Author: Natalie Grover / Source: Atlas Obscura
To successfully make Balti—a subspecialty of Pakistani curry that’s prevalent in the United Kingdom—is to rely on intuition.
Apart from the sauce, which typically consists of a heady mix of ginger, garlic, coriander, garam masala, and other traditional spices, the Balti is, in essence, mastering the art of using scorching heat.What makes Balti especially extraordinary is that its maestros are expected to concoct the sprightly stir-fry of meat snd vegetables at swift speeds—usually within minutes, nearly half the time an average curry takes to prepare. The dish is then served in the same vessel in which it was cooked, a pressed, thin-steel contraption called a karahi. It’s eaten with a sizable naan, which is perfect for soaking up the last of the caramelized juices etching the bottom of the pan.
How the dish came to be called Balti is the subject of debate: It either stems from the Urdu term for bucket, or is used to commemorate the Baltistan region of Northern Pakistan. Its popularity and ubiquity, however, is uncontested in Britain—particularly in Birmingham, England. About a 20 minute drive from the city center, Ladypool Road, Stratford Road, and Stoney Lane collide to make the “Balti triangle.” There, family-run Balti restaurants co-mingle with sellers hawking their wares, jewelers, traditional dressmakers, and South Asian sweets shop owners.
The Balti triangle has its roots in the 1950s and 1960s, when immigrants from the Indian subcontinent settled in Birmingham. At the time, a wave of new economic opportunities cropped up after the Second World War, particularly in the industrial city. Looking for a way to support themselves and their families back home, new residents set up restaurants and hired staff that often lived in cramped quarters right above their culinary establishments.
Mohammed Afzal Butt, the owner of Imran’s Balti house, arrived with his family in 1967. After working in a factory, and then as a chef, he bought a clothing shop in 1981 and converted it into the storied institution. He and many other entrepreneurs ended up staying in Britain, and eventually brought their families over. In time, their children became poised to take over the shops, too.
Mohammed Arif, who’s said to have created the Balti in the late 1970s, came to Birmingham from Pakistan. He was already cooking homemade food for his peers, so it made sense to open a restaurant. After he opened it, Arif spent several weeks in Pakistan, where he saw flavorful, spicy curries being served in the same pan they were cooked in. When he came back, he had an idea. His creation, which appealed to European palates, involved a lighter version of traditional curry. The rapid-fire, high-temperature approach…
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