Kati Roll

The kati roll is traced to Nizam's, a Mughlai restaurant in central Kolkata founded in 1932. As the story is most often told, staff wrapped the shop's popular skewer kebabs in paratha — and the paratha in paper — so that British officers and commuting clerks (babus) near the Dalhousie Square business district could eat them on the go without greasing their hands. The name is generally dated to 1964, when Nizam's is said to have switched from heavy iron skewers to lightweight bamboo ones — kati meaning 'stick' in Bengali — after which kati kabab and kati roll stuck. The originals were beef kebabs; chicken, mutton and paneer versions followed.

Held in paper, it is warm and substantial. The paratha is layered and a little chewy, crisp where it caught the griddle, its surface often glazed by a beaten egg cooked onto it. Inside, the kebab is smoky and tender from the coals, the raw onion sharp and crunchy against it, with lime cutting through and the green chutney adding a herbal heat. The first bite is bread and char and fat; the lime and onion keep it from feeling heavy. It is eaten hot, unwrapped a few inches at a time.

Two techniques carry the kati roll: live-coal grilling of the kebab and griddle-frying of the paratha. The meat is first marinated — often in yogurt with ginger-garlic and spices, where the yogurt's acidity and enzymes loosen muscle proteins so it grills tender rather than tightening — then cooked fast over coals, where surface sugars and proteins brown (Maillard reaction) for the smoky char. The paratha is a laminated wheat bread: folded with fat and rolled so it bakes into flaky layers on a hot tawa, sturdy enough to hold the filling without tearing. A beaten egg is often spread on the frying paratha (an 'egg roll'), setting into a thin omelette skin that seals and enriches the wrap.