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Kala bhuna beef fried down to a nearly black deep brown, served in a bowl with paratha and white rice
Prep30 min
Cook1 hr 45 min
Serves4 servings
CuisineBangladeshi
South Asia

Kala Bhuna: Chittagong's Beef Fried Down Until Black

A recipe for kala bhuna, the beef dish of Chittagong (Chattogram) in southeastern Bangladesh, made with mustard oil, whole spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and star anise, fried onion and yogurt. It covers the meaning of the name, the mezban feast and Eid table, and how long the slow low-heat frying takes to go black.

Total: 5 hr 45 minLevel: Intermediate

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 6

Cut the beef and wipe it dry

Cutting beef shank into 4 cm cubes and wiping off moisture with paper towels
Cut into 4 cm cubes and wipe the surface thoroughly dry

Rinse the beef briefly under running water and wipe the surface thoroughly dry with paper towels. Cut shank or a block of chuck into 4 cm cubes. If using bone-in chunks, the size as is will do. Leftover moisture makes it spatter easily when it goes into the oil later, and keeps the seasoning from working in well. This takes about 5 minutes.

STEP 22 / 6

Season and marinate for 3–4 hours

A bowl of beef rubbed with onion, ginger, garlic and whole spices
Rub in until the aromatic paste coats everything evenly, then refrigerate 3–4 hours

Put about 1/4 of the 2 chopped onions in a bowl, add the beef, green chilies, ginger, garlic, ground cumin, celery seed powder, salt and 1 1/2 tbsp mustard oil, and rub into everything by hand for about 2 minutes. When the aromatic paste evenly coats the surface of the meat, add the whole spices (except the dried red chili) and mix further. Cover with a lid or plastic wrap and marinate in the refrigerator for 3–4 hours. Set aside the rest of the chopped onion until the next step.

STEP 33 / 6

Crisp-fry the onion and red chili

Shallow-frying sliced onion and dried red chili in a heavy pot to a deep golden color
Fry 12–15 minutes until deep golden and crisp, then remove

When the meat has finished resting, first add the roasted ground cumin and mix until it blends in. Put 125 ml mustard oil in a heavy pot and heat over medium heat for 2–3 minutes, then add the remaining chopped onion, the sliced onion and the dried red chili. Stirring now and then for 12–15 minutes, shallow-fry until the onion is a deep golden color and crisp and light. Lift out the onion and chili with a slotted spoon, leaving the oil in the pot.

STEP 44 / 6

Fry the meat over low heat for 45 minutes

Stirring beef that has lost its moisture and is frying in oil in a pot over low heat with a wooden spoon
About 45 minutes on low heat, scraping the bottom and stirring every 5 minutes

Turn the pot from which the onion was removed to low heat and add the marinated beef with its marinade. Without a lid, fry for about 45 minutes, scraping the bottom of the pot every 5 minutes as you stir. At first moisture comes out of the meat and it bubbles, but gradually the moisture drops, the sound changes to meat frying in oil, the oil coats the whole of the meat and the surface begins to take color. If it threatens to stick, add 2 tbsp water at a time and scrape the bottom.

STEP 55 / 6

Add the yogurt and fry 15 more minutes

Beef in the pot with whisked yogurt added, turning from dark brown to blackish
About 15 minutes on low heat, until the meat begins to turn blackish

Whisk 100 g yogurt smooth with a whisk and add it to the pot along with 1/2 tsp chili powder. Mix well and fry about 15 minutes over the same low heat. As the yogurt's moisture cooks off, the color of the meat's surface begins to change from dark brown to blackish. Even if the yogurt splits and white bits remain, they blend in as you fry, so don't worry.

STEP 66 / 6

Return the fried onion and cook 30 minutes until black

Kala bhuna with fried onion returned and fry-braised until blackish, the sauce thick
About 30 minutes, until the meat is blackish, the sauce half thick and oil seeping out

Return the set-aside fried onion and red chili to the pot and mix through. Over the same low heat, fry-braise for about 30 minutes, stirring now and then. Plenty of moisture comes out of the meat, so basically no water is added. It is done when the beef has become a deep blackish color, is tender enough that a bamboo skewer slides in easily but still holds its shape, and the sauce is half thick with oil seeping to the surface. Check the saltiness and adjust with salt if needed.

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Ingredients

Ingredients

1 / 3

Beef and marinade

Ingredient Amount Substitutes & notes
Beef (bone-in chunks or shank) 500 g Cut into 4 cm cubes
Onion (to chop) 2 Finely chopped. Some goes into the marinade, the rest is fried
Green chilies 2–3 Slit lengthwise
Ginger (grated) 1 tbsp —
Garlic (grated) 1/2 tbsp —
Ground cumin 1/2 tsp —
Roasted ground cumin 1/2 tsp Cumin seeds dry-roasted and ground
Celery seed powder 1/2 tsp Omit if you have none
Mustard oil (for the marinade) 1 1/2 tbsp Vegetable oil also works
Salt 1 tsp Adjust at the end
2 / 3

Whole spices

Ingredient Amount Substitutes & notes
Bay leaves 2 —
Cinnamon stick 2.5 cm —
Green cardamom 3 pods Lightly crushed
Black cardamom 1 pod Omit if you have none
Cloves 3 —
Star anise 1/2 —
Mace (ground) 1/8 tsp Ground nutmeg can substitute
Dried red chili 1 Fried together with the fried onion
3 / 3

For the fry-braise

Ingredient Amount Substitutes & notes
Onion (to slice) 2 1/2 Sliced
Plain yogurt 100 g Unsweetened. Whisk well
Chili powder 1/2 tsp Reduce if you dislike heat
Mustard oil (for frying) 125 ml Vegetable oil also works
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In a big pot, chunks of beef slowly change color. At first a brown with some red left, after 30 minutes dark brown, and after another hour a deep color almost black. The sharp scent of mustard oil layers with cardamom, cinnamon and the sweet smell of fried onion, and spreads through the whole kitchen. Scrape the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon and the meat, with almost all its liquid gone, rolls over glossy with oil. This is kala bhuna, the beef dish that the port city of Chittagong in southeastern Bangladesh takes pride in.

The "black fry" of Chittagong, a meat dish for celebrations

Beef being fried down with a wooden spoon in a big pot in a home kitchen in Chittagong, Bangladesh

In Bengali it is written কালা ভুনা. "Kala (kalo)" means black, and "bhuna" is a South Asian cooking method in which spices and ingredients are slowly fried in oil, drawing out aroma while driving off moisture. As it is fried and simmered for a long time with plenty of spices, the meat takes on a blackish color. That appearance became the name of the dish.

It was born in Chittagong in southeastern Bangladesh (now officially Chattogram). In the local dialect it is pronounced "Hala Buno." Today it has become popular in other Bangladeshi cities too, such as the capital Dhaka, Sylhet and Khulna. Mutton is sometimes used, but beef is the most favored.

Did you know

Chittagong has a tradition of large feasts called "mezban (mezbani)," and kala bhuna is a favorite on those tables. It also appears at occasions where people gather, such as Eid celebrations, weddings of Bengali Muslims, and the pre-dawn meal sehri and the post-sunset iftar during Ramadan.

The difference from an ordinary curry is how little liquid it has. The recipe in Bangladesh's English-language newspaper The Daily Star describes the finish as "the meat blackened and the gravy (sauce) half thick." It is less a braise than a dish where you keep frying for a long time. The meat keeps its shape while tender, and spices and fried onion cling to its surface in black. It is eaten piping hot with white rice, pulao, paratha, naan or roti.

What to know before you cook it at home

Mustard oil, green cardamom, black cardamom, cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise and bay leaves

What defines the aroma of this dish is mustard oil. It is an oil pressed from mustard seeds, and when heated it gives off a distinctive sharp aroma. It can be found at Indian and Bangladeshi groceries or online, in edible grade. Choose one labeled as edible. If you can't get it, you can make the dish with vegetable oil, but the aroma will be gentler and it will be a dish of a different impression.

For whole spices, use green cardamom, black cardamom, cinnamon stick, cloves, star anise and bay leaf. Black cardamom is a large cardamom with a smoky aroma, available at Indian groceries. If you can't find it, you can leave it out. Mace is the dried red covering around the nutmeg seed; if you can't get it, the same amount of ground nutmeg can substitute.

Tip

For the beef, bone-in chunks are the local way, but shank or a block of chuck is easier to handle elsewhere, and keeps its shape through long frying. Avoid lean round, which tends to dry out when cooked long.

The ingredient list is the recipe from The Daily Star's feature on Chittagong cooking (for 1 kg of beef), halved and made easier for a home pot. The "celery (powder)" in the original is taken here to be celery seed powder. You can leave it out if you don't have it.

Ingredients (serves 4)

Beef shank, onions, green chilies, ginger, garlic, yogurt, mustard oil and whole spices for kala bhuna

Caution

This dish contains dairy (yogurt). Mustard oil is the oil of mustard seeds and comes from a plant in the same Brassicaceae family as mustard. Whole spices are hard when they end up in the mouth, so avoid them when serving or let the diners know.

How to make kala bhuna

Marinate for 3–4 hours, then keep frying over low heat for about 1 hour 45 minutes. About 5 hours 45 minutes in all. You are by the stove for a long time, so working in parallel with the prep of other dishes wastes nothing.

Caution

Putting onion into a pot of heated mustard oil makes the oil spatter from the moisture. Add the onion little by little from the edge of the pot and don't bring your face too close. Don't leave the pot during the shallow-frying, and lower the heat if it smokes heavily.

Tip

During the long low-heat frying, the places most likely to burn are the bottom and corners of the pot. Stir so that you scrape the bottom broadly with the wooden spoon. The brown stuck to the bottom, if scraped up with a little added water, turns straight into color and aroma. Leave any portion that has become a black, bitter scorch unscraped.

Eaten with white rice and paratha

Kala bhuna in a bowl with white rice, paratha, sliced onion and green chilies on the table
With white rice or paratha, while hot

Kala bhuna has little liquid, so on white rice the meat's oil and spices soak into the rice, and the spice aroma continues to the last bite. The Daily Star recipe recommends eating it with rice or paratha. With paratha or naan, tear off a piece and eat by wrapping the meat and the black sauce.

For a side, sliced raw onion, green chilies and cucumber refresh the mouth between strong bites. If making another Bengali dish, begun bhorta (in Japanese), roasted eggplant dressed with aromatics, or hilsa shorshe ilish, which uses the same mustard oil, go well. To continue with meat dishes, haleem (in Japanese), familiar on Ramadan tables, is also a distinctly Bangladeshi dish.

Did you know

In Bangladesh, ready-mixed spice blends for kala bhuna are also sold commercially. At home it is common to make it easily with such a mix, and alongside the method of gathering whole spices one by one, each household has its preferred flavor.

Variations

A plate with kala bhuna made with mutton beside kala bhuna made with beef

You can also make it with lamb or mutton. Cut bone-in lamb shoulder to the same size and fry-braise by the same steps. Lamb often becomes tender faster than beef, so in the last 30 minutes' step, check with a bamboo skewer and shorten the time.

To reduce the heat, halve the green chilies and chili powder and omit the dried red chili instead of frying it. Even with less heat the black color and aroma come out, so you can make it to eat with children. To make it hotter, scatter chopped green chilies at the finish.

FAQ

Leftover kala bhuna moved to a storage container and refrigerated

Can a pressure cooker shorten the time?

A pressure cooker can be used just to tenderize the meat, but kala bhuna's black color and aroma come from the time spent frying with the lid off over low heat, driving off moisture. After tenderizing the meat in the pressure cooker, open the lid and fry over low heat until the color becomes blackish and the sauce thickens.

Can I make it ahead?

Once it has cooled slightly, put it in a storage container, refrigerate and finish it by the next day. When reheating, add a little water to the pot and warm over low heat, stirring until hot throughout. Since it is a dish with little liquid, take care it doesn't scorch.

The mustard oil smells too strong.

Replacing part of the mustard oil, say half, with vegetable oil softens the aroma. Try that at first, and once you are used to it, using all mustard oil gets closer to the local aroma.

It isn't turning black.

Most often the heat is too low or the frying time too short. While the moisture released from the meat remains, the color is slow to deepen, so keep frying uncovered to drive off the moisture until you hear the meat frying in the oil. Frying the onion firmly to a deep color also contributes to the depth of color.

Sources

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