Afghan cook pours his heart into 'teapot' lamb stew

Cook Kumail filling teapots with ingredients to prepare the traditional Chainaki lamb dish stew inside a restaurant at Koch-e Kafuroshi in Kabul. In the kitchen of his Kabul restaurant, one of the last cooks to master the Afghan culinary art of "chainaki" stuffs chunks of lamb and fat into about 200 tiny teapots to simmer for hours atop a clay stove. – Photo: AFP

In the kitchen of his Kabul restaurant, one of the last cooks to master the Afghan culinary art of "chainaki" stuffs chunks of lamb and fat into about 200 tiny teapots to simmer for hours atop a clay stove.

From dawn onwards, Waheed is a study in concentration as he checks the pots time and again – making sure each is marinading with the precise proportion of fat rendered.