Highway on your plate

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Dollops of butter, piping hot masala chai and spicy food sum up the dhaba cuisine at the Grand Trunk Road. While we know much about the dhabas in Punjab and Haryana, not many foodies have had the chance to try out the special delicacies from Kabul, Peshawar and Lahore dhabas which lie along the route. Pamper your tastebuds without travelling all the way to the highway as the capital is playing host to a festival at Dhaba, The Claridges, where chefs have come up with a menu from the GT Road to bring the highway flavours closer home.
“A lot of research went into picking up the best dishes from these places. Since these cuisines use the same spices we use in our recipes, the cooking method was different for each one of them. Our chef Ashwini and his team studied the cuisine from Delhi to Kabul along the GT Road,” says Neeraj Tyagi, Executive Chef from Dhaba, The Claridges.
A closer look at the menu will take you back in the Mughal era as dishes like Murgh khubuli and Habiba kebab, Machli Patialashai, Mawa ki seekh, Lahori Kat-a-Kat give you a rustic taste from those rugged lands. “Most of these dishes take influences from the Mughal era as these are places where they stayed for a long period of time. Since these places use the clay pot method of cooking frequently, we have made many dishes using the same method to retain their traditional flavour,” says Neeraj.
What’s interesting about the menu is that most of the dishes from these lands are pretty much the same as our own, but it’s the little details that make all the difference. For instance, Murgh Khubuli, a dish from Kabul, is basically chicken and chickpea stew. But this one takes its flavour from the tempering of bay leaf, green cardamom, black cardamom and peppercorn which are initially cooked in ghee.
While you gorge on these delicacies from the highway, don’t be surprised if you come across an extensive use of nuts and dry fruits. From date-stuffed kofta of mutton with exotic local spices to the paneer tikka from the Multan region of Pakistan, it’s easy to tell the difference between these dishes from across the borders even as red chillies, tomato, garlic and ginger are the key ingredients in most.
Take Palak di Ashrafiya for instance. The dish is what a local aloo patty is to us. But this one has spinach and potato stuffed with apricot and pinenuts, which are a speciality of Afghanistan.
Murgh Afghani, another speciality from Kabul, is what we locally call the tandoori chicken, but the difference lies in the marination technique. “They use the best quality of saffron in marination and we’ve done that here too. Dishes from Peshawar will have less number of tomatoes. Kabul and Pakistan use milder spices,” he concludes.
So it’s time to head out for a culinary sojourn to check out what’s cooking in the dhabas of GT Road.

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Habiba kebab
(Date stuffed kofta of mutton)

Ingredients
800 gm mutton chunk (boneless)
120 gm raw papaya paste
25 gm Kashmiri mirch powder
20 gm red chilli powder
15 gm garam masala powder
2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
10 gm green cardamom powder
5 gm mace powder
Salt to taste
100 gm desi ghee

Preparation
In a mixing bowl add all the ingredients other than ghee and marinate for 30 minutes. To prepare the stuffing material, in another bowl, add all the ingredients and mix well for the stuffing. To prepare the kebab, in a pan add some ghee and cook the marinated mutton till it is dry. This will take approximately 20 minutes. Remove to open tray and keep at room temperature. Run the prepared mix through the mincing machine. Make balls of 50 grams each and make a whole in the centre to spoon in the filling. Fry in hot oil to golden brown in colour. Sprinkle with chaat masala. Serve hot with lachha pyaz, lemon and mint chutney.
(Recipe by Neeraj Tyagi)