Tag Archives: Kashmiri

Recipes: Kashmiri Potato Yakhni

Posted on by
Reply

“Gar Firdaus bar-rue zamin ast, hami asto, hamin asto, hamin ast.”

This quote, attributed to the Mughal Emperor Jahangir in the 17th century when he first visited Kashmir can be translated as, “If there is a heaven on Earth, it is here, it is here, it is here”. The Mughal Emperor was so impressed by the beauty in Kashmir that he would often say, if one has not visited this beautiful paradise, they are missing out on something worthwhile.

When I made my Kashmiri Pulao, I wanted it to be accompanied by a gravy dish from the same region. But as I discovered, since vegetables are scarce in the region, it is difficult to find vegetarian dishes here. So I adapted a mutton dish which I found online and created a potato yakhni. This may not be absolutely 100% authentic, but I was impressed with the taste.

Yakhni essentially means a gravy based dish and is a light curry or broth which has to include two main ingredients other than the meat – yoghurt and saffron. Yakhni came to be known in Kashmir during the Mughal emperor Akbar’s rule. Yoghurt-based meat curries were part of Persian cuisine, and the Emperor introduced this style of cooking to his new state when he annexed it in 1586. Yakhni dishes are also seen in Greek and Turkish cuisines, but what sets the Kashmiri Yakhni apart is the absence of tomatoes. Certain recipes also avoid onions and garlic since the Kashmiri pundits didn’t use those ingredients in their cooking.

So after this short lesson on the Kashmiri cuisine, let’s go on to the dish!

Potato Yakhni

Ingredients:

  • 1 kg potatoes, boiled, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
  • 5 green cardamoms
  • 1-inch cinnamon stick
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 3 cloves
  • 1 tsp red chilli powder
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 2 tsp warm milk
  • 1 tsp dried ginger powder (saunth)
  • 2 tsp fennel powder
  • 2 dried red chillies
  • 1 cup yoghurt
  • 2 tbsp ghee
  • 2 pinches saffron
  • Salt to taste

Method:

  • Chop the potatoes into bite-sized pieces and keep aside.
  • Dissolve the saffron in the warm milk and stir a bit. Keep aside till needed.
  • Heat ghee in a deep bottomed pan. Add bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamom, clove, whole red chilli and cook on low flame till the spices begin to crackle.
  • Now add the chopped potatoes, turmeric powder, salt and saute for about five minutes on a medium flame.
  • Whisk the yoghurt well and add it to the potatoes. Make sure your flame is on low so that the yoghurt does not curdle.
  • Mix together the fennel and ginger powders and add it to the gravy.
  • Then add the red chilli powder and cook till the mixture thickens slightly.
  • Next, add the dissolved saffron along with the milk and stir for a couple of minutes. Check for seasoning and remove from the gas.
  • Serve hot with Kashmiri Pulao.

Notes:

  • If you want to make this with mutton, wash the mutton well and just replace the potatoes with the mutton.
  • To make fennel powder, simply grind 2 tbsp of fennel seeds into a fine powder. You can also find this readymade in Indian grocery stores. The same store will also have dried ginger powder available.

Recipes: Kashmiri Pulao

Posted on by
1

Kashmir – the very name is so evocative and exotic. The northern most state in India, this snowy region is quite devoid of vegetatation and so recipes from this region feature more meat and game than vegetables. Everyone, including the Hindu brahmins eat meat and vegetarian recipes are sparse on the ground in this state.

S loves Kashmiri Pulao which is found in the menus of most restaurants and wanted me to make it over the weekend. I checked around and found a recipe I liked, but omitted the fruits that more often than not are found in restaurant menus. This one is a slightly plain recipe, but you can always add fruits if you like.

Kashmiri Pulao

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup Basmati rice, washed and soaked in water for 20 minutes, drained and kept aside
  • 2-3 small onions, sliced finely vertically. If you are using bigger onions, cut horizontally in half and then finely vertically
  • 1 pinch of saffron, soaked in 2 tbsp warm milk for 15-20 minutes.
  • 10-12 cashew nuts
  • 10-12 almonds
  • 3 cloves
  • 3-4 green cardamom
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1-inch piece of cinnamon
  • 1 green chilli, chopped
  • 1/2 tsp finely chopped ginger
  • 1/2 tsp fennel seed powder
  • Salt to taste
  • 3-4 tbsp ghee

Method:

  • Dissolve the saffron strands in the warm milk and keep aside.
  • Heat 2-3 tbsp ghee in a pan and fry the sliced onions until the onions are crisp. You can sprinkle a pinch of salt while frying them. Once the onions are crisp and brown, remove them to a plate with kitchen paper and keep aside.
  • In the same pan, add in the cashew nuts and almonds and fry until they are brown and crisp. Remove and keep aside.
  • In the same pan, add more ghee if needed and fry the cardamom, cloves, bay leaf and cinnamon and saute for around 30-40 seconds.
  • Then add the chopped green chillies, ginger and fennel powder and saute for a couple of seconds.
  • Now add the soaked and drained rice and season with salt and saute for a minute.
  • Then add the dissolved saffron with the milk and saute for a couple of seconds.
  • Transfer this to a rice cooker and add the appropriate amount of water (around 1 cup). If you are cooking on the stovetop, continue cooking covered with the lid on till the rice is almost cooked.
  • When the rice is cooked in the rice cooker, fluff the rice with a fork and add the fried onions and nuts and mix well. Let it be on warm mode for another five minutes before serving it hot with a Kashmiri Yakhni.
  • If cooking on the stovetop, when the rice is almost cooked, fluff the rice and add the onions and nuts and mix well. Cook for another 5 minutes more till the rice is completely cooked and then serve hot.
  • If you want to add fruits, you can add chopped apples, pineapple and pomegranates which you can add when you add the onions and nuts.
  • Enjoy the delicious Kashmiri Pulao and think of the frozen beauty of this state while eating it. I served this with a Potato Yakhni which I will put up very soon and link it here once I upload the recipe.

Baby Potatoes in Yoghurt Gravy – Kashmiri Dum Aloo

Posted on by
2

I wanted to make something different for lunch today and searched for an exotic, yet easy to make recipe, something involving potatoes and yoghurt. I came across this yummy recipe by Honey from Honey, what’s cooking. I followed her recipe almost to the tee and so will not show the recipe here, but here’s the link if you want to read/see it. She’s got photos of the entire process so it’s easy even for a non-cook. Here’s how mine came out.

Verdict: It was tasty and not very spicy as I controlled the spice factor in the recipe. BB & S can’t eat spicy food and so all my cooking has to be less spicy than I like. I also made Pudina/Mint rice to go with this and will blog about this soon. I also made it a bit more watery than usual, but this was because I was going to eat this with rice. I would make this more thick if I was to eat it with rotis. This would also be an excellent accompaniment to rotis/chapattis/puris/nans.