Muhammad Shahbaz sits behind a counter on the first floor of a shop, lightly stirring thick, aromatic gravy with layers of fat floating on top in two large pots placed in front of him, and a third carrying heavy chunks of bong, or red fatless meat, and goat and cow trotters or baray and chotay paaye. This is Haideri Bong Paaye, and Shahbaz looks after his father’s business along with his younger brother.

At present, located on main Allama Iqbal Road in Dharampura, Shahbaz’s father, popularly known as Bhola, set up a small makeshift business over 50 years ago in Saddar Cantt outside a house in front of a police station. Back then, eating paaye, or trotter curry, wasn’t in vogue and most of the people weren’t even aware of such a thing, so Bhola used to give away the curry for free just to raise some awareness.

“Both my maternal and paternal sides of the family are from New Delhi and migrated to Lahore during Partition, leaving some close family members behind. My father did everything from selling peanuts and ganderiyan, plying a tonga to sewing gunny bags. He also used to travel to and from Delhi regularly and during one such trip he found someone selling baray paaye. Upon a lot of insistence, the person taught my father for two months who then thought of introducing it in Lahore and started with a humble set-up in Saddar Cantt around 1980. Around 20 years later, he was asked to vacate the spot after which he moved to a shop in Dharampura, a few metres from this present location, which we moved into 12 years ago,” 34-year-old Shahbaz, who joined his father’s business at the age of 10, explained to Dawn.

How the shop got its name is also an interesting tale. Shahbaz says after moving out of Saddar, his father became friends with a pir and used to contribute to his welfare organisation. The pir suggested my father name his shop Haideri. “I learnt everything about making paaye from my father. The recipe we use is also developed by him.”

After checking out this greasy, glutinous, sticky curry with piping hot fresh naan/kulcha from multiple shops around town, I had to ask Shahbaz the secret to a good, flavourful bowl of paaye, and he says it’s all about the raw material and strictly no use of gheeil to revel in the flavours of all the elements that go into the dish.

“It’s necessary to have a strong base. Since we specialise in baray paaye (cow trotters), it’s the quality of the trotters and the bong (meat from the calf of a trotter) attached to it; the whole joint matters. For making good paaye you must have bong, and to further beef up the flavour you can add bones and nalli. We specifically tell people we don’t add ghee and all the oil and gravy produced is the paaye and bong’s own from hours of cooking them together.”

Every day, Shahbaz cooks around 2.5 maunds of bong with three maunds of paaye without oil in a massive pot for at least eight hours overnight, which produces at least 2.5 maunds of gravy, and then there’s nalli in it too, which adds to the quantity of the thick viscous gravy.

“The pot is sealed with flour and weight placed over it to make it airtight. After it’s cooked, we separate the bong, white meat and bone marrow and bones, and add the required spices. The gravy produced is further cooked for around an hour to thicken it. You can’t enjoy paaye if the gravy isn’t thick and your fingers don’t stick after you dip them into it to scoop out a bite with naan/kulcha,” he explains.

As I dipped a hot naan into the paaye gravy mixed with mikh (bone marrow) and maghaz (brain masala), I got an instant hit of original, unadulterated flavours. “We don’t fill our gravy with masalas and ghee to keep it very subtle and retain the original flavours. What also sets us apart from others is that our food doesn’t cause any acidity or heaviness.”

At other paaye joints around town, it’s easily noticeable how watery and flavourless the gravy is, with a lot of garam masala thrown in. Shahbaz asks me to notice how many of his competitors add raw spices to their bong, which can be found resting at the bottom of a bowl of paaye. “People are also searching for white meat in the gravy; that’s how less meat they use, and add a lot of water to the gravy. I have thrice the amount of meat than the gravy. Our menu also says you can’t get more gravy than what’s given once because we have a limited amount of it extracted from the paaye and bong; we don’t add water to increase the quantity.”

This policy of not offering additional gravy has also led to some violence: his younger brother was shot at and injured around eight years ago by some customers, who he claims were intoxicated and felt offended when they were refused more gravy.

From the concise menu divided into chota and bara paaya, most customers order the latter, which is also what they started out with; the former was added much later. You also have the option to mix and match your order with the kind of paaye, maghaz, mikh, machhli (thigh meat).

Haideri Bong Paaye is open from 7am to midnight all year round, throughout the week. And contrary to popular belief, this dish is savoured in summer also, though at the start of the season the business sees a 25pc dip, but picks up later. Shahbaz says approximately 500 to 600 people visit them daily. He feels it is so loved because of the much-needed warmth it provides in winters.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2022