Lamb vermicelli, Hyderabadi tikkas

Chef Mohsin Habeeb once cooked up aristocratic feasts. Now, his recipes are more inventive.

Master chef Mohsin Habeeb can turn your expectations on their head. Habeeb, who works with The Park, Navi Mumbai, but specialises in Hyderabadi cuisine, learnt his craft when he was barely in his teens. He cooked at weddings and feasts for aristocratic Hyderabad families before being picked up by ITC Hotels and getting trained under some of the best Indian chefs around.

As we sit discussing his native cuisine, Habeeb recalls competitions between boys that would be organised to facilitate the cooking and stirring of several kilos of haleem — in pots kept simmering all night. The boys would all take turns, stirring with huge wooden “paltas”, rough and ready ladles. But that was not all the fun, he shyly says.

There was also some incredible eating: mammoth portions of biryani, whole dum ka murghs and “at least three platefuls of haleem” were consumed per person. Looking at the chef’s own wiry frame, you wouldn’t think him capable of putting all that away. But he did, he insists, at least in those days past. But that’s not why meeting him can be so incredible.

Stories about the fabled Hyderabadi appetite apart, the master chef does some amazing things to the cuisine. Instead of the classics that you expect — the Shikampuri kebabs, because, after all, he is in Delhi for a kebab promotion, he will rustle up the most unexpected of offerings: chicken tikkas seasoned with curry leaves and mustard seeds (the Deccani influence), or even those stuffed with an olive paste (the zatun, or olive, has been traditionally used in Indian Muslim cooking), seafood seekh kebabs, healthier than the fat-laden red meat offerings, and even a non-vegetarian version of savoury seviyan!

The last is made when a whole shank of lamb is boiled and strands separated to resemble, well, vermicelli. The chef talks of other incredible dishes too — whole goats stuffed with chicken and eggs, or those from which live birds would fly out. But while those are great for indulging in nostalgia, Habeeb’s own recipes are more suited to your own modern kitchen.

 

FAVOURITE RECIPE

MURGH KARIA PAK CHUTNEY KEBAB
500 gm chicken legs, boneless, cut into
two-inch dices
10 gm mustard seeds
5 gm curry leaves
20 gm garlic, sliced thick
5 gm cumin
25 gm refined oil
100 gm cashew paste
100 gm hung curd
25 gm fresh cream
50 gm Cheddar cheese, grated
20 gm salt
15 gm ginger-garlic paste
Clarified butter, to baste

To make the bagaar masala, heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds and cumin, and allow it to crackle. Add garlic and curry leaves. Allow it to cool and roughly crush in a mortar and pestle.

For the marination, mix together hung curd, cashew paste, ginger-garlic paste, fresh cream, Cheddar cheese and salt. Add the crushed bagaar masala and chicken pieces. Mix well. Set aside for two hours.

Skewer and cook in the tandoor. Baste the chicken pieces while cooking. Serve hot.