Karahi cooking

[Hassouni]

I'm a huge fan of Panjabi style karahi dishes I've had at various Pakistani restaurants run by Lahoris in the US and Dubai. I've had reasonable luck replicating the chicken dishes, in which ginger, garlic and green chile are fried, followed by chicken, followed by crushed tomatoes and the masala. Apart from the taste, I like it because it cooks so quickly, not containing any onions.

A few questions - is this a specialty of Lahore only, hence why I see it only at Pakistani restaurants, but rarely see it at Indian ones? Is my method for making the chicken more or less correct? I've seen extremely variable recipes online. Also, how is lamb/goat karahi done? I don't see any way to cook the lamb thoroughly enough in the 15-20 minutes it takes to cook the dish. Is the meat boiled first?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

At the Sher Punjab in Quito (incidentally, the best Indian restaurant in the country), they sous-vide the lamb first; I imagine that it would traditionally be boiled, however.

[Jenni]

A karahi (also spelt kadahi, karhai, kadhai karhi, etc.) is a type of cooking pot. I suppose simply speaking we could compare it to a wok. I cook a lot of vegetable dishes in mine (I have two of different sizes), and they are excellent for deep frying, sauteeing, shallow frying, etc.

Personally I would assume that the use of karahi in the name just signifies the pot it was cooked in/method of cooking, which is a reasonably common way of naming a dish aka handi paneer (handi being a pot), tandoori roti, etc. Don't know if it actually is a specific combination of ingredients, but hopefully others may know about this.

[threestars]

Good stuff! I'd love to try it! Unfortunately, I don't think it is available here in my part of the world.

[Hassouni]

Personally I would assume that the use of karahi in the name just signifies the pot it was cooked in/method of cooking, which is a reasonably common way of naming a dish aka handi paneer (handi being a pot), tandoori roti, etc. Don't know if it actually is a specific combination of ingredients, but hopefully others may know about this.

What I've noticed at the places where "karahi chicken/karahi lamb" etc are served, it's a fairly quick-cooked, onion-less curry, served at the table in the same karahi it was cooked in. Regardless of where I order it, it always tastes reasonably similar. Also, like I said I've only seen it at places specializing in Lahori food.

[Hassouni]

So I made this last night - lamb cubes, sliced onion, chiles, and tomato plus turmeric, salt, and chile powder mixed together in a pot and put on the stove at medium heat to steam in its own juices - did this for about 30-45 mins, at which point the meat was pretty tender and the vegetables greatly reduced and saucy - then added this to oil in a wok and had the basis for a proper lahori style lamb karahi with some yogurt, garam masala, and more chiles thrown in at the end.

[brucesw]

To the best of my memory I have only had karahi dishes at restaurants identifying as Pakistani or at least Northern Indian-Pakistani but mostly I go to Indian restaurants when I want vegetarian and Pakistani restaurants when I want meat dishes. That's nothing but a peculiarity due to how I first got into both cuisines, Pakistani first.

I have seen the karahi utensils on sale at Indian grocery stores, however.

Googling pulls up a number of indications that it is a Pakistani term but there are some that refer to it as Indian. I also googled for recipes for Karahi Gosht and came up with numerous recipes. Some do mention adding water to the pot to stew the meat until tender, others make no mention of water.

Thanks for bringing this up, though. I'm going to get some goat and make some karahi gosht this week if I can.

[Hassouni]

Re: Indian/Pakistani and whether it's a Pakistani term, consider this: The majority of Pakistanis are Punjabi, a language and region split between India and Pakistan, while the official language of Pakistan is Urdu, which developed in Delhi. I think the term karahi is used quite frequently in India as well.

[Jenni]

Hindi and Urdu frequently use same vocsbulary. Karahi is used in Hindi speaking India and Urdu speaking Pakistan. And btw Urdu used vocabulary from Persian and Hindi uses from Sanskrit, that is the difference.

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