Grilling meat on coals came into Bihar with Turkish and Persian arrivals in the medieval centuries, and what the region did with it was its own: not the mild skewered meat of the west but thin strips worked for hours in raw papaya, mustard oil, ground poppy seed, nutmeg and mace, until the fibres give completely and the meat pulls apart under the teeth. It is Muslim household food, and it is what goes over the coals at Eid. In 1947 a large part of Bihar’s Muslim population left for Pakistan, and the kebab went with them — into Karachi, onto Burns Road, into the barbecue culture of a city fifteen hundred miles from Patna, where it is now so established that most people who eat it weekly have never been to the place it is named after. That is the whole of the dish’s story in one line: the food kept the name of a region that most of the people cooking it had to leave.
Zone: Gangetic Heartland
SOURCE: Adapted from a Food Stories column in Dawn’s Images, September 2015 — Bihari kabab recalled through a family that came from Bihar to Pakistan in 1947, with the mustard oil and papaya marinade set out (English-language national newspaper)
LOCAL NAME: बिहारी कबाब
INGREDIENTS
- 1 kg beef (sliced very thin across the grain into strips)
- 1 tbsp raw green papaya paste (skin and all)
- 3 large onions (thinly sliced)
- 6 tbsp mustard oil
- 150 g full-fat yoghurt
- 3 tbsp gram flour (besan)
- 2 tbsp white poppy seeds (ground)
- 1 tbsp ginger paste
- 1 tbsp garlic paste
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground mace
- 2 tsp roasted cumin powder
- 2 tsp roasted coriander powder
- 2 tsp red chilli powder
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 small piece of charcoal
- 1 tsp ghee (for smoking)
- 1 red onion (sliced into rings, to serve)
- 2 lemons (cut into wedges, to serve)
METHOD
- Heat 4 tbsp of the mustard oil until it smokes, take it off the heat for a moment, then fry the sliced onions over medium heat until deep brown and crisp. Lift out, drain, and crush to a coarse paste when cool.
- Dry-fry the gram flour in a pan for three minutes until it smells nutty. Cool.
- In a large bowl mix the papaya paste, crushed fried onion, yoghurt, gram flour, ground poppy seeds, ginger, garlic, nutmeg, mace, roasted cumin and coriander, chilli powder, garam masala, lemon juice, salt and the remaining 2 tbsp mustard oil.
- Turn the beef strips through the marinade with your hands until every piece is coated.
- Cover and refrigerate for 4 to 6 hours. No longer, unless you have halved the papaya.
- Thread the strips onto skewers, folding each in a loose S so it sits proud rather than flat.
- Grill over hot coals for 4 to 5 minutes a side, turning, until charred at the edges and cooked through. Under an oven grill, use the highest setting and the top shelf.
- The meat should give completely when pressed and pull apart without resistance.
- For the smoke, sit the cooked kebabs in a lidded pan with a small steel bowl in the middle. Heat the charcoal until it glows, drop it in the bowl, pour over the ghee, and clap the lid on for two minutes.
- Serve straight from the skewer with onion rings, lemon wedges and paratha.
NOTES
UK adaptation: Beef from a halal butcher, sliced very thin across the grain — bavette, skirt or thin-cut topside all work, and mutton is equally correct if you prefer it. Raw green papaya from a South Asian or Caribbean grocer is the tenderiser; a peeled kiwi blitzed to a pulp is the widely-used stand-in and works well. White poppy seeds, mace and nutmeg from a South Asian grocer. Kabab chini (cubeb pepper) is in the marinade in Karachi and is genuinely hard to find here — leave it out rather than substituting allspice, which tastes nothing like it. Mustard oil from a South Asian grocer. Without a coal grill, use the oven at its hottest and finish with the charcoal smoking step in the method. Everything else widely available.
US adaptation: Thin-sliced beef from a halal butcher, or mutton. Green papaya from an Indian, Caribbean or Asian grocery; kiwi as a substitute. Poppy seeds, mace and mustard oil from Patel Brothers or an Indian grocery. Everything else widely available.
Cook’s note: Watch the papaya rather than the clock — it keeps working the whole time the meat sits, and a marinade left overnight with a heavy hand of it turns the beef to paste that falls off the skewer. Four to six hours with a level tablespoon is the mark; if you want a longer marinade, cut the papaya back by half.
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