- 2 months ago
Bon Appétit joins Chef Meherwan Irani to explore Delhi’s street food scene at Aslam Chicken. Located in Old Delhi, Aslam Chicken is serving butter chicken–but it’s not the butter chicken you would expect. Grilled over charcoal on a rooftop, marinated with yoghurt and spices, this dish is finished off with a drenching of cream and astonishing amounts of butter. Considered the predecessor of the butter chicken we know so well, Old Delhi-style butter chicken perfectly showcases the skill, technique, and drama of Delhi street food.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00How do you feel the heart attack about it come?
00:05We are in Delhi. Old Delhi specifically.
00:08In one of the craziest streets I've ever been on in my life and I've been a lot of places.
00:12We're here at Aslan Chicken.
00:14These guys do butter chicken but not the butter chicken you're thinking of.
00:17It's literally chicken drowned in butter.
00:20Let's go take a look.
00:21The chicken has to be cooked first and it's going to be cooked upstairs at a completely different operation.
00:25You're going to go up.
00:29That is a heap of chicken. Fantastic.
00:33Let's take it.
00:35And this is how it's done in Old Delhi.
00:3875 chickens.
00:3975 chickens in there. He's got 225 pounds of chicken in there.
00:44I'm not doing the lifting. These guys do it twice a day.
00:47This is like cross-fit with chicken. It's amazing.
00:52So this is your outdoor kitchen.
00:54So this is incredible.
00:56We're at the fifth floor on the terrace.
00:58It's actually quite peaceful.
01:00I can see why they want to cook up here.
01:01I'd want to cook up here too.
01:03This is guerrilla outdoor cooking. It's beautiful.
01:08So I'm standing here in front of the Sigri.
01:10And Rashid Bhai is assiduously fanning it and just basing the heck out of me with the smoke.
01:15But it smells amazing.
01:16Within Muslim communities and really in most of the world, only bread is cooked in the tundri oven, in the clay oven.
01:21Meats are cooked on the Sigri in the open grill.
01:24And that's how you get that incredible sort of charcoal flavor.
01:27So he's getting ready to skewer the chicken.
01:28The chicken skewering is happening over there.
01:30These are leg quarters, leg and thigh quarters.
01:32And he's putting about three pieces per skewer.
01:34There's about 300 pieces here.
01:36So he's going to have a hundred skewers, I'm guessing.
01:38The marinade is a trade secret.
01:40I asked him what it was.
01:42All he would tell me is that there's about 14 spices in there.
01:45He does have yogurt in the marinade, which is traditional.
01:48But then also a lot of oil.
01:49And I think the oil helps the marinade stick to the chicken.
01:52And also obviously when it cooks, it's not going to stick.
01:54The secret is slowly coming out.
02:00There is an achara in there, the Indian style pickle, which is usually made with a lot of oil, a lot of mustard seed.
02:04And he said it's a Simla chili.
02:07Oh my God.
02:08I don't know how this guy is doing it.
02:10Mines are killing me right now.
02:11Woof.
02:12Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
02:15Money shot.
02:16Come on.
02:17Let's go take a look at this.
02:18This is incredible.
02:20It's going to add so much flavor to this meat right now.
02:23Just that live charcoal, the grill.
02:25It makes sense that he's doing it up here.
02:27Because trying to do this indoors or anywhere else, it would have been just an absolute insanity.
02:31The ventilation system right now is right up there.
02:33These fans blowing the smoke out mostly onto me.
02:36Oh, that is hot.
02:37That is hot.
02:38This is not a gentle flame.
02:39We're not smoking.
02:40We're not slow cooking.
02:41We're searing fast.
02:42It makes sense that we're searing fast because he wants to lock in all that flavor into the chicken.
02:45Doesn't want a lot of dripping coming down.
02:47You can see there's actually not a lot dripping.
02:49It's just searing.
02:50This is incredible.
02:51That high heat and how close it is to the charcoal is helping sear the exterior without losing any of the moisture or the juice from the inside of the chicken.
03:00He's fanning to keep the flame going.
03:03Also, probably to get the smoke to sort of really disperse and hit the meats.
03:07And if you notice, he's spacing pretty well, even though he starts off stacking them close together.
03:12As he's moving, he's making sure he's spacing it so that the heat's wrapping around the chicken.
03:17It drives me crazy when I watch cooks just crowding their meat on a grill.
03:22You got to leave room between your skewers for the heat to envelope and for the smoke to envelope and completely sear that chicken meat in.
03:30Some of the chicken's actually touching the charcoal doesn't seem to be hurting it.
03:33It's going to give it glorious flavor.
03:35Those are going to be the juiciest bits.
03:37This is a traditional, you know, cigarette skewer.
03:39It's flat and thin.
03:40It's thicker.
03:41And the idea is that the skewer itself is going to heat up, retain heat and cook from the inside.
03:46More importantly, it's flat so that the meat doesn't just spin around on it.
03:49If it was a round skewer, the meat would just be spinning every time you turned it.
03:52This holds the chicken in place, even the kebab in place.
03:55And that way, when you spin it, it flips around to the other side.
03:57So that's what he's using.
03:58Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
04:03Can you eat it?
04:04Can you eat it?
04:06Oh my God.
04:10Amazing, amazing.
04:11Amazing.
04:12Masala is amazing, yeah.
04:13Oh, it's got some heat.
04:14It's that simla chili you say me on.
04:17Mmm.
04:19It's a bit thick, but it's delicious, man.
04:21It's very delicious.
04:22That's freaking amazing.
04:23And this is before he's even droughted in butter, which we're going to see soon.
04:27This is just the straight up masala.
04:28That's delicious.
04:29This is like last memory when your life flashes in front of you.
04:32I really want that bite I put in my mouth to be one of those moments that flashes by right at the end there.
04:38Because it's, ah, you can tell how excited I am.
04:40The fact that the foundational chicken is so tasty and he's hamming it up for me right now.
04:45It's what's remarkable.
04:47That's why this place is so special.
04:49It's what is the base flavor like and the base flavor is remarkable.
04:52So he's bringing this down to temp.
04:57He says the cool rooftop air, the cool Delhi rooftop air is cooling this down.
05:04He doesn't want to put this while it's still this hot in the fridge.
05:07Everything is fresh, it's hot, and it's cooked in an open flame.
05:11Even this chicken is going to end up back on a grill just before it's served to a customer, hitting an internal temperature of close to 100 degrees.
05:18It's going to be sanitary and it's going to be delicious.
05:20Fascinating.
05:21I just figured out what he's doing.
05:22Took me a second.
05:23He's pulling the chicken out from the middle and stacking it around the edge of the tub because this is going to go in the fridge to get cooled off.
05:33And by moving the chicken to the side, he's ensuring that it cools down and doesn't just stay warm in the middle and chill on the outside, allowing the cold air to circulate from inside also.
05:43Pretty much every day I see something that I've never seen before.
05:46I mean, it's like a blooming chicken rose.
05:48It's a go.
05:49I love it.
05:51We're going to follow the chicken downstairs and you're not going to believe what's going to happen next.
05:55I'll give you a hint.
05:56It's better with butter.
05:57So we're back downstairs on the street.
06:03This is where the actual operation is happening.
06:06The chicken that was cooked upstairs just ended up over here.
06:10And then from here, it's going to get cut up by the master butcher, put on the grill and then finished to make the famous butter chicken.
06:17And I love that he's skewering it in exactly the same shape of the thigh.
06:22So each piece is in order.
06:23I wouldn't be surprised if he's doing this intentionally.
06:26And it's done in a particular way.
06:28He makes sure he goes to the leg bone this way so that it stays on and doesn't fall off.
06:33And he gets maximum surface area.
06:35Jesus Christ, I would cut my fingers off in about 10 seconds at the speed at which he's going.
06:40Obviously, the outside was already seared, but now he's going to make sure that the inside reaches up the right temperature.
06:46So he's cooking hot and fast.
06:48I mean, I can barely stand next to the flame.
06:50I'm getting out of the smoke.
06:52This is insane.
06:53Okay, if possible, this fire is hotter than the one upstairs.
06:57And I think I know the reason why.
06:59Because at this point, they really want to make sure this chicken is cooked through and through.
07:03The chicken upstairs is cooked about 50%, so that makes sense.
07:07This is both a flavoring moment, a seasoning moment, and a sanitation moment.
07:12I've never seen a sight like this in my life, an entire pot of boiling butter on an open street plane.
07:18This is 500 grams of butter.
07:20He gets a case of 30 of these.
07:22Okay, 30 packets of 500 grams of butter.
07:2430 per case of butter he's going to go through.
07:27I think there's more butter by weight that this place goes through than chicken by weight.
07:31Clarifying butter in general also just gives a really lovely flavor, almost a nuttiness to the butter.
07:38There's a reason that this faces the street.
07:40That way people can not only see what you're offering, they can see the quality, they can see the technique,
07:45and they can decide based on a hundred other spots just like this, whether this is the place you're going to come at or not.
07:50One order is two skewers.
07:52That's a lot of meat.
07:53I didn't expect two chicken leg quarters for one order.
07:57Okay, what's next?
07:58Ah, his famous chaat masala.
08:00Chaat means lick, like lick your hands, because on the street you're eating with your hands.
08:03It's got black rock salt, which gives it this amazing funkiness.
08:06And then cream, glorious cream.
08:10One spoon.
08:12Two spoon!
08:14What he's doing here is making sure that the cream and the masala really coat the chicken well.
08:18And just to be on the safe side, let's throw in some extra masala.
08:21Here's the butter.
08:23And he's going to pour some.
08:24Oh, jeez.
08:25Okay, okay, okay.
08:27That's a lot of butter.
08:29And then there's more cream.
08:32This is insane.
08:33Wow.
08:34Okay, sir, would you like some chicken with your butter?
08:36That's incredible.
08:37All right, let me show you what's going on here.
08:40So the chicken came off the grill.
08:42He hit it with a mixture of cream.
08:45Is it only cream or cream or cream?
08:47It's cream.
08:48Only cream.
08:49And then as if that was not enough, about a half a pound of butter, the chicken's been
08:55drowned in.
08:56Whoa.
08:57I mean, honestly, I can't think of a more exciting way to dig in.
09:02They were kind enough to give me some rumali roti to go with this.
09:05Rumali means handkerchief, literally.
09:07And this is named a rumali roti because it should be as thin as a silk handkerchief, as a muslin handkerchief.
09:13And you should be able to see through it.
09:15Hello, friends.
09:16Can you see me now?
09:17All right.
09:18Going in for my first bite.
09:20I can feel the heart attack about it come.
09:23So much butter.
09:24It's delicious.
09:26The unexpected part is how much the butter hits you right in the face.
09:30It's not in the background.
09:31It's not subtle.
09:32This is actually butter chicken.
09:33Wow.
09:34There is so much going on this bowl.
09:35It is so rich.
09:36It's so decadent.
09:37I mean, if chicken could be a dessert, this would be it.
09:38I mean, it's just the cream, the butter, the spices, the seasoning, and the wood smoke,
09:42that charcoal.
09:43I mean, it's just literally suffused the entire dish.
09:46It's glorious.
09:47It's a special treat.
09:48It's a special treat.
09:49You can't eat this every day.
09:50I think these guys have figured out a way to make chicken taste better than chicken.
09:51This has reached the seventh plane of consciousness of chicken.
09:52The chicken is tender and moist and juicy.
09:53I have no doubt about that.
09:54And then I can taste, obviously, the chaat masala.
09:55And then I can taste, obviously, the chaat masala.
09:56This is so rich.
09:57It's so rich.
09:58It's so decadent.
09:59It's so decadent.
10:00I mean, if chicken could be a dessert, this would be it.
10:01I mean, it's just the cream, the butter, the spices, the seasoning, and the wood smoke,
10:02that charcoal.
10:03I mean, it's just literally suffused the entire dish.
10:04It's glorious.
10:05It's a special treat.
10:06You can't eat this every day.
10:07You can't eat it out of the way to make chicken taste better than chicken.
10:09This has reached the seventh plane of consciousness of chicken.
10:12The chicken is tender and moist and juicy.
10:14I have no doubt about that.
10:16And then I can taste, obviously, the chaat masala, which just adds another level of tang,
10:21another level of umami to the whole dish.
10:23The cream just coats it all.
10:25It doesn't cover.
10:26And that's a big difference here.
10:28The cream's not hiding.
10:29It's not disguising.
10:30It's accentuating.
10:31And then the butter, I mean, the butter is just like a love slap across the face.
10:35It's one of the things I love about street food.
10:38It looks simple.
10:39It's affordable.
10:40One would assume that it's easy.
10:42It's not.
10:43It's extremely complicated.
10:44Delhi claims to have invented butter chicken, especially around the corner somewhere at
10:49Moti Mahal.
10:50But I think this, if you're going to call it butter chicken, is actually what butter chicken
10:55should look like.
10:56No addition of tomatoes, which is really a new world import.
10:59It was bought with the colonial exchange to America.
11:02So I can imagine well before the butter chicken that we know of traditionally that's been
11:07served, this is probably more authentic.
11:09What else are you going to call it?
11:10Look at that butter.
11:11Here's the question.
11:12Could I serve this in the US?
11:14I think the idea of seeing chicken floating in so much butter might just freak people out,
11:19just purely from a health standpoint.
11:21But if you just think of the crap that we put in our bodies with these hydrogenated vegetable
11:26oils that everything is fried in, including most stuff you buy on the Gristrom made in,
11:31that's more likely to kill you.
11:33So would this fly in America?
11:34Probably not.
11:35Should it?
11:36Oh, hell yeah.
11:37Thank you for the whole thing.
11:38Thanks, guys.
11:39We can see it, today.
11:40We can see it all here in the US.
11:41I think there's some sort of different types of products in the US.
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