The Indian subcontinent · Volume 18, The Ilish, the Chhena and a Border the Kitchen Never Kept
Kala bhuna
Chittagong
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Hands on 2 hours · Waiting 1 hour
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Beef, marinated in yoghurt, fried onion, ginger, garlic and whole spice, then reduced for close to two hours in stages until the meat takes on the deep, near-black colour that gives the dish its name. It is now cooked and eaten across the whole of Bangladesh, but its home is specifically Chittagong's mejban, the region's traditional communal feast, held for a death anniversary, a birth, a wedding, a housewarming or a new business, invitations historically announced by drum or tin horn in the market and food served on clay vessels laid out on floor mats.
As tradition built it
Serves 7 to 8. About 2 hours, plus 1 hour marinating.
Ingredients
- 2kg beef
- 1 cup fried onion (beresta)
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1 cup onion, cut into pieces
- 2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
- 2 tbsp minced garlic
- 1 tbsp minced ginger
- 1 cup yoghurt
- 1.33 cups mustard oil, total
Whole spices
- 7 to 8 dried red chillies
- 7 to 8 black cardamom
- 6 to 7 pieces cinnamon
- 3 large green cardamom
- 8 to 10 small cardamom
- 3 star anise
- 6 to 7 black peppercorns
- 6 to 7 cloves
- 6 to 7 bay leaves
- 1 tbsp fenugreek seed
- 1 tbsp shahi jeera (caraway)
Ground spices
- 1 tbsp chilli powder
- 1 tbsp turmeric
- 2 tbsp coriander powder
- 2 tbsp cumin powder
- 2 tbsp kala bhuna spice blend (garam masala plus extra dried chilli and bay, ground)
- 1 tbsp garam masala
- to taste, as needed salt, hot water as needed
Method
- Marinate the washed beef with the chopped onion, beresta, ginger-garlic paste, whole spices (dried red chillies, black cardamom, cinnamon, large green cardamom, small cardamom, star anise, black peppercorns, cloves, bay leaves, fenugreek seed and shahi jeera), yoghurt, salt, oil and ground spices (chilli powder, turmeric, coriander powder and cumin powder), holding back the kala bhuna blend, for 1 hour.
- Cook covered on high heat for 10 minutes, then uncovered on medium, stirring as the meat releases its own liquid, adding hot water in six or seven small additions as it reduces, roughly 1 hour total, working in half the kala bhuna blend halfway through.
- Separately, temper more mustard oil with the minced garlic until reddish, then the ginger for 2 minutes, then the onion pieces, then the dried chillies for 5 to 6 minutes. Pour this over the meat, cover 5 minutes, then stir and continue cooking uncovered a further 30 minutes as the meat browns and darkens, adding the remaining kala bhuna blend and the garam masala.
- A final 30 minutes on low heat, stirring occasionally, finishes the reduction to a near-black, clinging mass.
What a modern chef changes
The colour read as doneness, not decoration
Rung 3
Method
- Split the reduction across two vessels, a wide, heavy pan for the bulk of the long reduction and a smaller pan for the final tempering pour, so the second, aromatic tempering step in method 3 above stays bright and does not itself overcook while the main pot is still reducing.
- Judge the finish by colour and by how the meat resists a spoon, near-black and clinging, holding its shape rather than falling apart, rather than by the clock; every batch of onion and every cut of beef reduces at a slightly different rate.
- Serve alongside a plain, unreduced beef-shank broth, in the spirit of mejban's own nol kazi course, so the table carries both this dish's intensity and a lighter counterpoint, exactly as the feast itself is built.