India on My Platter

by Saransh Goila

  MOONG DAL PAKORA

  (Fritters made from grounded pulses.)

  Ingredients

  2 cups skinless split green gram (dhuli moong dal), soaked overnight

  Salt to taste

  ½ tsp dry mango (amchoor) powder

  ½ tsp turmeric (haldi) powder

  ½ tsp red chilli powder

  ¼ tsp asafoetida (hing)

  ½ tsp caraway seeds (shahi jeera)

  2 green chillies, finely chopped

  1 tbsp fresh coriander leaves (dhania patta), finely chopped

  Green chutney as required

  Method

  1. Coarsely grind the soaked skinless split green gram with salt, dry mango powder, turmeric, red chilli powder, and asafoetida.

  2. Add caraway seeds, green chillies and chopped coriander to this and mix well.

  3. Heat sufficient oil in a wok.

  4. Grease your palms and shape the mixture with your fingertips to even-sized vadas. Slide them into the oil, a few at a time, and deep fry till golden and crisp. Drain on absorbent paper. Serve hot with green chutney.

  DAY 74

  18 October/ Dehradun

  It was a completely different experience waking up in Dehradun than waking up anywhere else. The weather was perfect, the slight chill in the air made me cling to my quilt for few moments longer. The view from my window was more than just scenic. It was like a misty picture postcard from the middle of the mountains. I had my ritual cup of tea and my morning rusk. I dunked the rusk in the tea and waited for it to soften slightly before I got my morning dose of stimulants. That brought me to the bakery culture in Dehradun. Ellora’s is the most fitting example of the baking tradition in the city. It was right opposite a very popular school on Rajpur road. Although, you don’t need the address since everyone knows exactly where it is, just ask anyone for directions if lost. The bakery bestsellers are stick jaws, plum cakes and rusks. Mr. Gulati met me at the bakery and allowed me to question him incessantly about all the desserts and the history behind them.

  Their plum cake recipe was 200 years old; that explained why this bakery had been around for so long. As we chatted, we exchanged stories about food and life, and he happened to mention that Chef Sanjeev Kapoor was a friend and still ordered from Ellora. I also met Mr. Gulati’s son, Dhrone, who showed me around the kitchens, and told me that the family had not let go of the old methods of baking, whether it was the machinery or the utensils. Standing outside the bakery, judging by the smell of bread wafting through the air, one wouldn’t think that the ovens were over 35 years old. It reminded me of my trip to Italy and the time where I was hanging around a bakery with a wood-fired oven. The walls were made of brick, that wasn’t painted over, and the smell made me want to eat everything I laid my eyes upon. The oven at Ellora could bake 100 loaves of bread at a time. The long-handled pizza peel was a large, long fat spoon like tool that was used to shuffle the many loaves of the bread in the oven. The bakers wore thick gloves, while old-school ceiling fans cooled the rest of the bakery.

  I went to the next floor to see the old plum cake recipe come together. Of course when I tasted, it fulfilled the rich, crumply and moist requirements of a good cake. Mr. Gulati said that the fruit is macerated in alcoholic syrup for six months and the cake, if well kept, lasts for almost a year. The rusk was actually what I was looking for. I chanced upon a fresh batch and grabbed a few for my tour around Ellora. Just the fact that they tasted like cardamom with the sweetness of crisp buttery toast made my visit worthwhile. My last experiment was with stick jaws. Incredibly sweet, the buttery toffee stuck to each tooth in my mouth and kept me occupied for a good 10 minutes. I bought some cake for the rest of the trip and headed off down the road. I had decided that this day would be dedicated to the British cuisine and culture, and what was left of it in India.

  I made my way from Dehradun to Mussourie, a mere 40 km by road, and an hour and a half by one’s watch. Mussourie is called the queen of the hills. The British influence here is evident, especially on the architecture and the food. I had been here for a few summer holidays, like every other kid from Delhi. Mussourie has always been very popular for the entertainment on the Mall Road and the cable car rides. This was my first trip where I was going to make an effort to fish out all the little store-owners who made cheese, jam and peanut butter. Right up until the sixties, the British lived here, and consequently left behind a lot of their eating habits with the locals. I found a place called Sister’s Bazaar, where I went into one Prakash Store to sample all of these Brit traditions that had survived over time in a little hill station in India. Of course, I wasn’t surprised that everything was remarkably delicious. The owner offered me a small space to cook, near the store. I couldn’t resist the offer to use the peanut butter and jam. I made cookies. I just had to. It was nice to literally taste a piece of Mussourie’s history. I overdid it and ate the cinnamon roll sandwiches, muffins, butter cookies and peanut butter biscuits too. It dawned on me that I had eaten much more than I should have. I stayed in Mussourie and rested until the sugar wore off.

  Around dinner time, I rose from my stupor, and wandered around Mall Road that was buzzing with action. It was completely tailored to the clientele that visited this place. Video games, bangle shops, small hotels and restaurants filled the streets. Couples holding hands walked the streets, while I looked for more food. One of the most popular places on the street was a lovely omelette centre. How could I not go in? Khursheed Bhai met me and introduced himself; he has been in charge of the place for 20 years. The restaurant had opened in 1918. Khursheed has been given star ratings and reviews by magazines and newspapers. He was a favourite in and around the area.

  Here, I learnt how to flip a cheese omelette. The bread was toasted with cheese in a pan and then coated with egg. The secret trick was the turmeric and the green chillies. He gave me a fantastic tip to cook eggs with only chopped green chillies and not use any salt. He claimed that the eggs tasted both salty and spicy with just the chillies. I returned the good feeling by making a Schezwan Cheese Omelette.

  SCHEZWAN CHEESE OMELETTE

  (Omelette cooked with spicy Schezwan sauce and cheese.)

  Ingredients

  4 eggs

  Salt to taste

  Pepper to taste

  2 tsp oil

  4 slices small bread

  2 tbsp Schezwan sauce

  2 cheese slices, cut in half (Add as many as you like and make it four cheese slices if you’re a cheese lover.)

  Method

  1. Take a bowl and crack open the eggs; season with salt and pepper. Whisk well to combine.

  2. Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan. Pour half of the egg mix in and spread it out.

  3. Place four slices of bread over the egg. Pour the remaining half of the egg mix over the bread and spread well.

  4. After a few minutes, once the egg is cooked from the bottom, flip over and let the top side cook.

  5. When the other side is cooking, spread some Schezwan over the bread. Place cheese slices over it and fold them over like a sandwich. Flip again and cook until the cheese melts.

  6. Serve hot. do not serve it with ketchup!

  ∼

  So here I was trying to impress this egg expert who had been around doing his thing for 20 years. Hot and steaming, I brought my classic omelette for him. He politely refused; turned out he was a vegetarian! The person who earned his bread and butter by making eggs had never tasted his own dishes. It made me wonder how strangely this world runs sometimes. My omelette was hungrily snatched up by my director and producer, who rated it on behalf of Khursheed. The verdict: ‘kabil-e-tareef!’ This marked the end of my Dehradun journey. In the middle of the mountains, I found the perfect balance between traditional local cuisine and British cultural heritage that had been left behind for hungry travellers like me. Next stop: Lucknow.

  DAY 75

  From the hills, I climbed down for the plains of Lucknow.

  DAY 76

&
nbsp; 20 October / Lucknow

  I was now in Lucknow, 550 km from Dehradun. I had taken a day to reach there, but it felt like I had ‘time-travelled’ to a different period in history. Lucknow resembled an urban version of a city in the Persian Empire—a crossway for merchants, traders, poets, and food lovers to exchange fragments of history. A citadel of Awadhi cuisine, Lucknow was a serious stop on the culinary map. Their traditions date back hundreds of years, and every recipe has an elaborate, often royal, story behind it. Most of Lucknow’s cuisine gets its influence from the Mughals, who spent some time in Persia after their defeat in the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761. The Mughals introduced their own style of cooking, adapted from the experiences in the Persian kingdom. The Nawabs of Awadh, who were the deputies of the Mughals, settled here in Lucknow and evolved this style of cooking further.

  There are many heritage strolls that you can take when in Lucknow. However, the only one that I wanted to do was to find authentic Awadhi food. I have friends who make day-trips to Lucknow just to eat. Tunday Kebabi is a shop that has expanded over the 109 years that they have been in business. They serve fresh kebabs on the streets of Aminabad. The old houses, the crowds, and the charm of the chowk (in south Asia, an open market area in a city at the junction of two roads) befit this kebab story. The queue to buy a few kebabs usually extends long past the corners of the store. Their latest addition is a small seating area in the basement, which makes it easier to eat if you are not in a hurry. I was more curious about their history and their legacy. I met the third generation of the Tunday Kebabi family, Mr. Muhammad Osman. His grandfather, Mr. Murad Ali, opened this shop many years ago. Being handicapped, Mr. Murad Ali had only one arm, therefore the nick-name Tunday came to be associated with his shop, where he made kebabs with one hand. Osman Bhai told me that his grandfather was the fastest kebab maker there ever was; people with two hands didn’t stand a chance. As if that wasn’t enough, he also revealed that the kebab is claimed to be made with 160 different spices.

  Another story goes that there was a nawab who lost all his teeth and commanded his subjects to produce the softest kebab. The person who achieved this feat would have royal patronage for the rest of their life. Mr. Murad Ali created the secret recipe and won that honour. I had a chance to eat a replica of that very same kebab. The story helped build my appetite. I reached for the kebab, which fell apart in my fingers. The kebab couldn’t keep its shape if touched by hand; it was so soft that when you put it in your mouth, it melted away into a warmth of flavours. I could feel the flavours of cardamom, cinnamon, and Panadanas Syrup (kewra essence) blossoming in my mouth. The minced meat was ground with fat and spices over and over again until it was so fine that it needed to be held together with a powder of dal, nothing synthetic or flavourless like cornflour.

  It is the love of spices that rules the kingdom of flavours. Now, as a chef, there was obviously no question about how delicately-made this kebab was. There was a solid reason why it was so popular and that itself vouched for its authenticity. However, even I found it hard to believe that the kebab is made with 160 spices in the recipe. Perhaps it is this myth that adds to its hype and to a slight extent, makes it the legend it is. After eating kebabs for lunch, I decided to wash it down with some liquid marijuana.

  Thandai literally means a cold drink. Often confused with milk, this is made with the liquid of ground dry fruit, water and an array of spices. Once again, I met the fourth generation of Pandit Raja ki Mashoor Thandai. This gentleman had quite a formidable personality. Vinod Kumar Tripathi, a.k.a. Raja, literally meaning king in Hindi, met me at the front of the shop to introduce me to thandai. Before we could even begin the conversation, he let me know that the who’s who of the country had been to his shop. Thandai could be either made with milk or water. The spices and the bhang are added (or not) depending on how you want to spend the rest of the day. For those of you who are of the sober variety, bhang is a preparation from the leaves and flowers buds of the cannabis plant, consumed as a beverage in the Indian subcontinent. Basically, you drink your ‘joint’ with milk and spices.

  The spice and dry fruit mix that goes into the drink has a few essential components: poppy seeds, saffron, cashew nuts, almond, pistachio, pepper, cardamom and dry fennel. A mortar and pestle are used to grind these spices. It has a small mix of medicinal herbs (jadi booti) to give strength to the people who consume the concoction. All these are strained through a muslin cloth while milk or water is passed through to extract their respective flavours. That is the secret behind the thandai. Mr. Tripathi used a copper mug and a glass to mix the drink and make it frothy; the showmanship involved was a part of the experience!

  Roadside eating joints, serving kulfi falooda (Indian dessert consisting of a conical-shaped ice cream with rose syrup, vermicelli, psyllium or basil seeds, tapioca pearls and pieces of gelatin with milk or water), shahi tukda, and biryani, seemed to crop up after every few metres. I spent the whole day in Aminabad where I even went to a nawab’s house to eat.

  DAY 77

  21 October/ Lucknow

  I began my day with breakfast that was fit for a king… king of the roads, that is. The breakfast culture is different in each region of India, much like the eating habits and customs. Here in Lucknow, where ‘what to eat’ is an important decision of the day, I stopped at Bajpaiji’s Special Kachori at Hazrat Ganj. Situated in the heart of Lucknow, this is a very popular area for restaurants, bazaars, and handicraft stores.

  I ate my breakfast with people staring at me in the market’s busy square. Bajpaiji had a special style of making his kachori, very typical of the state. It was almost like a cross between a puri and a kachori, where the outer shell was very crispy, but not hard. This was made possible by adding semolina (sooji) to the dough. Unlike a puri, it doesn’t balloon up on frying, but still manages not to be flat. In fact, this is optional and is usually made of dal and spices. My grandfather is from Uttar Pradesh, so I had set the standard high for Mr. Bajpai. Kachoris from this area are my idea of comfort food. I have grown up eating various types of kachoris, which also makes it one of my favourite food, ever. The shop was tiny and there were five people huddled inside a room, sitting cross-legged. Their jobs were well defined. One chopped and boiled potatoes, while another kneaded and flattened the dough. One man was only frying the kachoris while the other was serving them hot, to the eager customers. The fifth one in the room was collecting cash and taking orders; it was a full-fledged business that successfully ran out of a hole in the wall.

  It was chaotic to get to the head of the queue to place an order. The consolation was that the kachoris were extremely affordable and once you had eaten them, the rest was forgotten. The regular order size was four kachoris in a pattal (a cup made of dried leaves) for a reasonable sum of Rs. 20. When I cracked the first kachori open, the steam that came out rushed the aroma of the stuffing straight to my nose. It goes without saying that the spices and potato where of very good quality; and their judicious use made the kachoris almost delicate. The pickle and raw onions served as accompaniments made for ‘a wholesome experience.’ I couldn’t have been more satisfied.

  After Hazrat Ganj I made my way towards Chawalwaali Gully (literal translation being ‘the rice street’) in Nakhas. If you thought you would get rice aplenty here, well then, you are wrong! Despite the name, everyone in the gully is in reality, famous for making sheermal; hence it is also popular as the Sheermal Gully. A Persian word, mal is Arabian for material and sheer is Persian for milk. It is a sort of rich, sweet, saffron-flavoured bread. It is baked in an Iranian tandoor made of iron and is built into the ground. I went to the oldest sheermal shop in Lucknow. It was also the place where the sheermal was invented by Mohammadus Jaanashin in 1830. I met his great great grandson, Mohammad Umar of the sixth generation who ran the Ali Hussain Sheermal Shop. I was told that more than 10,000 pieces of sheermal were made here every day. He also told me how the taste of the sheermal had not changed since the 1830s. It was a little h
ard to believe, but however, I didn’t waste any time, and went to grab a fresh piece that had just come out of the oven. It was bright orange, and was shaped like a horseshoe. I could taste desi ghee, cardamom, dry fruit powder and most of all, saffron, which was bought in all the way from Iran. All these ingredients were mixed with the refined flour while being kneaded. There was also an additional taste that I could not quite put my finger on. I asked Umar who told me that they had a secret ingredient that had been passed down for generations. Even the cooks were not aware of the secret ingredient. The price of the sheermal depended on the amount of spices and dry fruits used to make it. On the streets, the sheermal was sold for Rs. 10. I found this concept of costing the sheermal very interesting. It catered to everyone’s pocket and taste, without compromising on quality. I ate a sheermal priced at Rs. 20.

  Apart from the sheermal, I tasted various other breads that were made here, like the taftan, the bakar-khaani, tabarak, and salona kulcha. The most popular item after the sheermal was the taftan, which tasted best when had with tea and cream. Now that made me think, ‘What could be best paired with sheermal?’ I learnt that it was best served with kebabs. I couldn’t resist the opportunity once again to leave my mark and contribute to the shop. I got my production team to set up a makeshift kitchen, to make my own version of the Tunday Kebabi, which I named Chandan (Sandalwood) Ke Kebab.

  CHANDAN KE KEBAB

  (Hung curd patties scented with sandalwood.)

  Ingredients

  3 cups hung yoghurt

  100 gm cottage cheese (paneer), crumbled

  1 tbsp ginger-garlic (adrak-lasun) paste

  2 green chillies, chopped 1 tsp red chilli powder

  Freshly ground mix of 4 cloves (laung), 8 peppercorns (sabut kali mirch), 1 tsp cumin (jeera) seeds, 1-inch cinnamon (dalchini) stick and 4 small cardamom (choti elaichi) [Note: Take 2 tsp if you grind in a big batch.]