Mumbai Food: The papaya touch for your mutton kebabs

Gosht galoti kebab prepared using raw papaya seeds. Pics/Sneha Kharabe

How a kebab tastes has got a lot to do with how the meat has been tenderised, aside from the quality of the meat. Tenderising meat helps smoothen the uneven thickness, break down the dense and tough muscle fibre and the protein that binds them.

The process involves softening the collagen until it turns into gelatin. The soft gelatin seeps into the meat, adds moisture, making it soft and juicy. While several artificial tenderising agents are available in the market, the oldest and most efficient trick in the book is using raw papaya.

Chef Shadab Ahmed of Jyran Tandoor and Dining Lounge, Sofitel, was introduced to this technique long before he started his career. "When I was 15, I would cook with my mother and grandmother, sometimes, in our kitchen," he says. The process requires putting the meat in a large bowl, adding the raw papaya paste to the surface of the meat, and gradually massaging it in. "While doing this, the papain enzymes (a protein dissolving enzyme) get activated, which tenderises the meat. To activate the same, one must heat the meat between 60 and 70 degrees, before starting the cooking process," he says.

The ideal proportion for tenderising the meat is two tablespoons of raw papaya for every 500 grams of meat. "The meats that can be tenderised using raw papaya are mutton, water buffalo and camel." The process takes around 20 minutes, he adds. "It's the easiest method for home cooks. Raw papaya is always available in the market. You just need to make a paste and apply it to the meat," the chef says.

Chef Shadab Ahmed

What about raw papaya helps the process, we ask. "It contains an enzyme called papain. This works as a tenderiser as it breaks down the connective tissues when it comes in contact with the meat. So, at the time of consumption, the meat is tender and one can also savour the flavour of the papaya." Ahmed uses this technique to make the galouti kebabs, wherein he tenderises mutton mince with raw papaya before adding the required spices and cooking it.

Interestingly, there's a legend that pins down the origins of this ancient hack. Ahmed says, "The story that I recollect is associated with the galouti kebab. The dish was made of minced goat meat and green papaya for the Nawab in Lucknow, as he couldn't bite into regular kebabs; he had weak teeth. That's when his cooks devised this method and this technique came into being."

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