I am not a tea drinker, or a coffee addict for that matter, but my family drinks a lot of both. If I had to choose, and I couldn’t avoid it, I preferred sugary sweet, milky tea, like most Indians. After my travels I could see how important a cup of tea was for someone’s mental peace. Tea stalls in our country are little hubs for conversation, political debates and camaraderie. Like all food and beverage products, tea has a huge variety in terms of quality. We can buy anything from boxed tea bags to first flush single growth loose leaves. Like I mentioned earlier, when I was in Dharamshala, tea is not just about boiling and mixing. If you ever visit Assam, take some time out to walk through the estates, and drinking some tea amidst the bright green plants.
This was the last leg of my travel and walking through the gardens in Assam I reminisced about my journey and I realised that even though I have travelled all over the world, the beauty of India was unparalleled. Every state has a different feeling, a unique landscape and lots of love to offer.
DAY 96 AND 97
I was going back to Delhi, my home, and I just couldn’t wait to get there.
DAY 98
10 November / Delhi
After two days of a cross country train journey, I finally reached my destination and completed my journey. I had not yet reached home, but I was in my home town. Let me formally introduce you to my city, New Delhi.
Being the capital of the country, it is the heart of the nation. Extremely popular worldwide for its Punjabi weddings, street food, family culture, insane drivers and its new and shiny metro. Though what I love most about this city is how involved everyone is in cooking, eating and sharing of food. Discussions in Mumbai might be about business or lifestyle, but in Delhi, the topics of conversation are about meals, restaurants and cuisine. People here are very particular about what they eat and are very conscious of flavour profiles and taste.
Delhi’s food culture really started to take form with the advent of the Mughal rule. Places like Chandni Chowk have been around since the seventeenth century. Mughlai food is one of the most popular types of Indian food, here and abroad. Now that I have travelled, I can say that India does not have one cuisine, even though in abroad Mughlai is synonymous with Indian food. What is more important in Delhi, than any cuisine or restaurant, is the street food and the dhaba culture. Some shops from the eighteenth century are still around rubbing shoulders with new-age eateries.
The people of Delhi are an interesting bunch. Over the years they have managed to set up some wellestablished culturally-crossed themes that separate them from other states in the country. For example, Delhi loves its Punjabi-Chinese food (call it Chinjabi if you must!). It is a spicy, saucy version of the subtle Oriental cuisine and the people of Delhi, no matter how rich, will always be in love with it. When Delhi-ites finish a night in the town, they will drive straight to the nearest dhaba. That neighbouring shop which serves up hot kebabs, rolls, paranthas and tandoori rotis, will never be too far. Each market, in every part of the city will have the standard chaat guy, who started his business on a makeshift cycle, and now owns a multistorey air conditioned chaat shop. Last but not the least; I must mention the love that Delhi has for its dosas, idlis (south Indian steamed cake of rice), and sambar. A standard vegetarian meal for every class, this limited choice of menu is always available for the Delhiwalas as a light meal that reflects everything about south India in Delhi.
It had been many days since I ate the food of my hometown. I walked through those familiar streets to warm my stomach with the food of my city and show viewers what Delhi had to offer. I started my day with chole bhature (combination of chickpea curry and fried breads called bhature) at Om Di Hatti in Kamla Nagar. North Delhi is flooded with such shops, everyone has their own favourites, and everyone’s willing to argue to prove who the best is. The bhaturas that you get here have the slight tang that correct fermentation lends to the dough. They are stuffed with paneer and smell of thick sour yoghurt. With that I got my Pindi chole, popular for its look and colour. It was semi-dry and was coloured black with tea bags. It was cooked in pure ghee and garnished with fried potato. This cost me only Rs. 50; not even one US dollar. After my meal, to wash it all down I went to a milkshake shop. The original one is in Connaught Place, but there was one close by in Kamla Nagar market, very popular among Delhi University students for milkshakes. These milkshakes are creamy and frothy and the favourites are butterscotch, pineapple and strawberry; and they are made with toned milk. I grabbed my butterscotch milkshake, a tiny 400 ml chilled bottle, and drank it all in one shot. That heroic deed was followed by the customary burps that are not considered rude in this part of the country! It only means you enjoyed your food.
I had planned a walk through Old Delhi for this evening but I forgot that it was Diwali, the biggest and the brightest festival in our country. Before I could go off on another food trail, I was going to buy some phuljharis (sparkler firework), anar bombs, lamps, flowers and chocolates. Behind red fort there was an entire gully with all the items that needed to be bought for Diwali. After that I went to buy a box of mithai. At Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi I made my way towards Kanwarjeet’s, a namkeen (savouries) and mithai shop, for the best namkeen in India. He is considered the Willy Wonka of the namkeen world. Like most of the establishments here, this store is over 100 years old. All namkeens are made with pure ghee versus the trans-fat version, Dalda. They are extremely popular for dal biji, a mixture of sev, different melon seeds, cashew nuts and moong dal (skinned green gram). All these are fried and then tossed in Indian spices. I packed a kilogram of that and a box of the pista barfi (pistachio fudge) and gulab jamuns (ball of deep-fried cottage cheese, boiled in sugar syrup).
After all this walking, of course, I was hungry again. It was time to bring out the one and only, the famous, the filling, Delhi ki chaat. I went straight where everyone should go, Raju Chaat Bhandar, in Bharat Nagar. This guy got his fame from the nickname he got, ‘gande naley wala.’ This nickname came about after he set up shops near a sewage pipeline! Nobody should get ideas from the nickname; it has nothing to do with the quality and hygiene maintained here. His widest selling dish is the dahi bhalli papdi. Being a big fan of this dish I had tried it at several shops all over the country, but nobody made it better than my guy, Raju. The yoghurt was thick, creamy and sweet. The roasted and powdered jeera was sprinkled generously on the top, with garam masala and kala namak, the aromas of which reached you much before the plate and the server. The bhallas are as big as the palm of an average-sized hand. They are of ground dal that had been shaped into discs and fried. Then the bhalla was soaked in salt water to make it soft. Green chutney, tamarind chutney, boondi (savoury made of chickpea flour), and pomegranate kernels were sprinkled on the yoghurt. One plate of his chaat is quite expensive by the general standard; Rs. 100 is the price and every bite is worth it. I ate the other street favourites like the pao bhaji (spicy preparation of mixed vegetables had with a dollop of butter and warm bread, fried in butter), gol gappa (popular street snack consisting a round, hollow flatbread, fried crisp and filled with a mixture of flavoured water, tamarind chutney, chilli, boiled potatoes, onion and chickpeas), kathi kebab and aloo tikki (snack made of boiled potatoes, onions and various spices).
Later that evening, I went for a stroll to India Gate. If you are from Delhi you know for a fact that India Gate is the place to be in on an idle evening. The lawns in front were flooded with people lazing on the grass, eating ice cream, drinking whiskey on the sly from chai mugs, and buying little gimmicky toys and balloons from street vendors. I walked around the manicured lawns and bought myself kala khatta; the most popular form of chuski, a flavoured ice pop with lemon and salt.
Home is home, nothing can take away the feeling that you get when you are on home ground. I know how the air smells, I know where the roads lead, I know where to go. It feels good to be back, and tomorrow, I head home. WOW!
DAY 99
11 November / Delhi
Before anything else…
Happy Diwali! My mother drew a parallel with the way Lord Ram returned to Ayodhya after his 14-year exile. I was only away for a 100 days, but I got a Lord’s welcome anyway. Diwali is the festival of lights, gifts, crackers and lots of food. Gifts are circulated, mithai is eaten, and new clothes are tried on. My parents were shocked to see me; I looked like the backpackers that you see on the streets of hill stations, with my untidy beard, and my dark tan. We spent a long time just discussing my trip, sharing memories, and catching up on family gossip. My father, who generally is the wise one, was also astonished and pleased to learn about how hospitable the people of India had been to me. He told me that in his 53 years he had not been able to see even half the places I had been to. My grandmother was most excited to see me. I touched her feet and she blessed me; she was very relieved that I had come back in one piece. I won’t blame her for being so worried; even I had the same concerns!
I had brought gifts from different corners of the country for all my family members. I had brought a bandhni sari for my mother from Gujarat, a T-shirt for my sister from Ladakh, paan-daan (a ornately carved box to keep betel leaves and other condiments) for my father, and a shawl for my grandmother from Kashmir. After I designed the rangoli (traditional Indian decoration and patterns made with ground rice, particularly during festivals), with my sister, which took us a good two hours, my mother came out to ask me what I wanted to eat; something I had been craving this whole trip and didn’t have a chance to eat. At this point, I knew exactly what I wanted to eat, and now both you and I will get my mother’s Sindhi Kadhi recipe.
It takes very long to make this dish; the process is tedious and you need a whole extra recipe for patience for this curry. Since my mother was by my side, the kadhi was going to have a strong taste of love and family. Sindhi kadhi is a soupy gram flour and tomato-based curry made with fried vegetables and tamarind water.
SINDHI KADHI
(Fried vegetables cooked in gram flour and tamarind curry.)
Ingredients
1½ tbsp refined oil
3 tbsp gram flour (besan)
1 tsp fenugreek (methi) seeds
1½ tsp turmeric (haldi) powder
3 It water
2 potatoes
500 gm tomatoes
1 drum stick (optional)
1 long or 2 small pieces of lotus stem
1 big or 2 small cauliflower
200 gm colocasia (arbi)
200 gm okra (bhindi)
Salt to taste (4 tsp approximately)
3 lemon-sized balls of tamarind (imli), soaked in 1 cup warm water for 2 hours
Oil for frying
1½ tsp mustard (sarson) seeds
20-25 curry leaves (kari patta)
1½ tsp cumin (jeera)
2 tsp red chilli powder
2 tbsp coriander leaves (dhania patti), chopped
Method
1. Put refined oil in a deep vessel. Once hot, shallow fry gram flour until golden brown. Do this on a very low flame for about 15 minutes. Add the fenugreek seeds just as it starts to change colour.
2. Once it is golden brown, add turmeric powder and after a few seconds add all the water to it. With the water add cubed potatoes as they take longest to cook; let it all come to a boil. Then reduce the flame to medium.
3. Purée the tomatoes and add to the vessel. Let the kadhi simmer away on a low flame for an hour.
4. In the meanwhile, heat water in another small pot. Chop drum sticks into three-inch pieces and lotus stem into one-inch pieces. Parboil these and keep them aside.
5. Also heat the oil for frying after parboiling is done. Deep fry cauliflower florets, colocasia and okra till golden brown. While frying add some salt to the vegetables.
6. After the kadhi has simmered for an hour, add parboiled lotus stem and drum sticks to it.
7. After another 10 minutes add the fried cauliflower, colocasia and okra to it.
8. Now strain the thick tamarind water which was soaked two hours back. Add this to the kadhi and simmer for another 10 minutes.
9. For tempering, heat the oil in a tempering or small frying pan. To hot oil add mustard seeds, curry leaves, cumin seeds and red chilli powder and add this tempering to the kadhi. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot kadhi with peas pulao or steamed rice.
∼
My mother always tells me that when you follow a recipe from a book, you must always leave room for instinct. Your tastes and habits should also influence the recipe you may be following, at least as far as the spices go.
The evening was about me being back home. We played a few rounds of cards and let off a few crackers. It still felt like I would have to wake up and leave for a new destination. It took about a week for me to realise that I was finally home, at least for now.
I spent Diwali with my family and friends, as everyone is supposed to.
DAY 100
12 November / Delhi
Today is officially the last day of my travels around India. Everything had fallen into place exactly as planned. I was thinking about the streets, the alleys, the farmlands, the rivers, and the mountains I crossed. I found myself drifting away every so often and replaying a memory. India is a big country when it comes to its people, its culture, its traditions and of course, its food. Even though 100 days was not enough to explore everything that India had to offer, I had only explored the tip of the iceberg and I had a long way to go on my journey, whenever I go back on one.
After travelling for 100 days by road and covering as many cities all over India, meeting different people and exploring local cuisines and recipes was not an easy job, but it definitely was a wonderful one. As I documented the diversity of Indian food and its regional cuisine, I had noticed that it changed every 200 km.
I still remember, on the ninth day of my programme, I had a huge fight with the crew complaining that they didn’t have the right knife for me to chop the vegetables with: ‘You are making me squeeze lemons with my hand,’ I had said.
On the 11th day, I had to make spinach, which I had to chop as finely as I could using a blunt knife. After 15 days of shooting, my first episode went on air, and among the first messages I got from viewers was, ‘It was so good to see you squeezing lemons with your hand.’ It was enlightening! I never thought someone would want to see me use my hands for cooking on TV. I realised that at the end of the day we are all common people. We appreciate gestures that are human and basic. Food is not a luxury, it is still a necessity, but we just love it a little more now, is what my learning was.
There is so much the world doesn’t know about India and its food, the whole idea of writing this book was a daunting thought, multiplying my dilemma by threefold. One, I had to share my experiences and learning with viewers and readers. Two, I had to go back a step and use a book, in the actual physical form (instead of the online social platform) to document finer points of regional traditional Indian cooking. Three, I had to appeal to my viewers’ and readers’ patriotic side and urge them to choose Varanasi over Venice, or Gujarat over Geneva, the next time they plan their holidays!
As I drove through the valley and walked through the crowd,
I noticed that life in India is very loud.
I danced, I ate, I cried, I sang…
In my heart the temple bells rang.
I love my country, I love my life,
But my profession involves the use of a knife.
I cut, I chop, I bake, and I eat.
I used to be a vegetarian but I now love meat.
I want to tell you to get on the road,
Explore our country, in traveller mode.
Be proud, be happy, be inquisitive and nice,
You might want more rasam with your papad and rice.
Acknowledgements
Like all good authors, I too am supposed to acknowledge people who made this possible. But first, let me acknowledge you, my reader, for believing in me and picking this book up. If you love to travel and eat, we’re friends forever.
Now to the following people…I am not only thankful but I owe you a five-course meal.
Chef Sanjeev Kapoor and the entire team of FoodFood Channel for believing in me and giving me a platform like Roti Rasta aur India that changed my life.
People who had to bear with me for 100 days on the road! Thanks to Small Screen Productions, especially Aakriti Arora, Anshul Kumar, Vishal Chib, Mohit Kundu and the brilliant driver, Narendra.
I was lost. Thank you Pallavi Mithika Menon and Megha Sundaresh for saving me, finding me the right words and making this book possible.
If you think the cover looks awesome or I look good in it, the credit goes to photographer Pallavi Gupta, and the director of Culinary Communications Pvt. Ltd, Kavneet Sahni, who had the vision.
Hugs to Ajay Mago and Dipa Chaudhuri for agreeing to publish this book, and the next one to come. (Though they don’t know about the next one yet!)
When I received my first edit, it was soaked in red. It was like I was back in school. Let me bow down to my editor, Shoili Sarkar-Seth.
Thanks Rachel Tanzer for trusting and believing in me and getting this deal.
India on My Platter Page 22
