Yakhni: Making Stock for Pulao, Soups and Curries

What yakhni is

Yakhni is a light, fragrant stock made by simmering meat and bones with onion, garlic, ginger and whole spices. It’s the foundation of a good yakhni pulao, where rice cooks directly in it and takes on all its flavour. It’s also sipped on its own as a warming soup in winter or when someone is unwell, and used to enrich curries, soups and Arabic rice dishes like mandi.

What you need

For about 6 cups:

• 1 kg bone-in meat: mutton with bones (neck, shoulder, shanks) for a rich pulao, or a whole chicken cut into pieces, or chicken backs and wings for a lighter stock.
• 1 onion, halved, and 1 whole head of garlic, halved across.
• A thumb of ginger, sliced.
• Whole spices: 1 tbsp coriander seeds, 1 tsp fennel seeds, 1 tsp black peppercorns, 2 black cardamoms, 4 green cardamoms, 4 cloves, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 bay leaves. Some families add a star anise.
• 1½ tsp salt and 8–10 cups water.

Tie the small spices in a piece of muslin (a potli) so you don’t have to strain them out of a pulao later.

Method

1. Rinse the meat well. For an extra-clear stock, cover it with water, bring to the boil for 3 minutes, drain and rinse; this removes the scum-forming proteins.
2. Put everything in a large pot with the cold water and bring slowly to a boil.
3. Skim the grey foam that rises in the first 10 minutes.
4. Simmer gently, with the pot partly covered: 45–60 minutes for chicken, 1½–2 hours for mutton. A gentle simmer keeps the stock clear; a hard boil makes it cloudy.
5. Strain. Keep the meat for the pulao or pull it off the bones for soup.

In a pressure cooker, mutton yakhni takes about 30 minutes after the first whistle.

A good yakhni

• Clear and golden, not cloudy and grey.
• Fragrant, with spices you can smell but not overpowering.
• Lightly salted, so you can adjust later as it reduces.
• When chilled, a well-made mutton or bone yakhni sets into a light jelly. That’s the gelatine from the bones, and it’s what gives pulao its silky richness.

Using it

• Pulao: measure the stock against the rice, usually about 1½ cups of stock per cup of soaked basmati. Our basmati rice guide explains the absorption method.
• Soup: season, add shredded chicken, a squeeze of lemon and black pepper.
• Curries: use instead of water in qormas and salans for more depth.

Storing

Cool quickly, then refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months. Freeze in 2-cup portions, or in ice-cube trays for small amounts. Lift off the solid fat from chilled stock if you want it lighter.

Practise with yakhni pulao, then try kabuli pulao.