. For a snack, this ground meat, or keema, may be rolled up in flatbreads along with finely sliced shallots, chopped tomatoes, and, if you like, chopped fresh hot green chilies. Today, in the Western world, this would be called a “wrap.” As children we wrapped this keema in a chapati (a whole-wheat flatbread) and my mother called it a batta.

Our family eats this so frequently that, along with a moong dal, rice, a yogurt relish, and pickles, we consider this to be our “soul food” meal. Nothing fancy here, only the homey and soothing.

Bhuna means “browned”—actually, the process of browning. So in this dish the meat has a browned look to it, and whatever sauce there is, it is thick and clings to the meat. This is a family recipe that comes via my niece, Abha. If you like, two slit hot green chilies may be added at the same time as the cilantro, just before the final stir. I like to eat this with Indian flatbreads (pita or other store-bought flatbreads may be substituted) as well as Potato and Pea Curry. You could also serve it with rice.

When I was in Pakistan last, there was a very successful grill house in Karachi serving a thousand people per night. Bar-B-Q Tonight, as it was called, offered all manner of meats grilled in a style that is a mixture of Afghan and Pakistani culinary traditions. I have adapted one of their goat meat recipes to lamb. You may use the smaller rib chops or the larger, steak-like shoulder chops. They will have bone, of course, so 2 pounds will serve 2–3 people. You can cook these on an outdoor grill instead of broiling. This recipe may also be used for beef steaks. I love this with Tomato Pullao and Pan-Grilled Zucchini. I make the rice first and let it sit wrapped up in a towel while I grill the kebabs and the zucchini.

Apart from serving these kebabs, freshly grilled and hot, at mealtimes, when they are always popular, I find that if I refrigerate the cooked kebabs overnight and then put them into a hamper for a picnic, they are equally loved outdoors and hold well. In fact, if properly wrapped and refrigerated, they will hold for a good 5–6 days, making them perfect for an impromptu cold meal. For a hot meal, serve with a rice dish and Indian vegetables. For a picnic, serve with salads and crusty French bread.

This is a basic Indian kebab recipe that has probably not changed much since the sixteenth century except for the addition of chilies and what is now the ubiquitous chaat masala, a mixture of hot and sour spices that most Indians just buy in the market. The use of mustard oil is interesting—I have seen it used for kebabs in both India and Pakistan. Both countries have a Punjab, as that state, today on India’s western border and Pakistan’s eastern border, was split into two when the British partitioned India. Chaat masala can be bought at any Indian grocery. It is a spice mixture containing sour mango powder, roasted cumin, cayenne, and other seasonings. It adds a spicy sourness but is not essential. Just sprinkle a dash of cayenne, and some roasted ground cumin seeds, if available, over the top and add some squirts of lime juice. I like to have these with Rice Pilaf with Almonds and Raisins and Sweet-and-Sour Eggplant.