Karachi Style Nihari

I had been meaning to eat something with a naan for a long time, something curry style and then the name of nihari popped up in my head. Unfortunately, the niharis in the restaurants around GTA don't taste the same as the niharis I tasted as a child when I used to live in karachi, pakistan. Also, I was sick of niharis made by desi aunties, which was usually by packet masalas. So, eventually I never wanted to taste any niharis. I am always open to experimentation, so, I thought why not I give it a try myself.

During the summers, I travelled to india and pakistan and tasted the famous nihari of lucknow. I have tasted that before also. But for some reason, the taste doesn't go well with my taste buds. I can surely call lucknavi nihari salan (mostly a haldi salan, but not nihari). To my surprise, my husband loved the nihari I made. He's from kanpur, a place near lucknow. He told me that he was looking for the same taste of nihari for ages, because this was the same taste he tasted as a child in weddings.

So, enough of my ramblings...here's the nihari that just tastes like nihari from karachi and is easy to make. I used the pressure cooker to make this nihari in 30 minutes, and you can do the same. This nihari is a combination of all the recipes that I thought could be related and I also used the ingredients listed on packet masalas. If you are missing some ingredients, you can still give it a try. Just a word of advice: you can make chicken nihari also, but the proper nihari only tastes good with beef. I personally don't use mutton, because mutton in north america stink, unlike backhomes.

Ingredients:

1 to 2 pound boneless beef
1-2 tbsp oil
1 onion
2 tsp ginger/garlic paste
1.5 tsp salt
1.5 tsp red chilli powder
1.5 tbsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp garam masala

5 tbsp all purpose flour (maida or even atta) well beaten with water

Whole Spices:
1 bay leaf'
1 tbsp cumin seed (zeera)
1.5 tbsp fennel seeds (saunf)
1 piece dried ginger (saunth, or ginger powder is fine too, if you don't have dried ginger)
little bit of mace and nutmeg (powder is fine too/ if you don't have it...don't worry )
1/2 tsp clove
1/2 tsp black pepper
2-3 black cardamom
2-3 green cardamom
1 piece of cinnamon (dalchini)
2 aniseed flower dried (badiyaan, if you don't have it don't worry)
1 tsp coriander seeds

Garnishing
ginger sliced
coriander leaves
green chillies
lemon

Instructions:

Heat up the oil, and fry the onions. Then add meat and ginger garlic paste. Add the chilli powder, salt and coriander powder and garam masala to the meat. Add double the amount of water to the pressure cooker. On the side, add all the whole spices together in a muslin cotton piece and bundle it. Add that to the utensil. Pressure cook for the meat gravy for 35 minutes for the meat to become soft. Later, open the pressure cooker and take out the cotton bundle and then add/ adjust spices to your taste. Lastly, add the flour mixture to the gravy for it to become a bit thick.

Add on the garnish and serve it with naan.

Voila!