🇧🇩 Bangladeshi Cuisine

Nihari

Slow-Cooked Beef Stew

Prep Time 20 min

Servings 6

Difficulty Hard

Calories 530 kcal

An intensely rich, slow-simmered beef stew cooked overnight with a complex spice blend, served with a pool of fragrant bone marrow oil on top.

Ingredients

1kg beef shank with bone
2 tbsp nihari masala (cumin, fennel, cardamom, mace, nutmeg, black pepper, cinnamon blend)
2 tbsp wheat flour
2 onions, sliced and fried
2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp red chilli powder
2 tbsp ghee
6 cups water
Salt to taste
Ginger julienne, coriander, green chillies, lime for garnish

1 Heat ghee, brown beef shanks on all sides. Remove.
2 Fry onions until deep golden. Add ginger-garlic paste, cook 2 min.
3 Add turmeric, chilli powder, and nihari masala. Stir well.
4 Return beef, add water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to lowest simmer.
5 Cook covered for 6-8 hours (or overnight) until beef is fall-apart tender.
6 Mix wheat flour with water, stir into stew to thicken. Simmer 15 min. Serve with naan.

Did You Know?

Traditional nihari cooks start at midnight so the stew is ready for the morning prayer — the name comes from the Arabic word "nahar" meaning morning.