Namak Mandi is Peshawar’s salt market, and its grill houses have spent generations proving how little lamb needs. Customers choose their cut at the counter and it is chopped while they wait, generously salted, threaded onto skewers between cubes of fat and cooked slowly over a wood or charcoal fire, with almost nothing else added. Nothing is cooked ahead, so an order takes the best part of an hour, spent over cups of tea. As the skewers turn, the fat melts into the meat and crisps at the edges. Eat it straight off the skewer with naan, raw onion and green chilli.
Zone: Silk Road Table
INGREDIENTS
- 1 kg boneless lamb leg or shoulder (in 4cm cubes)
- 200 g lamb fat (ideally tail fat, in 2cm cubes)
- 2 tsp coarse salt (plus more to finish)
- naan (to serve)
- 1 onion (thinly sliced, to serve)
- green chillies (to serve)
METHOD
- Salt the lamb generously and leave it for 30 minutes while you light the fire.
- Thread the lamb onto flat metal skewers, putting a cube of fat between every two or three pieces of meat.
- Let the charcoal burn down until it glows evenly with no flame.
- Grill the skewers slowly, turning often, for 15 to 20 minutes, until the lamb is browned outside and just cooked within and the fat has rendered and crisped.
- Sprinkle with a little more salt and serve straight from the skewer with naan, sliced onion and green chillies.
NOTES
UK adaptation: Lamb leg or shoulder from any butcher. Ask for lamb fat with the order; a halal butcher may have tail fat, which is what Peshawar uses. Coarse sea salt. A charcoal barbecue; a gas grill will not give the smoke. Serve with naan-e-afghani. Everything else widely available.
US adaptation: Boneless lamb leg or shoulder and lamb fat from a halal butcher. Kosher salt. A charcoal grill. Everything else widely available.
Cook’s note: Let the fire burn down to an even glow before the skewers go on. Fat dripping onto flames flares and blackens the meat; over steady coals it bastes it.
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