Pan-grilled kebabs

THE FOOD CLUB

A few years ago, a restaurateur played a prank on the unsuspecting denizens of Delhi. He introduced them to the Nawab of Kakori, who then set about making the kakori kebab with a flourish.

Of course, there's no such person because Kakori is a dusty village outside Lucknow with no claim to fame, except an annual Urs at which kebabs are made by Lucknowi kebab makers.

However, the more gullible section of guests wanted to know whether the next 'celebrity guest' would be the Nawab of Shikampur!

To invent a Nawab of Shikampur would be a tough call because while Kakori is a geographical place, Shikampur simply means 'belly-full', a poetic reference to the stuffing in the centre of the kebab.

If Shikampur kebabs originated in Hyderabad (the dash of hung curd in the stuffing along with chopped onions, green chillies and coriander leaves is quintessentially Hyderabadi), the provenance of that North Indian favourite "" the shami "" is shrouded in obscurity.

Lucknowis insist that it was their invention, but Chef Arun Tyagi of MBD Radisson in Noida feels that the origins of this kebab were in Persia.

It is emphatically not made with minced lamb, though lazy cooks now resort to this travesty.

Chef Tyagi's recipe calls for chunk meat and chana dal in a 5:1 ratio, along with a few garam masalas. It is simmered with the bare minimum of water till the meat and dal is cooked and the water evaporates.

Only then is salt added. The meat is pounded: the MBD Radisson kitchen has a giant stone mortar and pestle that works on electricity.

Kitchens that don't have an electrically operated mortar and pestle pop the whole thing into a mixir, and wonder why they end up with a different texture altogether.

Other unacceptable short-cuts are using minced lamb and chana dal to start with. However pleasant the result may be, you can't call it a shami.

The shami and the shikampur (the only difference between the two is the stuffing of the latter) have a unique texture. The fibres of the meat remain, though just barely so.

And because salt has been added after the meat has been taken off the fire, the meat has a lovely juicy texture. Neither kebab is deep fried: both are gently grilled on a griddle or tawa, with pure ghee.

The only other kebab that can at all be compared with these two is the galauti "" again, provenance unknown. Like the other two, it is made with chunk meat that has been minced (in a mincer this time) three or four times for an ultra-fine texture.

Galautis contain a tiny bit of raw papaya for added softness, and a lot of fat, plus far more spices than either of its country cousins.

The other common link, of course, is the fact that there's no Nawab of Galaut either!