- 8 minutes ago
Bon Appétit joins Chef Meherwan Irani in Delhi, one of the world’s greatest food cities, to visit New Zaika Kathi Roll, a stall specialising in butter chicken kati rolls. This humble street stall serves buttery, flaky parathas layered with egg, smoky tandoori chicken, and rich butter chicken sauce. Watch how charcoal-fired tandoors, expert technique, and 16 years of craftsmanship come together to create one of the best street foods in India.
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00:02Oh. My. Lord. We are in Delhi, capital of India, in one of the great food cities of the world.
00:10And one of the street foods that has become extremely popular is the kati roll.
00:13Originally from Kolkata, but now just a fan favorite everywhere.
00:17Absolutely delicious morsels of meat, wrapped up in a flaky paratha.
00:21And then the magic trick is a layer of egg inside the paratha.
00:24Behind me is New Zika Kati Roll Company, famous for their butter chicken kati roll.
00:29Here's what I love about this operation. Every good street cart vendor has got to advertise what they do in
00:35an instant.
00:35Here are your choices of what you want inside the kati roll.
00:38It's the ultimate show and tell of the street cart business.
00:42So come on in. This is amazing. I thought this was the whole operation.
00:46Turns out there's a little kitchen back here. It's like a little kati roll narnia back here.
00:50Let's go see what's going on. You can see the chicken being skewered.
00:53Dark meat, because you know it's going to stay juicy even after being grilled at high heat.
00:57So, chicken skewer goes in the tundri oven, and oh, this is a charcoal tundri oven.
01:04They're more and more rare. Everybody's working usually with a gas tundri oven.
01:07They both retain the same amount of heat, but with the wood charcoal, you get the aromatics.
01:12Oh man, that is incredible. And the inside is lined with clay.
01:15Once it's seasoned, that clay retains an incredible amount of heat,
01:18and it uses a convection effect of air circulating inside so that the meats are cooking.
01:23Pulls it out every now and then, and then puts it back in.
01:26What he's doing is resting the chicken. If you just leave it in there, that intense heat,
01:30which is about 900 to 1,000 degrees, you're going to have chicken that's burnt on the outside and raw
01:35on the inside.
01:35But when you pull it out and let it rest for a second, it redistributes the heat.
01:39This metal skewer gets hot also, so obviously that's critical to cooking the whole thing from the inside out and
01:45from the outside in.
01:48On to the flat top.
01:51The jugard here is evident, of course, the MacGyvering, as I like to call it.
01:55You got your LP tank sitting right over here, the gas line cutting across in front of the cook.
01:59The range is essentially four bricks that this 50-pound slab of castron is sitting on.
02:05So he just added some refined oil to help sauté and sear the chicken, sort of giving it a little
02:10bit of a fry first.
02:12Green bell pepper about to go in.
02:14Next up, some onions.
02:16This is turning into a whole dish.
02:18What he's made here is the base for the kati wool chicken.
02:21This is the kati chicken. This is his unique take on it, to sauté it with the onions.
02:26One small piece, thank you. It's about to go in my mouth.
02:34That is a delicious bite. Everything's customizable.
02:38You can order the traditional kati wool filling and have him make that with butter sauce, or you can order
02:43just plain chicken tikka.
02:44No oil, and he's about to hit this with some butter chicken sauce.
02:51That, it looks amazing.
02:54Not only is the chicken obviously getting cooked in the sauce, the sauce itself is also getting cooked and caramelized
03:00in the griddle.
03:00So you're going to get a really nice thick gravy-coated pieces of chicken, so that it's not a sloppy
03:05mess.
03:06Let's take a look and see how the parate itself gets made, the piece de resistance of the kati roll.
03:10That's pure ghee that was just melted on the range. Ghee is going to create flakiness, putting a little bit
03:15of flour in the middle,
03:17so that the protein, the fats have a chance to create that separation.
03:20The constant folding and rolling is going to create these layers.
03:23By rolling it up this way, as they compress back down again, the ghee ensures that they'll separate and puff
03:29back up again when they're put on the flat top.
03:31Everybody's got their own particular folding technique, almost like you would for dumplings.
03:36This is cool, it's the first time I've seen them made into a cone like this.
03:38He's tucked the edges in, obviously, so that way when he rolls it out, the ragged edges don't just splay
03:43back out again.
03:45Oh my lord, look at that! That is so cool!
03:53He's already created the layers on the inside by creating the cone, and now by pressing it down, he's creating
03:59these additional layers.
04:00My god, it's like a potter with a pottery wheel. I mean, they're beautiful to look at!
04:05We're not in the fancy confines of a European patisserie.
04:09This technique is on par with pretty much anything you'd see in a French bakery.
04:14I love beauty in food, it just accentuates everything.
04:17Every time an order comes in, this gentleman's going to grab one, roll it out, and make a fresh kati
04:23roll.
04:23So this is basically a tawa, a giant tawa. When you look at the bottom of it, you can see
04:27the carbonization.
04:28This thing's been around for a while, but the surface is absolutely glassy smooth.
04:35It's a refined oil in the middle. You're not quite frying it, you're griddling it.
04:38It's starting to puff up a little bit because, remember, you've got those layers in there and they'll separate as
04:42the heat hits the layers and the ghee inside starts to cook.
04:45And this has gone fast. I mean, look at the temperature on this.
04:48Now you can see the signature striations are already starting to form in the circle and that you can see
04:53where it was rolled the way it was done.
04:54And it's both, obviously, part of the texture of this paratha, but also part of its signature look.
05:00In order to be successful in this particular diverse neighborhood of people from all backgrounds, he is a customizable kati
05:06roll joint.
05:06You can have it any way you want. So if somebody wants an egg, he even has a double egg
05:11kati roll, which is just basically pure egg with some vegetables in it, scrambled.
05:17Look at that. Look at that. Just right on the paratha. That's his mixing bowl. Right there.
05:29That's so sexy looking. You know that's going to taste amazing.
05:33He's using the less cooked side of the paratha so that the egg will stick to it when he flips
05:37it.
05:37Whisk his eggs into essentially an omelet making operation here.
05:40And then he's going to pour the eggs out of the paratha bowl onto the griddle, making an omelet.
05:47And by putting it down on the raw side of the egg, it's cooking from the bottom up.
05:51But you know that the part where the paratha was still a little bit uncooked on the inside,
05:54is going to be absolutely soft and fluffy and delicious.
05:58So I'm going to order my first kati roll.
06:00And given that this is the house of specialization, the house of customization,
06:03I'm going to make it my way.
06:04One butter chicken kati.
06:06Then you can add onions.
06:09And onions.
06:10And chutneys.
06:11One.
06:11One.
06:12One.
06:13Single egg, double egg would be insane.
06:16They probably think I'm insane for ordering single egg, but whatever.
06:19The flip, the turn, the puff.
06:23That's what I said.
06:25But it will be worth little bit of pork.
06:27One.
06:28One.
06:29One.
06:29One.
06:29One.
06:30One.
06:31One.
06:32One.
06:34Two.
06:36One.
06:41One.
06:46One.
06:46on the top, a little bit of mayonnaise,
06:52some tasty Indian ketchup,
06:55some of that lovely mint and yogurt green chutney,
06:59and a little bit of chopped masala.
07:02My own personal khati chicken roll guy.
07:04Wrapped up, it's a very loose wrap.
07:07Oh, thank you.
07:09I feel like I should hold this up to the skies.
07:15You can see these layers of flakiness.
07:17I mean, very much like the folds of a croissant.
07:20And then inside, you can see that layer of egg
07:23is perfectly all the way to the edges,
07:25so you don't just have a little egg on the inside.
07:27When he flipped it over, I saw it spread out,
07:29and any egg that escaped the vortex,
07:32he sort of tucked it back in
07:33to make sure that none of that egg that I'm paying for is lost.
07:36I don't even have to take a bite
07:38to know that this thing's going to be incredible.
07:48Oh, my lord.
07:54Oh, my lord.
07:55Oh, my lord.
07:57God dang.
07:58Somebody just slapped me silly.
08:00This is incredible.
08:02It tastes exactly how I imagined it would be.
08:05The butter chicken is moist, delicious, tangy with that sauce,
08:09and this flaky paratha, I mean, as you peel each layer back,
08:12it's just absolutely magical.
08:16It's well-seasoned also.
08:18When you bite through, you can actually feel your teeth go through the outer layer
08:22of a little bit of that crispiness and that flakiness,
08:24and then the inside is buttery and warm and soft
08:28and almost melds with the butter chicken.
08:30Really a great bite.
08:31There's just no way you can go back to eating a hot dog after this
08:36and feel like something special happened.
08:40Chicagoans, don't kill me.
08:42Every one of these street food experiences is just eye-opening and humbling.
08:46To watch this man for 16 years perfect rolling out just a humble paratha,
08:53but doing it with finesse and technique and pride.
08:57As I always say, it's the people behind the food.
09:00Their passion, their craftsmanship, their dedication, their discipline.
09:04It just lights me up on the inside.
09:07Number eight, double chicken tikka roll, egg chicken tikka roll,
09:10double egg chicken tikka roll, single egg double chicken tikka roll,
09:14double egg double chicken tikka roll, chicken malai tikka roll,
09:18egg chicken malai tikka roll, and then double egg chicken malai tikka roll.
09:23You know what?
09:24I'm a little disappointed they don't have double egg, double chicken, double malai tikka roll.
09:30It probably ran out of room.
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