Afghan trail along GT Road

Pushpesh Pant

Lawang Chicken Afghani

There is this great highway that spans the Indian sub-continent from Peshawar to Kolkata, better known as the Grand Trunk Road. As one travels on it from Khyber to Kolkata, eateries along it offer a unique opportunity to savour a mind boggling variety of cuisines from Afghani, Punjabi, Delhi-Imperial, Awadhi-Nawabi, Benarasi, Bihari to Bengali. To cut a long story short, we were absolutely delighted to sample one of the rarer recipes from the Afghan repertoire at a GTR Food Fest organised by Chef Dey in Gurgaon recently. Lawang Chicken was prepared by Chef Dahiwal with tender loving care doing full justice to this simple yet sublime dish. We have great pleasure in sharing it with our readers.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Chicken (leg and thigh pieces, cleaned trimmed, washed and wiped dry) 700 g

Onions (sliced fine) 2 small

Garlic (crushed) 3-4 cloves

Button mushrooms; optional (wiped clean, chopped) 50g

Yogurt 1 cup

Turmeric 1/2 tsp

Cinnamon 1-inch stick

Black peppercorns (freshly ground coarsely) 1 tsp

Green cardamom pods (bruised) 3-4

Salt to taste

Oil 1/3 cup

Method:

Heat oil in a pan, add cinnamon and then onions. Brown them lightly on medium flame. Now add garlic cloves and stir fry for 15 seconds. Put in the chicken. Sprinkle the powdered spices and cook on medium flame for 10 minutes. Mix curd with equal amount of water and pour slowly in a steady stream. Stir briskly to ensure that it doesn’t curdle. Add salt and the cardamom pods. Add the mushrooms, if using. Simmer for 10 minutes or till done to taste. Adjust the seasoning and garnish with thinly sliced ginger. Serve hot. Some of our friends like to enrich the dish with a ladle of sour cream but we prefer the lighter, no frills version.