Streets of Rawal Pindi

Passport & Plate - Yakhni (Winter soup)

Pakistan | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 10 photos

Ingredients
Garlic (1 whole head)
Ginger (sliced half a root)
Black Cardamon (3 pieces)
Star Anise (2 stars)
Dry Coriander seeds (3 table spoons)
Dry Coriander Leaves (4 table spoons)
Red onion ( 1 big)
Long (3 pieces)
Beef good quality (1 kilogram)
Yogurt (2 kilograms)
1/2 cup Oil to deep fry the onions

 

How to prepare this recipe
Take the beef, put it in a large cooking pot and pour over water. Make sure there is enough water that all the meat is soaked. Take the whole garlic head, sliced ginger, coriander seed, and 1 black cardamon, wrap in a piece of cloth and tie it up to make a small bag. Drop in the pot of meat along with the long, and let it simmer on the stove until the meat is tender and thoroughly cooked. Add salt to taste. A important tip is to get good meat. The broth of the meat with the bone is what gives it its true intense flavor.
Chop up the red onion into thin slices and deep fry until golden and crispy brown and caramelized. Dry out the excess oil on parchment paper. Then crush it with the seeds of 1 black cardamon in a mortar and pestle, until completely crushed and resembles a thick paste.
While the meat cooks, the leftover oil (after it has cooled to room temperature) and pour in the yogurt. Simmer on a light flame until the yogurt curdles and looks like tiny crystals accumulated together. Continue to cook until all the water from the yogurt has evaporated. The amount of yogurt is almost twice of the meat used, but the more yogurt you use, the yummier the broth will be (tried and tested).
Once the meat is cooked, pour in the curdled yogurt, then add the crushed fried onion and dry coriander leaves. Garnish with some fried crushed onions and the yakhni is ready to be devoured. Eat while hot, dip in some traditional kashmiri nan (bread) for added flavor.

 

The story behind this recipe
The recipe originates from 1800s from the valley of Kashmir. From a time when families lived together and houses had no internal walls, no segregations; just one big stove on which the food was cooked and kept the house warm during the harsh winters, and everyone huddled around to stay warm. Food was always served in one big serving dish and that all members of the family ate out of. No personal utensils, no fancy forks or knives just their hands to devour the food with. This particular recipe comes from my great grandmother, whose 'yakhni' was famous throughout her village, and was also the reason why my great grandfather married her (apart from her devastatingly good looks). Making this soup was a family activity; the youngest girl in the household would sit by the eldest lady in the and observe as she instructed all the women how to prepare the soup, the elder girls chopped up the onions and washed the meat, the mothers would prepare the yogurt and the simmer the meat on a wood blazed fire. Unlike nowadays all the ingredients were prepared from scratch, like the yogurt was made from their own cattle's milk, garlic was grown in their vegetable patch, the coriander leaves dried for the winters, the spices purchased by the men from the spice market. Every woman in the house would perform her duties at every hierarchical tier. So it became a recipe that they inherited by practicing it as a communal family activity. Once the soup was prepared, the eldest man in the house would taste it and suggest changes, it was only after his approval the food would finally be served. An enormous warm bowl of yakhni was then served that everybody ate out together to stay warm in the harsh winters. This is the recipe from the family that is the most bragged about, mostly because it became the reason that my great grandparents married, and brought more of us Kashmiri's in this world to consume more food.