What are Some Authentic Pakistani Recipes I Can Try?

[janetupnorth]

I just got this from fellow missionaries who are in Pakistan. I thought it would be interesting to share:

Before getting to the recipes, I thought a few explanations would be necessary:

One of our language helpers has said that the dress, food, customs and worldview changes a bit every 40 or 50 miles here. So, the recipes I’m giving you might be authentic from my area but certainly not from everywhere in Pakistan. But, in a quest to make things as “authentic” as possible, following are some notes on ingredients.

Specialty items: Regular grocery stores might not have a few items required for some of these recipes. If there is a Pakistani or Indian ethnic food shop in your town, I recommend you go there to buy such ingredients as ground red chili (lal mirch), whole dried red chilies, fresh green fingerhot chilis (heri mirch), achar seasoning, garam masala, pomegranate seeds (anar dane), ground chickpea flour (besin) and various other things. For the boxed seasonings, Shan or National would be the brand you could buy.

Seasonings: You’ll notice that in most of the recipes I give you, the seasonings are unvaried. We can only get fruits and vegetables in season here, so a lot of the flavor of the meal comes from the featured fresh item. One common seasoning, ground red chili powder, is NOT the same as American chili powder, which is made from milder chilies and has garlic and other spices mixed in.

Oil: In the villages here they use clarified butter (ghee) from their buffalos, but in the towns we use canola oil. Compared to American cooking, a lot of oil is used in this kind of cooking. But you can tailor the amount to what is acceptable to you and your family.

Heat: I rarely mention heat settings. For most of these recipes, start out with medium-high to high heat to fry the onion. If you can work quickly and stir often you may not have to turn the heat down too much, but watch that you don’t burn things.

Onions and Chili peppers: Onions used are always red/purple onions. Fingerhot chili peppers are used, but in a pinch you could substitute jalapeños (but not one for one! Jalapeños have more fire.)

Yoghurt: Yoghurt is served with meals. It can tone down the curries if they’re too spicy to taste, or aid in digestion if the curries are too spicy to digest. What we get over here is whole milk yoghurt.

Bread (roti): If rice is not part of a meal, then flatbread is. The flatbread comes in a variety of styles (chapatti, tandoori roti, naan, paratha, etc.), but unless you want to learn how to make chapatti or you’re going to build a tandoor oven in your backyard, you might want to consider buying bread. If there is a Pakistani or Indian restaurant in your town, you could pick up fresh, hot bread from there. That would probably be a tastier option than buying the frozen bread possibly available at an ethnic food store. Sometimes we buy 20 pieces of roti at a time from our local tandoor and freeze the majority of it after we’ve eaten a meal. Then we’ll warm up roti halves or quarters in a toaster or oven. In a typical Pakistani home, multiple sister-in-laws prepare the meal: one makes chapatti, a couple of them work together to make salin (the curry), another makes chai for after the meal….so you don’t have one person doing everything at once, like in the typical American home. With many of the salins (curries) I write “serve with roti”. If this is too inconvenient, just eat them with rice.

Measuring: I apologize for not writing exact measurements – no one measures over here. They just know how much of whatever to add by sight. So, add enough oil to sufficiently fry things without burning them, and add spice and salt to your taste.

Garlic and Ginger: Garlic and ginger are usually mashed up in recipes. You could do this with mortar and pestle like we do here, or with a food processor.
Tomatoes: Tomatoes that we use are roma tomatoes. I recently read that there is a tomato problem in the states. In many recipes here tomatoes are optional, just for that additional depth of flavor. So you could just not add them until they are once again pronounced safe for eating.

Desserts: A word about desserts from here – the sweets are pretty
disgusting. At the ethnic food shop you’ll see boxes of mix for gulab jamun and barfi. Glance at the boxes and read the recipes and see if you don’t agree with me. Otherwise, we’ve been served some cardamom-flavored custards and sweetened vermicelli noodles in milk. That’s the extent of my experience with desserts here, thus far. If you wanted to have a complete meal Pakistani style, perhaps you could serve fresh fruit for dessert.
Having said that, below are a few recipes. Right now I can place my hands on about 15 other recipes, but I haven’t tried them all yet so I don’t want to send them to you untested. I have picked up a few techniques from language helpers and our househelper, but I have not focused on learning to cook from anyone yet. Sadly our househelper is now employed by someone else and I didn’t have her ‘teach me everything she knows’.
Where there is an easy English translation of the name, I include it in parentheses. If we were the honored guests at a (fairly well to do) national’s home, we would be served almost all of these in one meal, along with bread and fruit and sweets. It is odd and overwhelming, but at least the rest of the family gets a good meal once we, the guests, have finished eating however much we are going to eat.


Ground Beef and Cabbage (Qeema Gobhi)

Serve with roti or rice. Variations on this dish can be made -- instead of cabbage, any of these single ingredients could be added: green peas, green bell peppers, eggplant, cauliflower, diced green beans, or potatoes (or others). Potatoes and Cauliflower (Aloo Gobhi) may also be prepared with this same technique, with one difference: First the potatoes are added to the masala gravy, cooked for 10 minutes, and then cauliflower is added and cooked for an additional 10 minutes.

Ingredients:
Canola oil
1 red onion, diced
½ globe of garlic, peeled and mashed
2 square inch cubes of fresh gingerroot, peeled and mashed
1 roma tomato, chopped
1 large rounded Tbs of ground red chili powder (or more…or less)
1 rounded tsp ground coriander
1 rounded tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
1 pound raw ground beef
About 1 ½ to 2 pounds green cabbage, chopped
Fresh cilantro, chopped, to taste

Method:
Fry the onions in oil until they begin to brown. Add the garlic and ginger and brown for a minute or so. Add the tomato, red pepper, coriander, cumin, and salt and brown until the tomato has become slushy and gravy-like (this is how my language helper described it, but I’m not sure I would use the word “gravy”.) Add the ground beef, break up and stir into the masala for 5 or 10 minutes or until it is cooked. Add the cabbage and cook for 10 minutes or until it is sufficiently cooked. At any point, add a bit of water if necessary. At the end sprinkle on fresh cilantro, turn off the heat, cover and let the cilantro wilt.


Green Chutney (Subuz chutney)

Serve with raw vegetables as a dip. Serve alongside a rice dish, legumes, potato kebab, or pakoRas. Or just with roti.
Ingredients:
3 or 4 cloves of garlic
A fistful of fresh cilantro
A fistful of fresh mint
3 fingerhot chillies
3 walnuts, shelled and toasted (or 6 big chunks of shelled walnuts)
½ tsp of salt, or more
1 C plain yoghurt

Method:
Smash the garlic, cilantro, mint, chilies and walnuts together (or use a food processor). Slowly add a bit of yoghurt and the salt and continue smashing until everything is in microscopic pieces and well mixed. Then stir in the remaining yoghurt.


Fried Chickpea-Floured Vegetables (PakoRa)

People like to eat these hot with chai on rainy days. They are very tasty served with the Green Chutney as a dip. This can also be made with cauliflower and zucchini, along with the other vegetables.
Ingredients:
1 lb ground chickpea flour, which is called “Besin”, and is found at an Indian/Pakistani ethnic food store
2 tsp salt
1 – 3 tsp ground red chili powder
½ tsp black pepper
A handful of fresh cilantro
1 Tbs pomegranate seeds, or “Anar Dane” (but this is optional)
2 onions, diced
2 small potatoes
1 bunch spinach
A few pieces of fresh mint (also optional)
½ tsp ground cumin
Canola oil

Method:
Mix the flour, seasonings and seeds together, with water to make a thick, pasty dough. Let stand for a couple of hours if you have the time. Chop the other ingredients finely and add them to the mixture just before frying in oil. Drop by the tablespoon into oil and fry until browned. Drain on paper towels or some other way.
The vegetables could be cut another way – into thin slices – and then dipped into the batter and fried in individual slices.

 

[janetupnorth]

Rice (Chavel)/Mixed Vegetable Rice (Pilau)Vegetables such as diced potatoes, carrots, shelled green peas, cabbage, green bell pepper and fingerhot chilies (2 for one batch of rice) could all be added to this dish to make a Pilau. Simply add the diced vegetables to the prepared oil-onion-garlic-ginger-spices mix and fry them for a couple of minutes, stirring, before adding the rice and water.Ingredients:
Canola oil
1 red onion, chopped
About ½ globe of garlic, peeled and cut finely into very small pieces
1 (or more) square inch of fresh gingerroot, peeled and cut finely into very small pieces
1 tomato, chopped
1 Tbs ground red chili powder
2 or 3 tsp garam masala
1 tsp dried coriander powder
1 chicken bouillon cube (like Maggai brand)
Some extra salt, if deemed necessary
2 C basmati rice, sorted, rinsed twice, and drained
4 C waterMethod:
After browning the onion in oil, add the garlic, ginger, all spices and bouillon cube. Stir this and break up the tomato and bouillon cube with a spatula until the garlic and ginger are softened and the mixture is combined and somewhat ‘gravy-like’. *At this point add vegetables if desired, and stir a few minutes.* Add the rice and stir for a minute or two. Pour in the water, give a quick stir, and let the mixture come to a boil. Cover with a lid, turn heat to low and leave for about 15 minutes, or until water is gone. Then turn off heat completely and let steam for 10 minutes.
We eat rice with a spoon here!Chicken KaRahiThis dish is prepared in a wok-type pan, called a “KaRahi”. Hence, the name.
Ingredients:
2 to 2 ½ pounds of chicken, skinned and cut up
Canola oil
1 red onion, diced
1 inch cubed of peeled fresh ginger, mashed
1 entire globe garlic, peeled and mashed
3 – 4 green fingerhot chili peppers
3 tomatoes, sliced thin
½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground tumeric
1 rounded Tbs ground red chili powder
1 large chicken bouillon cube (for instance, Maggai brand)
Fresh cilantro Method:
Boil chicken pieces in about 1 ½ cups of water, on low. If needed, add water and increase heat. Cover. At the same time, in a large wok or skillet, brown onion well in canola oil. When onion begins to brown, add tomatoes, chilies, ginger/garlic paste, all spices, and chicken bouillon. Stir and cook until this ("masala") is brown, or a couple of minutes on medium. Check to make sure that the chicken is cooked through. If it is, add it to the masala and let it fry for a couple of minutes, stirring. Add one cup of the chicken’s cooking water to the masala, and cook and stir for another minutes longer until it looks saucy. Add chopped fresh cilantro, cover, turn off heat, and let cilantro wilt. Potato Kabob (Aloo Kabob)I still don’t know exactly what a “kabob” is. Several kinds of dishes are labeled such, but they are different from each other. Let me know if you find out. Anyway, tear pieces of roti off to eat this, and certainly dip with the Green Chutney if you have prepared it.
Ingredients:
2 lb potatoes, peeled and boiled
2 or 3 fingerhot chilies, diced small
1 onions, diced small as if for omelettes (or 2 if not using green onions below)
A large handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
Some fresh mint leaves (optional), chopped
A few green onions, diced
1 tsp ground red chili powder
1 tsp white cumin (optional)
About 1 tsp salt
1 raw egg, beaten, for coating kabobs before fryingMethod:
Mash boiled potatoes. Combine all ingredients except egg. Heat about an inch of oil in pan until it is at an adequate frying temperature. Take a handful of potato mixture and form into a ball, and then flatten into discs of approximately 4 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick. Repeat with remaining potato mixture. Two by two (or more if your pan can stand it), coat kabobs with beaten raw egg and place into pan. Once they are browned nicely on one side, flip. When evenly browned, remove from pan and drain on paper towel or with some other method. Fried Chicken (Chicken Roast)Serve with roti, rice, or by itself.
Ingredients:
Bone-in chicken pieces (preferably dark meat)
Ground red chili powder, to taste
Salt, to taste
Canola oilMethod:
Boil chicken pieces until just cooked. Remove from water, pat dry, and rub on red pepper and salt. Fry in oil.
Brown Lentils (Daal)/ Yellow Lentils(Chana ki Daal)Serve with roti or plain basmati rice. Yellow Lentils (Chana ki Daal) is prepared exactly like Daal, with these exceptions: at the end, add quite a bit of cilantro and let it cook in the simmering chana ki daal for a couple of minutes. Then turn off the heat and throw a very healthy dash of ground black pepper into the pot.
Ingredients:
2 C lentils (greenish-brownish variety)
1/4 tsp tumeric
2 tsp ground red chili powder
1 tsp salt
1 tomato, chopped
1/4 to 1/2 C canola oil
3 to 4 cloves garlic, peeled and cut into very small pieces or mashed
1 sq. inch peeled cube of fresh ginger, cut into very small pieces or mashedMethod:
In a large saucepan , fill with 4 to 6 cups of water, daal, spices and tomato. Cook this until the daal is very soft and tender. In a small saucepan, brown the ginger and garlic in oil. Add that to the daal, stir and continue to cook for five to ten minutes.
Curried Spinach (Saag)Serve with roti.
Ingredients:
Canola oil
One entire globe of garlic, peeled and mashed
1 tomato, chopped
2 or 3 medium sized fingerhot chilies, diced
1 rounded Tbs of ground red chili powder
1 tsp salt
2 pounds fresh spinach, boiled until cooked with water wrung out (I’m not sure how many bags of spinach this would be equivalent to)Method:
Fry the mashed garlic in oil until it begins to brown. Add the tomatoes, green chilies, red pepper and salt and fry for 5 minutes, swishing around. Add boiled, wrung out spinach and fry for 10 to 15 minutes. Potato, Green Pea and Carrot Curry (Aloo MuTr Gajr)Serve with roti.
Ingredients:
Canola oil
2 red onions, diced
1 globe of garlic, peeled and mashed
2 or 3 square inches cubed of fresh gingerroot, peeled and mashed
1 tsp ground red chili powder (may add some additional paprika too, or replace some of the red pepper with paprika if less spice is desired)
2-3 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp garam masala
½ - 1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
2 – 3 roma tomatoes, chopped
3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 – 4 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 C shelled green peas
Fresh cilantro, chopped, to tasteMethod:
Fry onions in oil until softened and browning. Mash garlic and ginger together and add to onions. Brown. Add red pepper, coriander, garam masala, turmeric, salt, and a half cup or so of water. Let fry for a half of a minute or so while getting ready to add chopped tomatoes, potatoes, carrots and peas. Add water as needed in order to cook potatoes until soft without burning anything. At the end, add cilantro, stir the curry, cover with a lid and let the cilantro become limp. Potatoes and Spinach (Aloo Palak)Serve with roti. This recipe only yields two servings.
Ingredients:
2 Tbs canola oil (or more if necessary)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
½ tsp cumin seeds
2 – 3 whole dried red chilies
1/8 tsp turmeric
1 medium roma tomato, chopped
½ tsp salt (or to taste)
1 cup of peeled and diced potatoes
½ C blanched spinach leaves (or an entire bag of bagged spinach, washed, blanched, and with excess water wrung out)Method:
In oil, fry garlic until it starts to brown. Add cumin seeds, red chilies and turmeric. When they are browned, add tomato and salt. Add potatoes. Add spinach when potatoes are half done and cook thoroughly on low. Garnish with green chilies and lemon, if desired.
ChaiMakes about 4 servings of chai. Serve with tea cookies or pakoras. Or by itself. Make with whole cardamom pods, or instead, with aniseeds as our gatekeeper prefers.
Ingredients:
Water, sugar, ground black tea, cardamom or aniseed, sugar, whole milkMethod:
In a saucepan, place about 2 cups of water. Once that has come to a boil, add approximately 6 tablespoons of sugar, 3 teaspoons of ground tea, and 4 or 5 cardamom pods OR aniseed seeds. Once that has simmered for a minute or two, add about 1 ½ cups of milk. Turn the heat down a bit and let that come to a boil. Ladle the chai a bit to mix it. Once it is hot and strong enough to taste, ladle into teacups through a strainer.

 

[rennea]

Oh Janet I just love Indian food!! We have a huge Indian population here were I love so all these ingredients are in my local grocery store. Lucky me !!

 

[susanr613]

great selection of recipes, janet; i have made several of them. i'd like to add just a couple more tips:
- desi (indian and pakistani) food takes a looooong time to cook. in fact, the longer you cook it the more flavorful it is. so, don't count on crispy veggies.
- pilau is also good with meat, if you want to turn it into a main dish, in fact, that's how i used to make it
- for best results with rice dishes, such as pilau, use long grain basmati rice. i have used both white and brown with equally good results. desi rice grains should cook up seperate and a little firm
- if you're going to the grocery, get ginger paste. it keeps a long time in the fridge and is used quite often instead of fresh
- before i started doing pampered chef and using the garlic press, i would use garlic paste too
- yes, desi sweets are very different from ours, as they are based on cooked down milk. kheer is nice though. its like our rice pudding, except thinner and with pistachios and cardamon.
- fried onions are a favorite desi garnish. you can find this in bags in stores, like our fried onions in cans we put on green bean casserole
- a final note: it's probably evident in the ingredients, but desi food, esp pakistani, can be quite spicy/hot. just tone down the amount of chili powder if you don't like too much heat, or add raita (plain yogurt blended with a little water, diced cucumbers and tomato)

enjoy!

 

[rennea]

I have a good tip!!

great selection of recipes, janet; i have made several of them. i'd like to add just a couple more tips:
- desi (indian and pakistani) food takes a looooong time to cook. in fact, the longer you cook it the more flavorful it is. so, don't count on crispy veggies.
- pilau is also good with meat, if you want to turn it into a main dish, in fact, that's how i used to make it
- for best results with rice dishes, such as pilau, use long grain basmati rice. i have used both white and brown with equally good results. desi rice grains should cook up seperate and a little firm
- if you're going to the grocery, get ginger paste. it keeps a long time in the fridge and is used quite often instead of fresh
- before i started doing pampered chef and using the garlic press, i would use garlic paste too
- yes, desi sweets are very different from ours, as they are based on cooked down milk. kheer is nice though. its like our rice pudding, except thinner and with pistachios and cardamon.
- fried onions are a favorite desi garnish. you can find this in bags in stores, like our fried onions in cans we put on green bean casserole
- a final note: it's probably evident in the ingredients, but desi food, esp pakistani, can be quite spicy/hot. just tone down the amount of chili powder if you don't like too much heat, or add raita (plain yogurt blended with a little water, diced cucumbers and tomato)

enjoy!

Susan I always keep a piece of ginger in the freezer in a baggy that way when I need it I can grate it from frozen. It tastes much fresher that way

 

[EdraJayne]

Chai

Makes about 4 servings of chai. Serve with tea cookies or pakoras. Or by itself. Make with whole cardamom pods, or instead, with aniseeds as our gatekeeper prefers.
Ingredients:
Water, sugar, ground black tea, cardamom or aniseed, sugar, whole milk

Method:
In a saucepan, place about 2 cups of water. Once that has come to a boil, add approximately 6 tablespoons of sugar, 3 teaspoons of ground tea, and 4 or 5 cardamom pods OR aniseed seeds. Once that has simmered for a minute or two, add about 1 ½ cups of milk. Turn the heat down a bit and let that come to a boil. Ladle the chai a bit to mix it. Once it is hot and strong enough to taste, ladle into teacups through a strainer.

Thanks for this post, it is interesting to see the differnce in recipes by region/country.

In my family, the cardamom seeds in Chai is pounded open so that the black seeds are revealed and even crushed a bit. It enhances the flavor thus requiring less pods.

 

[susanr613]

i just buy chai masala and dump it in ;-)

rennae - thanks so much for the tip! now i can buy ginger root again!

 

[AnnieBee]

Oh, these sound so good! I miss all of the great Indian food from back home. Thanks for sharing Janet

 

[Chef Kearns]

THank you for sharing these recipes! I have REALLY been wanting Indian food! I love the smells that waft through the house when I'm cooking Indian food. What I need is a good (easy) recipe for Naan.

 

[EdraJayne]

http://indianfoodsite.com/breads.htm

This site is on my "favorites" list. My Inlaws are wonderful at teaching me all they know but even then sometimes I like to suprise them with my "knowledge" and knock their socks off with a new dish.

btw, I do agree about the desserts... but I must confess I absolutely crave Jalebi's!

 

[pamperedbecky]

Yum!!! Thanks for posting these. I LOVE Indian food and many of these recipes are similar to what my mother-in-law makes. My DH is 100% Indian and I get spoiled by the BEST Indian food my MIL makes. That's why I'm chicken to make it myself because I know it won't be as good as hers. Plus most Indian cooking takes so LONG. It was making my mouth water reading these even though I just got home from having pizza!!

 

[rennea]

Your so lucky Becky!!