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Hyderabad’s pathar ke kebab gets a makeover at Pashtun restaurant in Chandigarh

That people’s food habits are shaped by geographical conditions is an argument I often use to defend my unconventional Northeastern tastebuds. Even cooking methods are influenced by geography, for that matter. But to what extent, I learnt only recently when...
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Chef Sanjeev Verma
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That people’s food habits are shaped by geographical conditions is an argument I often use to defend my unconventional Northeastern tastebuds. Even cooking methods are influenced by geography, for that matter. But to what extent, I learnt only recently when I tried to dig in and then dig about a dish called pathar kebab at Pashtun in Chandigarh.

“Why is a dish called pathar kebab if not served on pathar?” My simple query opened a floodgate of information about this dish, which has its origin in Hyderabad and comes with an interesting bit of folklore.

Legend has it that Nizam Asaf Jahi VI of Hyderabad, late in the 19th century, used to frequently go hunting. On one such trip, his bawarchis forgot to carry their skewers and shikanjas, which were required to prepare kebabs. So, they cooked the meat on a flat granite stone placed over a firewood. The Nizam loved the dish, and later, this recipe was replicated at the royal kitchens as pathar ke kebab or pathar ka gosht.

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“The lava stone, which is required to cook and serve pathar kebab, is not available in the North.” This bit of information came from Chef Sanjeev Verma, who co-owns Pasthun. Verma, who has taught in hotel management institutes and worked at prestigious restaurants like Bukhara in Delhi, makes for interesting company. “Nor is the atmospheric pressure of this region conducive enough for marinated lamb pieces to be cooked on a stone in open fire,” he added.

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“Meaning?” My questioning glance brought out the teacher in him. “Atmospheric pressure plays an important role in the cooking process. The cooking time for potatoes will be much less in Punjab than a place situated on a higher altitude. In fact, it will take a pressure cooker longer to cook potatoes in Shimla. In the South, they cook biryani in shallow open vessels as they need less water to cook the rice, while in the North we have cook it in deep handis. That’s due to atmospheric pressure.”

Point taken. But the theory of geographical conditions affecting the cooking process still did not justify why pathar kebab should be cooked on anything but pathar? And this is where Chef Verma’s innovation and the makeover of pathar ke kebab unfolded. “When I introduced pathar kebab in the ’90s, I had a problem procuring the lava stone. So, I tried ankloo, a stone easily found in Himachal. I even served the lamb pieces on the stone. But it soon posed a health hazard. At 600 degrees centrigade, the stone was too hot to handle and what’s worse, it would often break.” So, it all boils down to the right stone when it comes to pathar kebab. It should be granite, should not crack under the heat, and it should not be too thick to consume the extra heat. Scientifically put, it should act as a good conductor.

With ankloo not working in his favour, Chef Verma needed to do something about the dish. Pashtun, which was then called Khyber, was just getting its foothold among Chandigarh’s foodies and pathar kebab was gaining popularity, so abandoning the dish was not an option.

He fell back upon another bestseller from his menu, the lamb rann. Taking thin slices of a rann, which had been marinated with whole species and garam masala for at least three hours, slow cooked for six to seven hours and then refrigerated for another two hours, he started cooking those slivers on a thick-bottomed tawa. Verma peppered the slivers with a generous portion of cracked peppercorns and tossed them in butter and cream. To his relief, the dish clicked with his patrons. “Since pathar kebab by then was already a bestseller, we stuck with the name,” he says. Nobody minded it. For two reasons—lamb rann as a dish, though spectacular to look at, needs more than two serious meat eaters to finish it in one go. Compared to that, a portion of Pashtun’s pathar kebab is pretty decent. Second, the pricing. While the rann costs a whopping Rs 2,000, pathar kebab comes at less than half that price.

The taste of peppery lamb slivers put a halt to our conversation. The creaminess of the slivers and the crunchiness of the peppercorns, when gulped down with a smoked jamun mocktail, tasted divine.

It’s true that the plate placed before me didn’t evoke a sense of history like its Hyderabadi counterpart, but I couldn’t complain. After all, Chandigarh is a young city and we are in the process of making history of our own. Through trial and error!

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