Flattened, tenderized strips of prime lamb or beef ('pasanda' means the favored cut) marinated in yogurt and grilled or pan-seared. The pounding is the technique: it turns a lean cut into something as soft as a minced kebab.
Also known as pasande, pasanday, پسندے.
Reference video
Ingredients
- 600 g lamb or beef topside, cut into wide strips
- 150 g yogurt
- 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
- 0.5 tsp garam masala
- 30 g ghee, for basting
- 1.25 tsp salt
- 15 ml lemon juice
- rumali roti and onion rings, to serve
How to make it
- 1
Batten each strip with a mallet to an even 5 mm from edge to edge.
- 2
Slather in the spiced yogurt with salt and marinate 4 h.
- 3
Ripple the strips onto skewers in loose folds, or lay them flat on a searing tawa.
- 4
Cook 2-3 min per side over high heat, basting with ghee, until the folds catch dark at their peaks.
- 5
Rest briefly, hit with lemon, and serve wrapped in rumali roti.
Pro tip: Pasanda lives or dies by the flattening; an evenly pounded strip cooks in one wave, while a wedge-shaped one is leather at the thin end before the thick end is done.
Where Pasanda Kebab comes from
Pasanda means the favoured one, and it refers to a cut rather than a recipe — the prime strips taken from the leg of lamb or beef. Pasanda kebab is those strips flattened, tenderised, marinated in yoghurt and grilled or pan-seared, and the pounding is the whole technique.
It descends from Mughal cooking and appears across northern India and Pakistan, both as this grilled form and as the better-known curried version.
How Pasanda Kebab is cooked
The strips are laid between sheets and beaten with a flat mallet until they are thin and wide — genuinely thin, a few millimetres. This does mechanically what papaya does enzymatically in kakori: it breaks the muscle fibres so a lean cut eats soft. Under-pounding is the most common failure and no marinade compensates for it.
The marinade is yoghurt-based with ginger-garlic and warm Mughlai spices, often with fried onion paste, and because the meat is thin it needs only a few hours. Cooking is fast and hot — two to three minutes a side on a griddle or over coals — because a sheet of meat this thin overcooks almost instantly.
Ingredients and shopping
Lamb or beef leg, cut across the grain into strips of about a centimetre before pounding. The cut should be lean and even; anything with sinew running through it will tear when beaten. Ask a butcher for pasanda cuts directly if you are shopping at a South Asian counter.
Yoghurt, ginger-garlic paste, garam masala, coriander and a little chilli; fried onion (birista) ground to a paste, and ground almond or cashew for body, are common additions. Two to four hours of marinating is enough for meat this thin.
How Pasanda Kebab is served
With mint chutney, sliced onion and lemon, and thin roti or paratha. As a starter or a light main. Its softness is the selling point, so it is served immediately — pasanda that has sat and cooled tightens noticeably.
Common mistakes
Under-pounding
The whole technique is mechanical tenderising. A thick strip stays chewy no matter how long it marinates.
Cuts with sinew
They tear apart under the mallet. Use clean lean strips from the leg.
Long marinating
Thin meat absorbs fast and acidic yoghurt softens the surface. Two to four hours is plenty.
Slow cooking
Two to three minutes a side on high heat. Thin meat over a gentle fire dries out completely.
Pasanda Kebab: questions and answers
How thin should the strips be?
A few millimetres after pounding. Under-pounded pasanda is chewy and no marinade will fix it.
Is pasanda a kebab or a curry?
Both exist. Pasanda names the cut; the grilled kebab and the yoghurt-and-almond curry are two dishes made from it.
Sources and further reading
- Pasanda — Wikipedia
- Mutton Prasande — Nani Ki Virasat
