The phenomenon that is the Bun Kebab

a post by alatAl

It’s like nothing you’ll have ever eaten before: And unless you’ve ever eaten food from the streets of Karachi, Pakistan, you probably don’t even know what I’m going on about.

The Bun Kebab is a gastronomic delight, an ingenious yet simple culmination of ingredients that mingle together in your mouth to create the most amazing sensations from the very first bite. Here’s how to create your very own:

Ingredients:
- A big, soft luscious bun
- Slivers of dodgy onion slices (probably not even washed, for that added zing)
- Thinly sliced tomato, old enough that edges are just beginning to curl over
- Fiery hot tamarind chutney
- Yoghurt chutney, also really, really hot
- Minced beef and a variety of special, secret spices

Method:
- Take minced beef and mix with a marvelous marinade of yoghurt and a myriad spices, and leave overnight to ensure a full complete flavor
- Use bare hands (no need to wash first), to make into neat patties, dunk into beaten egg to coat, then toss onto a heated skillet and pan fry until a gorgeous golden hue
- Set aside

Next:
- Take big soft, luscious bun, cut in half with a blunt knife ensuring the edges of bread are jagged and crumbly
- Warm and ‘flatten’ on a hot, buttered pan
- Assemble into ‘sandwich’ form, with dodgy onion and wilting tomato
- Sloppily slather on really, really hot chutneys, being sure to let them drip off the edges of the bread
- Add freshly fried Kebab, and close sandwich
- Press sandwich on buttered pan to ensure a slightly ‘squashed’ consistency

Serving suggestion:
- Serve wrapped in greasy, crinkly non absorbent sheet of tracing paper, with soggy ‘masala fries’ on the side
- For the full experience, serve with a recycled bottle of *Pakola Ice cream Soda, complete with paper straw

*Pakola: The national fizzy drink of Pakistan, with its radioactive green hue, it’s undeniably the best soda in the region
**Note of caution: your mouth will already be on fire, and gulping down large quantities Pakola will not help quench your thirst at this stage. Nothing will. But man, is it worth it!

If you’ve never eaten from the streets of Karachi, then you’ll probably never know the upset stomach that inevitably follows, shortly after. But did I mention it was worth it?!

It’s just that our systems aren’t used to anything that hasn’t been clinically sanitized to the point that it leaves us COMPLETELY susceptible to even a whiff of anything outside the bubbles that we live in.

“You gotta abuse your stomach until it stops giving you attitude,” my cousin once wisely said, doubled over in pain from a particularly bad bout of the tummy bug. And she was right. You need to live life, even if it means stepping away from your comfort zone of all that is clean and sterile.

Experience your experiences! It’s become my motto ever since.

That and ‘pass the Imodium please’.

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