Newari Specialties
Kachila
कचिला
Kachila is the Newar answer to steak tartare: finely minced raw buffalo, seasoned hard with garlic, chilli and timur, then finished by pouring smoking mustard oil infused with fenugreek over the top. The hot oil barely kisses the surface, leaving the meat raw beneath but wrapping it in a nutty, pungent aroma. It appears on feast platters and at ritual meals, and connoisseurs insist it must be mixed and eaten within the hour.
- Prep
- 30 min
- Cook
- 5 min
- Total
- 35 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Medium
At the stove
Method
Use scrupulously fresh meat from a butcher you trust and keep it cold until the moment you mix it. Trim away every trace of sinew and fat, then mince it very fine or chop it by hand with a heavy blade.
Put the meat in a wide bowl and add the garlic, ginger, chilli powder, roasted cumin, timur, turmeric and salt.
Mix thoroughly with your hand, pressing and folding rather than stirring, until the meat takes on an even colour and begins to feel tacky.
Fold through the green chillies and most of the coriander.
Heat the mustard oil in a small pan until it smokes and loses its raw bite, then drop in the fenugreek seeds and dried chillies and let them darken for a few seconds — pull them off the heat the instant the fenugreek turns reddish-brown or it will go bitter.
Pour the smoking oil straight over the meat. It will hiss and sear the surface; mix again immediately so the aroma runs all the way through.
Taste and correct the salt, chilli and timur. Finish with a squeeze of lime and the remaining coriander.
Serve at once with beaten rice, roasted soybeans and a wedge of lime. Do not hold it or refrigerate and re-serve.
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