When it comes to the raan it is one of those meat dishes which has enjoyed long-standing appeal among most hardcore meat aficionados. The raan is the whole leg of mutton and the dish is renowned for its soft and delicate texture. It is made of goat meat. The forelegs of the goat called the dast are often used to make the raan. The forelegs or the dast offer the best choice of meat. The hind legs on the other hand represent tough meat which is considered to be inferior. This is why traditionally the raan is prepared from the hind legs. The raan is often treated as an unofficial test to separate the masters from the pretenders. This hard cut of meat is usually used for keema and is challenging to cook. For the intrepid cooks, the provocation offered by the raan is to transform this hard piece of meat into the most succulent of meats. The origin of this difficult dish is hard to trace but it assumed that it comes from the camps and military sites of Central Asia and that it was traditionally prepared from the meat of wild goats and sheep.

There are different ways to make raan. While some prefer to use a variety of meat tenderizers like papaya, there are others who prefer to fry the meat in masala and then cover it with water and cook for several hours till the meat softens. There is no set formula for making raan and every technical decision rests with the cook. There are different versions of the raan and the most tried-and-tested modern incarnation of the dish is influenced by two different and altogether distinct schools of cooking, the Peshawari and the British Indian. In this preparation style, the hard membranes around the leg of the meat are first removed and then the raan is left to marinate in a mixture of salt, ginger, garlic, red chilies and most importantly, the one ingredient which brings in the British twist, malt vinegar.

The meat is marinated for a couple of hours and then it is seared and braised in water before being stuffed in an oven for around eighty minutes. After this, the raan is smeared with ghee or clarified butter and cooked in the tandoor for twenty more minutes. This long and laborious process of preparation ensures that the meat is softened to perfection as the malt vinegar tends to tenderize the meat without interfering with the overall flavour of the raan.

Besides this hybrid version of the raan there is another style of preparation which finds favor with most cooks, the dum pukht raan. In this raan the cook prepares it from the leg of a kid. First ingredients like onion, garlic, mint are sautéed in a pan. This forms the stuffing for the raan. Once the raan is stuffed and tied with thread, it is marinated in salt, malt vinegar, ginger, garlic for around two hours. The dum pukht raan undergoes two phases of marination. After the first phase, the second round consists of marination in curd, red chillies, onion, spices, and rum. The raan is then braised and cooked in a tandoor. The raan might be the most challenging of dishes for a cook but it also opens up horizons for experimentation and newness.