How I Make Pakistani Spiced Beef Shank Stew

In the first episode, “Mumbai,” of the latest season of Netflix’s Somebody Feed Phil, the first dish featured was Mutton Nihari. Nihari is a slow-cooked meat stew, richly flavored with spices or masala. Besides India, the dish is also common in Pakistan, where beef shank is the usual meat used, which is what we’ll have today.

Nihari’s flavor profile is largely defined by its masala, which includes processed coriander seeds, bay leaves, cardamom, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, green cardamom, mace, allspice, long pepper, shahi jeera, fennel seeds, stone flower, star anise, nutmeg, dried rose petals, galangal, and khus. There’s no way I could gather all of these at once, so I just bought a Nihari mix.

1. Prepare all the ingredients needed.

• 800 grams beef shank
• 1 cup butter or ghee
• 1 garlic head
• 1 piece Ginger
• Nihari mix
• Beef broth
• Cornstarch
• Coriander

2. Mince the garlic and slice the ginger.

3. Saute aromatics in ghee or butter.

4. Place in the beef shank into the sauce pan and brown the meat.

5. If you have all the spices mentioned above, process all of them together. I’m lazy looking for all of those so I just bought a Nihari Masala and put it in a condiment dispenser.

6. Coat the meat with Nihari Masala.

7. Add the beef broth and let it simmer on low heat until the beef is tender.

8. Poke the bone to remove marrow and mix it to the soup.

9. Make a slurry with cornstarch and mix it into the soup to thicken the sauce.

10. Remove from heat and top with coriander leaves and julienned ginger.

11. Your Beef Nihari is now done and ready to be served.