India on My Platter (8 page)

Eating
Wazwan
in Kashmir was a big check on my bucket list, but the experience of eating from the same plate with three different men changed a lot of notions regarding eating for me, as we have been taught to eat from our own bowls and plates and seldom have the shared plates. At first, I was shy and felt odd but as I shared that
trami
with them I realised the importance of a family eating together. It gives you more satisfaction and peace. I couldn’t thank the ladies and Javed enough, so I promised to make them look good on TV and headed to my next destination, which was my bed. Imagine having eaten a kilo of meat all by yourself? A bed is all that you need after that.

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18

24 August / Pampur

It was a hot sunny day and before we started for Jammu there was one thing that was yet to be experienced, and that was the saffron culture in Kashmir. There are very few, only about two or three, places in the whole world where saffron grows and Kashmir has the privilege of being one of these places. We visited one of the plantations on the city outskirts—Pampur, 13 km from Srinagar—for information on saffron, a spice used for its beautiful colour, medicinal properties and fragrance. I met Kedar there who took me through the process of producing saffron. Kedar explained, ‘The saffron plant is very small and its flower is the only part which is seen above the ground. The blooming time of this flower is autumn. There are only three stigmas in it when the flower blooms. This is painstakingly harvested manually.’

The aroma I got while sorting saffron was enchanting. These strands were also incredibly fat, as big as
aloo lachas
(potato finger fries) and a deep purple in colour. I just couldn’t miss this opportunity to make something with saffron. So I chose to make a chilled saffron-flavoured milk with it. Meanwhile, the weather turned beautiful, it started raining heavily, both of us raised a toast with our saffron milk and I wrapped up my Kashmir visit with beautiful memories. I will agree with the saying, if there is heaven on earth, it is right here in Kashmir.

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19

It took us the entire day to reach Jammu.

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20

25 August / Jammu

Jammu is famous for
rajma,
or kidney beans. I spoke to one of my friends and he told me there was a certain sardar
ji
in the Nandini locality, who owned a small
dhaba
at some hidden corner there and served the tastiest
rajma chawal.
So after an hour of making ‘U’ turns and trying to locate the shop, we entered the quaint little
dhaba.
Sardar
ji
greeted me and I replied, ‘
Sasriyakal paaji,
do you serve
rajma chawal
here?’ He smiled, asked me to have a seat, and explained, ‘Not just any
rajma chawal,
we serve it with lots of
desi ghee
.’ They get the beans from a region called Bhaderwah, in the foothills of the Himalayas, which is said to produce the best
rajma
in India. People from different parts of the country ask for
rajma
as a gift whenever somebody is travelling to Jammu. So it was a great idea to pick some for my grandmother.

Sardar
ji
further explained, ‘Usually, people who go to Vaishno Devi come here to eat
rajma chawal
made in
desi ghee.
This is a famous dish here.’ Though I wasn’t very enthusiastic about having it there, since I get to eat it almost every Sunday back at home, I was curious why it was so popular? Soon a steel plate arrived in front of me, and I was overwhelmed by the aroma of
ghee.
It was a very traditional way of serving
rajma chawal
; there was rice on the bottom topped with
rajma,
a bit of sliced onions and dollops of
ghee
on top. The beauty of this
rajma
was that it was buttery and melted in your mouth, so soft, unlike the ones served in Mumbai or Delhi that takes hours to cook. Using the Jammu
rajma
I decided to make a Mexican bean salad for sardar
ji
and his co-workers as a token of appreciation for cooking such fabulous food for the past 40 years. Mexican bean salad was pretty
desi
in nature. It had fried nachos-shaped
papad
(thin, crisp disc-shaped food typically based on seasoned dough made from black gram, fried or cooked with dry heat), topped with thick
rajma
plus curry, finely chopped mixed salad tossed with
chaat masala
and lemon juice and lastly garnished with grated cottage cheese.

After it was ready and sardar
ji
had had the salad, he and his working family gave a verdict, ‘The mixture you made, the salad with
papad,
is something I am eating for the first time. It is very tasty but needs
ghee.’
Everyone burst out laughing. We took a group photo, which sardar
ji
promised would be stuck on the entrance wall as a fond memory.

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21

26 August / Jammu

Jammu has a sizeable Dogri population and they are known for their cuisine, which has a distinct taste with local flavours. The idea today was to explore a cuisine that most of us hadn’t heard of. Mr. Mangotra, who has lived in Jammu all his life, had invited me to taste and learn the basics of Dogri cuisine. We found him through an agency that had been preserving Dogri culture, art, craft, music and food for years.

After doing the usual greetings and a bit of chit-chat, I realised that we were in Dr. Raina’s house, who was a big fan of FoodFood channel and the real Dogri cook that Mr. Mangotra highly recommended. Mr. Mangotra came across as a good conversationalist, who was well-versed with the Dogri culture. He explained, ‘The Dogris inhabit the hilly tract bounding the mountains of the Kashmir Valley on the south and extends to the plains of Punjab. They are descendants of the Aryan race and speak the Dogri language, a mixture of Sanskrit, Punjabi and Persian, whose origin goes back to the Indo-Aryan branch of Sanskrit.’ He also mentioned that Dogri people are fond of singing folk songs and are passionate about their art, culture and food.

From here, Dr. Raina took the lead and explained, ‘For Dogri people life is a struggle because of the weather and the topography but food is a means of celebration. Dogri cuisine is a perfect blend of
satvik
(class of foods that are fresh, juicy, nourishing and gives necessary energy to the body to achieve balance) and
rajsic
(class of foods that are bitter, sour, salty, pungent, hot, or dry, and are thought to promote sensuality, greed, jealousy, anger, delusion, and irreligious feelings) qualities as mentioned in ancient scriptures. It purifies, nourishes and is beneficial to the body and helps in the evolution of higher senses.’ The beauty of the cuisine is in the preparation, combination and the sauté procedures that are followed. The food is not extravagant and is perfect for digestion because of certain spices and the ingredients used.

Dr. Raina had already prepared a lot of food and made me taste six different dishes. First was the popular
madra
(pulses cooked with yoghurt and garnished with dried milk and dry fruits).
Maa Ka Madra
is a delicacy relished by the Dogri community on festive occasions. With that there was
anardana
chutney (raw pomegranate seed relish).
Anardana
is a speciality of Jammu, as they grow only in hilly areas, in the wild. The seeds are dried and sold in the market. As a community, the Dogris are also fond of relishing sweet, sour and tangy tastes all in one go, which is present in their
auriya,
a dish of yoghurt and potatoes, spiced and fermented with rye. Another dish, called
ambal,
was made of pumpkin, jaggery and tamarind. This sounded super yum and I thought would perfectly complement a
puri
(unleavened deep-fried Indian bread). The fifth dish was
khatta meat,
a preparation of goat meat curry cooked with sour pomegranate seeds and lime juice. Lastly, there were the breads and rice, which included
mitha path
(sweet anise-flavoured rice cooked in
ghee)
and
thothrus
(lightweight fried balloonshaped breads).

M
AA
K
A
M
ADRA

(Pulses cooked in a yoghurt gravy.)

Ingredients

Method

1.  Soak black gram overnight and pressure cook it with little salt and one and half cups of water until almost cooked.

2.  Remove the seeds from the cardamom and discard the shell.

3.  Grind together cardamom seeds, cloves, black peppercorns and one cinnamon stick. Break the other cinnamon stick into small pieces.

4.  Mix rice flour with one cup of water and keep aside.

5.  Heat mustard oil in a saucepan and add cumin. When the cumin seeds turn light brown, add asafoetida and fry it for few seconds.

6.  Add the fresh masala powder we made, cinnamon pieces, coriander powder, turmeric powder and fry for few seconds.

7.  Add cooked black gram, chilli powder, and salt. Mix properly and fry for two to three minutes until spices coat the gram.

8.  Turn the heat to low, gradually add beaten yoghurt while stirring and continue doing so until the yoghurt mixes well. Keep stirring and cooking the mixture to save it from curdling.

9.  Add rice flour mixture with
ghee
when the yoghurt thickens and starts leaving oil. Once it comes to a boil, cook for three to four minutes on low flame, until the gram is fully cooked and reaches the right consistency. Add roasted or fried dry fruits.

10. Garnish with coriander and serve hot with
roti
or rice.

∼

So many dishes were on the agenda that day that there was no way that I wasn’t helping them. Also, it was a massive learning experience for any chef. While preparing the
ambal,
I saw that they used a very interesting technique called
dhuni,
in which mustard oil is poured on a hot burning charcoal and put into the utensil containing the freshly prepared dish, which lends the dish a smoky aroma. Dr. Raina further explained that the Dogris were fond of community feasts known as
dhams
which were organised on various ceremonies. They were mostly vegetarian dishes made in a
dham
and then served on plates made from broad leaves of a tree, most commonly, Banyan tree leaves. Also, all these meals are incomplete without the tasty pickles that they locally make. After two hours of hard work, I had earned my meal and it was time to eat. For lunch, Dr. Raina’s mother and wife joined us as well. It was a fabulous sight to see the whole family eat together with me and I was asked to eat with my hands.

It was a colourful meal; all dishes had a distinct colour, texture, aroma and presentation. The
ambal
was one of the best pumpkin dishes I had ever had. It was packed with flavours; the tanginess of tamarind blended well with the pumpkin and the smoky taste took it to another level. The
thothrus
were so light that one person could have 10 of them and still eat a couple more.

The meal was finger-licking good. A cuisine I’d never even heard of blew me away, it proved that no amount of learning is enough; there is always room to explore and learn more as you travel. It also made me think that there had to be someone responsible to make such near-extinct cuisines popular all across India. It was time to move on to my next destination, which was a sweet shop. For the same reason, we had requested Dr. Raina to not prepare any desserts. We thanked him for sharing all his passion and knowledge of Dogri cuisine with us, and we drove off to Pahalwan Di Hatti.

Pahalwan Di Hatti is located in the Old Heritage city and was opened in 1934 by Nanto Shah. It is one of the iconic landmarks for visiting famous politicians and celebrities. Most people believe it is the quality of milk used in making desserts that stands out. It is also a shop which is visited by a lot of youngsters and they love the chocolate
burfi
(an Indian sweet made from milk solids and sugar and typically flavoured with cardamom or nuts) here, which sells like hot cakes. The other popular dessert is the
sund panjeeri,
loaded with good quality and quantity of dry fruits. I ended up eating four pieces of the chocolate
burfi
despite it being a bit high on the sweetness quotient; the taste of chocolate was coming through. The next day’s journey would be a long one, from Jammu to Punjab, and hence, after the sweets, we called it a day.

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27 August / Gurdaspur

I hadn’t shaved for 23 days at a stretch. I was now getting used to the thick stubble, though it made my face look a bit untidy and frankly, I looked a lot older too. We were about to reach IHM Gurdaspur, Punjab, after a long journey to meet the new generation chefs and inspire them to do crazy things in life. A dear chef friend, Aarti Thapa, a senior faculty at the college, welcomed us to share our travel stories and experiences with the students. It was a great interactive session, which was followed by an internal cooking competition organised by the college. Amidst all this, having been an IHM student in the past myself, it reminded me of how strict we were with grooming standards, so I chose to shave my beard off and it felt like shaving off memories. Those 15 minutes I spent in front of the mirror were great to reflect back on what all I’d learnt in the past three weeks. After this small breather and an inspirational trip to IHM, I felt rejuvenated and I was ready to move further into Punjab and experience some authentic drool-worthy food.