Lounge for 10 september 2011

New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Pune

www.livemint.com

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Vol. 5 No. 37

LOUNGE

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THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

WHAT WE EAT

EVERYONE’S INVITED >Pages 10­11

HOMELY FARE

We profiled the dietary habits of four urban households, largely representative of their economic class, to see if there were any differences >Pages 8­9

COMMUNITY KITCHENS

Your eating­out adventures and cook­something­else sessions need not be confined to Italian, Chinese or Thai. Add some jazz to your daily menu with ‘baflas’, ‘singzu’, ‘chik­cha­halwa’, Pandi curry, ‘obbattu’ and ‘pithey’

Pork ribs served with a Raja Mircha dip at Nagaland’s Kitchen, a 10­month­old eatery in south Delhi.

GAME THEORY

THE GOOD LIFE

ROHIT BRIJNATH

THE PHILOSOPHICAL PILGRIM’S JOURNEY

I

t’s a trifle weird, but I am politely stroking the hands of a stranger in a food court in Singapore. Checking for roughness, blisters, callouses. Wondering about these hands that have pulled her almost to the summit of Everest, hands that have just dragged a kicking camel across 1,600km of the Gobi Desert. Problem is, odd as it might look to my fellow diners, I should really be examining her feet. Because, as Sim Yi Hui says, when she got back from her minor stroll through Mongolia, she could have... >Page 4

PIECE OF CAKE

SHOBA NARAYAN

PAMELA TIMMS

SURVIVAL OF THE MACAROONS, MADE TASTIEST? IN KASHMIR

Y

ou don’t realize this as you tuck into that breakfast, but India is in the throes of a grand culinary experiment. What are you eating, by the way? Is it a dosa, paratha, samosa, brun maska or luchi? Your answer could determine the future of your favourite dish.

Why do some dishes travel so far from their origins and why do other dishes stay locked within a region? Take the pizza, for example. It originated... >Page 5

D

al Lake is a beautiful but surreal place and one of its most bizarre experiences is the daily floating market. To get there, you’re bundled from a cosy houseboat bed while it’s still dark, tipped into a waiting shikara and swaddled in a pile of blankets. At first there’s no sign of any life, let alone a bustling market; just the soft plop of oars on the water’s surface. Then, gradually, from mosques along the shore and the town beyond, the sound... >Page 6

We picked eight community cuisines and asked authors, chefs, consultants and food aficionados to tell us what makes them unique >Pages 12­14

DESIGN ON THE MENU Lamps, tables, bead partitions— unique decor ideas spotted at restaurants that you can adapt for your home >Page 18

HOME PAGE L3

LOUNGE First published in February 2007 to serve as an unbiased and clear-minded chronicler of the Indian Dream.

LOUNGE EDITOR

PRIYA RAMANI DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

R. SUKUMAR (EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA (EXECUTIVE EDITOR)

ANIL PADMANABHAN TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY NABEEL MOHIDEEN MANAS CHAKRAVARTY MONIKA HALAN SHUCHI BANSAL SIDIN VADUKUT JASBIR LADI ©2011 HT Media Ltd All Rights Reserved

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

INDIA ON A

PLATE I

LOUNGE LOVES | CHEF’S TABLE WEEK

Chef­in­waiting PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

t all started with an innocuous remark by a Bengali colleague. It seems fried okra, a must on any Punjabi party table, is frowned upon by Bengalis. The poor dharosh (okra) is so looked down upon among Bengalis that the term is synonymous with incompetency. The Kayastha community, in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, considers paneer (cottage cheese) in any form a down-market dish at a banquet table. Kashmiris do think beyond phirni and, in fact, are likely to serve only shufta at weddings and during festivities. Biharis are not just sattu-crazy and forever baking little littis for their teatime snack. In fact, they love keema A festive dessert: The shufta from Kashmir. (minced meat) and stuff it in mashed potato balls to make a cutlet that is dipped not in eggs and breadcrumbs, but in refined flour batter and suji (semolina). The Coorgis have found a way to eat their rice in a roti form. Try the akki otti (rice chapatis made from a dough of cooked rice and rice flour) if you are bored of the wheat chapati.

As we exchanged notes on what to serve the next time someone from a particular community or state visited, we realized that Indian food changes not just colour, ingredients and flavours from one state to another, but that even within states, every community has its own list of dos and don’ts. While some state cuisines have become a part and parcel of our lives, there is so much that remains unexplored as far as the Indian platter is concerned.

So we decided to go in search of snacks and sweets that would take us beyond payasam, rasmalai, samosa and dal bati churma, and also plan menus that would appeal to a Sindhi, Bohri, Anglo-Indian or Khasi. The curry and chutney culture had to be decoded, and we found out why the curry usually gets thinner, darker and tangier as we head south. The cuisine of the Seven Sisters, or the North-Eastern states, is unexplored territory and we tried to understand some aspects of these no-spices, all-flavour foods. And we also learnt how urban India eats.

Next time, we intend to find out more about the egg halwa some Biharis patronize, or the bhutte ki kiss (a corn dish) that is a staple snack in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Meanwhile, enjoy the discoveries we made on this culinary journey.

PS: Don’t miss out the 12 videos (www.livemint.com/communityfood.htm and www.livemint.com/foodmap.htm) that will help you cook these delicacies.

Seema Chowdhry Issue editor

The third edition of Restau­ rant Week in India is bigger, and comes with an add­on, the Chef’s Table Week

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he world over, Restaurant Weeks allow gourmands—the ones who’ve arrived and the ones who’re checking in—a chance at fine dining at the city’s best restaurants for a fraction of the price.

Mumbai had its first one in September 2010, New Delhi joined in for the second edition in February, and now Bangalore is all set to have its inaugural Restaurant Week—along with Mumbai and Delhi—from 19-25 September.

Seven Bangalore restaurants, including Le Jardin at The Oberoi and Zen at The Leela Palace, will offer three-course prix fixe meals at `1,000 per person and `2,000 with wine pairing (excluding taxes).

This is a bumper edition for Mumbai and Delhi as well, with the number of participating restaurants almost doubling (to 15 and 13, respectively). If the novelty for prix fixe gourmet plates has worn out for them, the organizers of the “desi” Restaurant Week have introduced a prelude called The Chef’s Table Week from 12-18 September for these two metros only. This is one of those instances when the accessory is better than the real feature.

The Chef’s Table Week has the makings of a gastronomic circus. Along with interactions with chefs, diners will get to experience a sevencourse tasting menu in which chefs will have an opportunity to display their creativity and surprise their guests, taking into account whims, allergies and dietary preferences. As for Restaurant Week, the price will be the same across participating restaurants (11 in Mumbai, 10 in Delhi). Meals will be priced at `3,000 for vegetarians and `3,500 for non-vegetarians (excluding taxes and service charge). While the price includes a complimentary glass of Prosecco, you have the option of an alcohol-paired menu for an additional `2,000.

“We’re only planning one table per meal at each restaurant, so you’ll have the chef’s whole attention,” says Mangal Dalal, a freelance food writer who co-founded Desi Restaurant Week Events Pvt. Ltd, which runs Restaurant Weeks

India, last September, along with chef Nachiket Shetye of East: Pan Asia in Mumbai and former finance professional Azeem Zainulbhai.

One argument against the idea of a Restaurant Week in India has been that several restaurants included don’t present a “meal for a steal” proposition. At New Delhi’s Smoke House Grill, which is on the list for the second time, one of the best dishes, the Tenderloin Steak in Wasabi Emulsion, is priced at `590 à la carte. Not exactly intimidating. Why wait for Restaurant Week, stress over bookings and hate your colleague who got there before you did?

The Chef’s Table Week holds tremendous promise as a first-ever experience. Imagine complaining to chef Manish Mehrotra of Indian Accent—for the sake of it—about the calories in his foie gras stuffed galawat and together finding a way to work around it.

As the newest entrant, Bangalore won’t enjoy the Chef’s Table feature this year. “We wanted to give the city the ‘real thing’ first,” says Dalal.

Bangalore also has fewer restaurants than the other two cities. With restaurant prices differing across the country, the city’s relatively modestly priced fine-dining restaurants didn’t justify the `1,000 prix fixe, Dalal explains.

Now, if being waited on by top chefs wasn’t enough, another new feature is the Kitchen Party (21 September, Olive Bar & Kitchen, Mahalaxmi, Mumbai; 22 September, Olive at The Qutub, Mehrauli, Delhi). The party is a ticketed event for `1,500 where attendees get the chance to access the restaurant kitchens and interact with Olive’s head chefs, as well as guest chefs from other prominent restaurants in the city. The chefs will be dishing out hors d’oeuvres all evening and you can talk to them about what they are making, help out and even share a drink. It is, for all purposes, a cocktail party in a kitchen.

Here’s a chance to get drunk with your favourite food impresario. How much more exciting can it get?

Reservations for Chef’s Table Week (12-18 September) are already rolling. Bookings for Restaurant Week (19-25 September) open today.Visit www.restaurantweekindia.com for the list of participating restaurants and to make reservations.

Anindita Ghose

High tables: East: Pan Asia at ITC Maratha, Mumbai, is on the list for Chef’s Table Week.

ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPHER: PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS: In “Kashmir’s literary harvest”, 3 September, the surname of author Mirza Waheed was misspelt in one reference in some editions.

“Following the fallen angels”, 3 September, misspelt caste in a reference to caste Hindus.

L4 COLUMNS

LOUNGE

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

ROHIT BRIJNATH GAME THEORY

The journey of a philosophical pilgrim

I

EMMANUEL BERTHIER

t’s a trifle weird, but I am politely stroking the hands for roughness, blisters, callouses. Wondering about these hands that have pulled her almost to the summit of Everest, hands that have just dragged a

kicking camel across 1,600km of the Gobi Desert. Problem is, odd as it might look to my fellow diners, I should really be examining her feet.

Because, as Sim Yi Hui says, when she got back from her minor stroll through Mongolia, she could have got a substantial “discount” from her local pedicurist.

“I lost seven toenails in the desert,” she laughs. I’m appalled. What sort of people are these? I once chanced upon a picture of Reinhold Messner’s feet and could not look away, for they were a misshapen, amputated mess. For him and his tribe, though, this was a cosmically perfect deal. Climb all 14 peaks over 8,000m across the planet, without oxygen, for a handful of toes?

Any time.

My business is athletes and the more introspective ones will speak of journeys made—past circumstance, through doubt—as their true reward.

In this, they are adventurers themselves. But if athletes explore the boundaries of the self, these travellers to peaks, forests, rivers, deserts go further, they often explore the boundaries of the planet. Even as we remain imprisoned in our citadels of concrete, they venture out. Weeks ago, Diana Nyad set off on a swim, just 103 miles between Cuba and Florida. Sixty hours was the estimated time in the water. Sixty-one is her age.

The adventurer is distinct from the athlete because their risk to self is greater and death—sharks in Nyad’s case—hovers in the distance. Their rewards too are intriguing because they not defined, not how we like it to be. There is no winning here, no pay cheque, no medal. Even mountains when climbed aren’t really conquered for there is a hubris to that word.

Perhaps, that day, nature has just allowed them in. It is why every solo sail, every climb—even across the same geography—is different because no water, snow, sand is ever the same. Still, without material reward on offer, the city slicker is often baffled: Why climb, why walk? What did George Mallory mean when he explained his pursuit of Everest thus: “Because it’s there”?

We can identify a little with the athlete’s accomplishment because most of us have competed—even with a sibling—as children. But the adventurer’s pleasures are more foreign, even if simpler. I understand them only when Yi Hui begins to speak. She talks of the sense of privilege at walking amid nature’s fragility and of a world where nothing is instant like the city. She talks with a wonder about small things, perhaps just a gecko on an ungainly morning trot or bursting blisters with a sterilized needle. She talks of the beauty of the endless, open plain, about a sense of absurdity (she started talking to her camels), about having faith in adversity. Yet when she returns to the city, she is confronted with prosaic questions: “How did you manage without a bath for 51 days?”

I am envious of her, of her tribe, and their refusal to be chained by excuses. Because they push themselves towards their vertical and horizontal limits in the outdoors even as our adventures are restricted to fingers trekking across a phone. They are not prisoners of the trivial, not strangers to nature’s beauty, not deaf to the call of the wild and different cultures. We need them, in a way more than athletes, for they are mankind’s scouts, protectors of a spirit which once led us

DETOURS

SALIL TRIPATHI

TENANTS IN THE MONKEY’S VALLEY

F

Because it’s there: The beauty of open, endless land attracts adventure travellers.

of a stranger in a food court in Singapore. Checking

rom 7,000ft above sea level, the valley below looked red, the soil as fresh as though it had just been dug. The terrain was flat, with patches of trees and huts; herds of animals moved briskly and emitted dust, creating a blurred layer, like a photograph slightly off-focus. We stood there, silent, staring at that vast stillness.

This is where the earth parted once, creating two different plates. I was in the Rift Valley in Kenya, the centre of that vast, long stretch running across Africa, where everything began.

We resumed; further down the road we saw monkeys who feared nobody, who ran across roads as though they owned them. They looked intently at us, and if there were a piece of dead wood lying nearby, I’d have expected one of them to pick up that piece and fling it high, letting it soar, as though I was watching, in real time, the opening sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Only the monolith was missing. And also Sprach Zarathustra, the rousing

Richard Strauss piece, lifting you to another dimension.

The monkeys were there first; we were newcomers to this part of Africa. They owned the place; we were tenants. We come, take pictures; they are the landscape.

We watch, they live.

We were headed for a town called Kericho, at the edge of Mau forest, which has a square named after chai—for tea is grown in plenty in the highlands near this town. In Kericho, we woke up to the sounds of birds, the breeze shaking the curtains of our colonial guest house. With the conversation among birds as our constant companion, we walked along a clear path. At dusk, if you were lucky, you could spot an elephant; at night, the sky was full of stars.

The weather was crisp when we left the tea garden, looking like miles of neatly manicured green carpet. A handful of men and women plucked leaves which would later get sorted, air would get blown through the leaves, they’d get ground, allowed to turn the right shade

to discover this planet.

Once there were no maps, no water bodies marked, no routes known. Now adventurers, of every sort, are aided by technology, but it does not diminish them. Technology assisted Nyad, but it could not swim for her. Eventually, choppy waters, an asthma attack and injury stopped her midway. It is possible someone will affix the word “failure” to her, as they do to athletes, but it is misplaced. Not all solo sails across the world are completed, but “failure” is to miss the point of these expeditions, for they are the uncaging of a spirit.

of brown and black, and after being processed further, to be tasted—and tested—and packed at the factory in Jamji. The tea garden was evenly laid out, not a single leaf out of place, and it rose and fell with the landscape, looking like waves caught still.

Two days later, we passed through the valley again. This time, the sun was bright. As we descended into the valley, the sun disappeared behind white clouds, its harsh light managing to penetrate through the layers.

It was afternoon and the thick haze cast a pall over the red earth, now looking yellow and brown, and the solitary trees, the remote huts and the Masai herdsmen, looked like crayon

Three hours into her swim, Nyad’s shoulder hurt. Yet she swam on for 29 hours. When she was pulled from the water, she was vomiting. “I don’t feel like a failure,” she said. How could she? How could a person of such fortitude, who reminded us of where the physical and mental self can go at 61, be a failure?

I talk about Nyad, hope and toenails with Sim Yi Hui. Few athletes I have met are like her for she is a dreamer of landscapes, a challenger of the self, a philosophical pilgrim. She is also crazy. In two years, she wants to walk across the Greenland ice sheet. I tell

drawings, all granular. The crystalline clarity of that dawn belonged to another time, when the air was cold and the light gentle.

Throughout our ride from Jamji to Nairobi that day, we were chasing a mirage, glistening a mile ahead of us. It would quake and tremble as our car got closer. It would then disappear, only to emerge nearer the horizon, like quicksilver enjoying teasing us, shifting quickly as soon as our chasing fingers got any closer.

On one side we saw wheat fields looking golden, on the other, a resplendent African bazaar. Women in bright reds and yellows sold corn and chicken, young boys ran with

her, when you start training, let me know. She replies, I’ll be easy to find.

I’ll be the girl walking a humid city, dragging along car tyres like a sled, and thinking of the snow.

Rohit Brijnath is a senior correspondent with The Straits Times, Singapore.

Write to Rohit at gametheory@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Rohit’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/rohit­brijnath

carrots and peas in plastic bags, a hawker had spread out an array of shining shoes, another sold plastic buckets, and in a corner you saw a billboard advertising an evangelical priest offering instant salvation, placed above a hair-dressing salon that promised to straighten your hair and lighten your skin.

The hills stood oblivious of this. They were green, but today, they seemed to change colours, as the sun shifted its position. Now they were blue, at times grey, sometimes they’d darken, seeming black, and once, they even looked like a white apparition, so faint, as haze settled firmly in the valley.

How green were those hills, SANDIPAN DAS/MINT

and how red the valley, even as the film of haze covered much of the landscape. On one side was Masai Mara, the national park where the animals ruled.

To the left was the saltwater lake Nakuru, where the pink blanket of flamingos covered a part of the lake. But on the highway, as we passed through another market town, the animals we encountered were all domesticated, following their masters’ orders—the sheep, head down, following the boy with the stick; the cows, marching quickly through the field, obeying the tall man.

The human triumph over nature was complete by the time we entered a Nairobi suburb. The animals were caged, or in enclosed areas, in a safe, child-friendly national park. The wild abandon of the valley had been tamed. The gulmohar shone from the branches; the jacaranda soothed the streets with its purple gaze; and there was laburnum itself, drooping like yellow necklaces. Meanwhile, the Ngong Hills filled the horizon, the five peaks clustered together, like a clenched fist, the knuckles visible.

Write to Salil at detours@livemint.com

Hills have eyes: On one side of the Masai Mara in Kenya are villages with domesticated animals.

www.livemint.com Read Salil’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/detours

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food

SPESH

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

Essentially Tamil: (left) Idli, easy to cook and pronounce, has travelled well, but not vathal kuzhambu (below); and Naren Thimmaiah, executive chef, Gateway Hotel, Bangalore, shows us how to make vathal kuzhambu.

THE GOOD LIFE SHOBA NARAYAN

SURVIVAL OF THE TASTIEST? If a Tamilian can eat a ‘samosa’, why don’t Punjabis demand ‘vathal kuzhambu’?

Y

ou don’t realize this as you tuck into that breakfast, but India is in the throes of a grand culinary experiment. What are you eating, by the way? Is it a dosa, paratha, samosa, brun maska or luchi? Your answer could determine the future of your favourite dish.

Why do some dishes travel so far from their origins and why do other dishes stay locked within a region?

Take the pizza, for example. It originated as a Mediterranean flatbread. The term was probably first used in 10th century Italy. After World War II, American troops brought it back home; the franchises took over, and the dish has taken over the world. We have Brazilian sweet pizza with fruit toppings, Israeli kosher versions, and toppings reflecting the nation, such as bulgogi, tandoori chicken and sambal paste.

Pizza has the three factors that allow a dish to travel: It is dry, allowing for easy packing; its ingredients allow for local adaptations; it is not complicated to cook; and can be made using a simple chulha (coal stove) or a brick oven. In India, the samosa fits these criteria, which is probably why it has travelled so well across our land, not to mention lent its name to the hilarious website Samosapedia.

Consider, in contrast, the humble vathal kuzhambu, from the Tam-Brahm heartland of Thanjavur district. It uses primarily two ingredients: dried vegetables, called vathal; and lots of tamarind water. The vathals are

simmered in tamarind water till the gravy becomes thick. Spices such as asafoetida, salt and chilli powder give it flavour. I am simplifying the recipe, but you get the picture. My question is this: Why did a recipe that originated in Iran take over the Indian subcontinent while a far easier recipe with far fewer ingredients failed to travel beyond its borders? In other words, if a Tamilian can eat a samosa, why don’t Punjabis demand vathal kuzhambu?

It is a dilemma that would do Darwin proud. The evolution of dishes; survival of the tastiest; cross-border migration; deep-fried or else you are out.

Common wisdom holds that the reason Punjabi dishes have spread all over India is because they travelled the road with Punjabi

truckers. Then why hasn’t the supposedly ubiquitous Malayali tea-shop owner cooked and sold his appam and stew wherever he set up shop? If demand drives markets, why isn’t there a market for kori gassi, sabudana vada, sarapatel or yakhni?

Sociologist Arjun Appadurai has suggested that some of this has to do with regional character. Subtle cuisines and softer people are often overtaken by more assertive cuisines and aggressive people: Telugu by Tamil; Oriya by Bengali; Kannada by Marathi; Rajasthani by Gujarati; and Kashmiri by Punjabi. You could argue the specifics but it is true that some regional dishes are not as popular as they should be. With canned coconut milk available all over India, you could argue that solkadhi should be more popular than it is. With today’s emphasis on healthy food, shouldn’t sprouted Maharashtrian usal have taken over Indian kitchens? And please, don’t

PHOTOGRAPHS

tell me that a samosa is easier to make than an idli, which fits all the parameters of a travelling dish: It is dry, easy to cook, and open to regional adaptation—witness the idli Manchurian. Then why don’t people in Binsar or Raichur eat idlis, choosing instead to painstakingly fry a samosa?

Some of it has to do with marketing. While the dosa and sambhar that I eat four mornings a week (if I can) is known to all my Punjabi and Gujarati friends, who modify it with pinches of garam masala and sugar, respectively, no Tamilian has marketed the vathal kuzhambu. The name itself is pretty difficult.

Here I come to my core theory of culinary supremacy. It’s all in the name. Any dish with more than three syllables is doomed. Dharwad people sing the praises of badane ennegai (stuffed brinjal—seven syllables) but do you think it stands a chance next to the four-syllable

BY

ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT

baingan bharta? Do you think a Dilliwala can even pronounce a mezhukku varati, let alone desire to order it? Do you think a south Indian like me can memorize kobi bataka nu shaak as compared with a short and simple dhokla? You Mumbai folk might be able to say patra ni macchi with elan, but I tried ordering it for a friend and didn’t get beyond the patra, which is a leafy “ghaas-phoos” (vegetarian) dish made with Colocasia leaves.

Want to predict the future of Indian dishes? It’s all in the name.

Shoba Narayan loves her biryanis (four syllables but still famous) and her samosas (three syllables), but cannot live without her dosa (two syllables). Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/shoba­narayan

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

LOUNGE

food

SPESH

PIECE OF CAKE PAMELA TIMMS

MACAROONS, MADE IN KASHMIR PHOTOGRAPHS

A more straightforwardly cheering mouthful of sweetness is impossible to imagine

D

al Lake is a beautiful but surreal place and one of its most bizarre experiences is the daily floating market. To get there, you’re bundled from a cosy houseboat bed while it’s still dark, tipped into a waiting shikara and swaddled in a pile of blankets.

At first there’s no sign of any life, let alone a bustling market; just the soft plop of oars on the water’s surface. Then, gradually, from mosques along the shore and the town beyond, the sound of a thousand prayers builds to a great wall of sound.

Just as you’re about to fall into the deepest hypnotic state, through the mist appears someone whose boat’s paintwork proclaims him to be “Mr Wonderful Flower Man”, a youth for whom the word “groovy” seems to cover every eventuality. We are “groovy”, his boat is “groovy” and his flowers, which he’s waving madly in our faces, are definitely “groovy”.

The appearance of the persistent Mr Wonderful is a sign you’ve reached the entrance to the market. The man will stop at nothing to be the first to greet tourists and you may find it impossible to proceed further until you’re the proud owner of a posy for your houseboat and a selection of unspecified Himalayan bulbs.

If you do make it into the market there will be a dozen or so bobbing shikaras, each with a modest pile of greens in the bow; spinach, onions, perhaps a few lotus roots. The resigned looking, pheran-shrouded

hawkers, who outnumber customers by about 10 to one, seem to offload most of their produce by bartering with each other. The wheels of commerce are oiled by the floating chaiwallah dispensing strong cups of the local brew, kahva.

Most of the morning’s brief trade is conducted in the first, flimsy light of day; then, as the sun starts to twinkle on the water, the boats disappear quickly under the bridge and back to their villages.

Perhaps the last thing you might expect to see is a floating cake shop. More surprising still are the cakes on sale—from a metal box appears an incongruous stash: breads which look like bagels, which I later learn are a local morning bread called tsachvoru, handmade chocolates and something which instantly transports me back to childhood: macaroons.

Long before Laduree was thrilling the world with its “macaron caramel beurre salé”, the English were making the more rustic “macaroons”.

Recipes for these date back to the 1700s, traditionally using ground almonds but more recently, dried coconut. The British loved their little macaroons (often topped with a garish glacé cherry) so much they stuffed some in their trunks en route to the colonies, where they now pop up in bakeries everywhere from Old Delhi to Srinagar.

Sadly, the traditional macaroon has fallen out of favour in Britain, probably

BY

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

Sweet memories: (top) Mix together coconut, chocolate chips and condensed milk; and place heaped teaspoons on a baking tray. finding it hard to compete with the ubiquitous cupcake. These days you’re much more likely to find them in Kashmir than Kettering. Which is a pity because a more straightforwardly cheering mouthful of sweetness is impossible to imagine.

Note: Most English macaroon recipes use whisked egg whites and sometimes flour to give a more biscuit-y bite but here for the Piece of Cake egg-free series, I’ve used only condensed milk and vanilla extract to bind together the coconut.

‘Kashmiri’ Macaroons MAKES ABOUT 18

Ingredients 200g flaked, dried coconut 225g condensed milk 1 tsp real vanilla extract A pinch of salt 50g dark chocolate chips Method Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Put the coconut, condensed milk, vanilla extract, salt and chocolate chips in a large bowl and mix well until everything

is completely blended.

Take heaped teaspoons of the mixture and drop on to the parchment paper. Lightly shape them—I remember the macaroons of my childhood had pointy tops, but they can be any shape—and press to bind together gently.

Place in the oven and bake for about 10 minutes. They

should be golden brown but watch them because they burn easily.

Pamela Timms is a Delhi-based journalist and food writer. She blogs at Eatanddust.com Write to Pamela at pieceofcake@livemint.com

www.livemint.com To watch a video on how to bake ‘Kashmiri’ macaroons, visit www.livemint.com/macaroons.htm Read Pamela’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/pieceofcake

VIDEO

THINKSTOCK

LEARNING CURVE GOURI DANGE

FOOD CRITIC AT HOME

Seeking constant and comprehensive approval from our children is a pointless exercise My 14-year-old daughter recently declared, “I don’t like anything you cook in this house.” I take a lot of trouble over the food, whether it’s made by me or the cook. Not only does her comment hurt, I don’t know what to do—we can’t order in all the time. She often tells me that the food in friends’ houses is much better.

Nowadays, she brings back her school tiffin untouched.

Well, one of the perfect weapons in an adolescent’s armoury is to hit out at mom’s cooking. And see how it gets most mothers right where it hurts! While all of us want our children to eat well and enjoy home food, it is not possible to please the fast-expanding mind and palate of a 14-year-old at all meals. Yes, you could sit her down and ask her what she would like in her tiffin box, but I would

urge you not to feel so deeply hurt by her comments. Seeking brownie points—constant and comprehensive approval—from our children on this count is a bit of a pointless exercise on two counts. One, you can’t win when they compare your cooking with that made in someone else’s home and in fast-food places; rest assured that your youngster will keep changing the goalpost if you try to reach the “other people’s cooking” goal! Two, they really need to understand that their homes are not places fine-tuned to fulfil their every whim and demand. Nutritious, tasty food on time and in adequate quantities is what it’s about at most meals, and fun and fast food for some meals.

The next time she talks about someone else’s tasty food, try not to be defensive. In fact, you could join in her admiration for that

food. You could even suggest she find out exactly how it is made and perhaps try her hand at making it herself or help you make it that way. Just for fun, and not to “improve” your cooking skills in her eyes, please.

Do not appear hurt, defensive or lecturing about the food made in your home. Going into injured pride mode is pointless too—many parents in your situation take recourse to sulky responses such as “I’m sorry, that’s the best I can do, and what can I do if it doesn’t measure up to your standards?”

Avoid that totally.

Some parents fall into the zone where they go on the offensive and list all the sheer hard work that goes into keeping house and generating meals, and also go into the nasty area of saying, “Well, you’re comparing me with

so-and-so’s mother, I will compare you with so-and-so’s child and tell you the many things that that child does better than you.” These are avoidable ways of handling a youngster complaining about her home situation.

I urge you to give yourself the approbation you seek from your child—for being a parent who provides food and thought-out meals. Also, take heart in the fact that one fine day in the not-too-distant future, the same child will miss your food and remember home meals with extreme fondness and yearning, and will be waiting to come home to your cooking!

Gouri Dange is the author of ABCs of Parenting.

Write to Gouri at learningcurve@livemint.com

Food can be fun: Try to involve your child in the process of cooking.

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SERVING SECRETS Chefs and food consultants tell us how to serve Indian food right B Y K OMAL S HARMA komal.sharma@livemint.com

···························· n the Mughal sultanat, dining was an elaborate and meticulous process. A runner or dastarkhan, which also means banquet, was spread out on the carpeted floors, along with cushions. Royalty was served in gold and silver crockery, studded with precious stones. Sherbet arrived in a katora (bowl), followed by the main courses, and concluded with paan (betel leaf) served in a casket called paandaan.

Such a ritual may not be feasible today. But good food needs tableware to match. And restaurateurs and chefs understand the significance of parosna (serving) in Indian cuisine.

Food consultant and restaurateur

I

Kebab shots: Varq finds creative, new ways to serve Indian food.

Marut Sikka paid extra attention to tableware when he set up Kainoosh in Vasant Kunj, New Delhi. “Indians generally don’t pre-plate food like in Italian or French cuisine. So the bartan (vessel) is of critical importance,” he says.

Chef Hemant Oberoi of the Taj group thought it so critical to have the right tableware that he decided to go contemporary with Varq, the Indian eatery at Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi.

“Though our plating is a complete diversion from how food is eaten and served in India, we’ve still taken cues from our cuisine only. We don’t want to toss in everything together and mix up flavours. So we separate the salty from the bitter from the sour,” says Oberoi. Varq serves dishes in bone china

manufactured by Bauscher, designed especially for Varq by Thomas Keller, chef and owner of the much awarded California restaurant, French Laundry. So you’ll see a jalebi standing vertically on a white porcelain plate, or Ganderi kebabs served in tall glasses.

At Kainoosh, the food is served in a traditional thali, with a few variations. Instead of steel or copper, the plate is made of frosted glass, with six katoris (bowls) of tinned brass. “Katoris are a must with Indian food. An array of katoris with different foods serves the purpose of neutralizing and breaking food fatigue,” says Sikka.

There are differently shaped katoris for different foods. The shallow ones are for food that needs better display, such as a shank of lamb or stuffed karela (bitter gourd); deeper and narrower ones are used for liquid foods such as dal or yogurt.

Lounge food columnist Pamela Timms marvels at what colourful linen can do for a table. “Indian food tends to look the same colour, like all dals, curries, sambhar, etc. So it’s a good idea to set tableware off against vibrant tablecloths and napkins.” Also, she recommends glazed earthenware crockery that’s made in Auroville. “The hammered steel trays you find in Old Delhi can be used as rice trays or to serve some dry snacks,” she adds.

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Art on a plate: Jalebis at Varq; and (below) Kai­ noosh’s frosted glass and brass thali.

PHOTOGRAPHS

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DIVYA BABU/MINT

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WHAT WE EAT PHOTOGRAPHS

Indians eat a varied diet driven largely by the area they hail from and the seasonal availability of foods. Economic considerations are also instrumental in driving choices. We profiled the dietary habits of four urban households, largely representative of their economic class, to see if there were any telling differences

BY

ARATI RAO

NEW INDIA NOSH S

B Y A RATI R AO ····························

The Thakers Monthly spend on food (approx.)

`22,000

Daily calorie intake per person: 1,800­2,000 kcal (approx.)

Total members: Seven (four of the family plus three domestic helpers) Daily staple: ‘Sambhariya’, a dry, mixed vege­ table made with coconut and spices Bineet Thaker, 40, a senior manager with a multinational corporation in Bangalore, and Sarita Thaker, 33, a market analyst with the same firm, love food.

Honouring the tradition from Bineet’s side of the family, the couple have employed a live-in maharaj, or cook, who has been with Bineet’s family for several years. The maharaj, who used to work in Nagpur at Bineet’s ancestral home, specializes in Gujarati cuisine (the Thakers being Gujaratis) and can dish out a lavish, finger-luscious vegetarian meal at short notice. His repertoire is not limited—he can make Indian-Chinese, pastas and pizzas too. Maharaj has learnt to work with basil, broccoli and mushrooms too.

The daily menu in the Thaker household is varied and nutritious. The maharaj avers taste comes from the generous use of ghee (clarified butter).

Sarita, who manages the daily menu, is conscious of their calorie intake and curbs his partiality to fat, much to his chagrin.

A two-course breakfast—cornflakes with milk, followed by a different hot dish every day, such as idlis, upma, dosas or omelettes—signals the start of the

Lavish spread: Food in the Thaker household is cooked by a maharaj in traditional Gujarati style. day. Their children—Ayush (6) and Aashna (2)—eat warm cereals such as oats with milk for breakfast.

Ayush and Bineet leave the house after breakfast and carry packed lunch which consists of the main dish: parathas with raita or fried rice or roti-subzi.

After breakfast, Sarita, who works from home for the first half of the day, downs a glass of buttermilk mid-morning and a fruit—an apple, mango or banana—to keep her going until lunch.

The main meals—lunch and dinner—consist of salad, rotis, a gravy-based vegetable dish such as palak paneer, a dry vegetable dish such as their favourite sambhariya (a dry, mixed vegetable preparation), a lentil or a kadhi, with yogurt.

The family consumes about 3 litres of milk every day. When Ayush and Bineet get back, in time for Bournvita and tea, respectively, maharaj has some warm popped lotus seeds (makhana) or boiled unshelled peanuts waiting for them.

The family has a sweet tooth and usually something sweet, such as gud-papdi—a traditional jaggery and wheat dish—or laddoos made with a variety of ingredients—is always available.

When guests drop by, or on special occasions such as festivals or parties, maharaj steps into high gear. Samosas, kachoris, bread pakodas (fried fritters), colourful chutneys, ragda patties, dhoklas, khandvis, chhaas, jaljeera, bhel—name it and it spills out of the kitchen.

The Pandeys

lentil preparation which carries over into lunch for the whole family, with lots of white rice instead of parathas. She then packs lunch for herself and leaves for work. Kunal, Kaushal and Juhi eat at home, though Kunal admits he sneaks out occasionally for a change.

When the family congregates in the evening, the treats come out. Hemwanti dishes up either a halwa (a sweet semolina preparation) or pakodas and, of course, tea. This snack is eaten rather late, finishing closer to 9pm. Kamal Kishore indulges in his fix of hard liquor and by the time the family sits down to eat dinner, it is pushing midnight. Dinner mirrors lunch in terms of menu.

Dairy, in this family, is only in the form of tea and a glass of milk drunk by the sons at night. The family consumes about 1.5 litres of milk every day. They do not eat yogurt. Most meals are vegetarian since Hemwanti does not cook meat. But Kamal Kishore does, and once a week he prepares a chicken dish or egg curry. Fruit consumption is also minimal, with a papaya being eaten occasionally.

Festival time, birthday parties and any other celebrations see paneer (cottage cheese) dishes, aloo dum with puri and kheer.

Monthly spend on food (approx.)

`10,000

Daily calorie intake per person: 2,500 kcal (approx.)

Total members: Five Daily staple: White rice and potatoes

Home chef: Hemwanti Pandey cooks all the meals.

Hemwanti Pandey, 42, works as a masseuse in Bangalore. She lives in a tiny apartment with her husband, who works as a driver in a garment company, two sons and a daughter. Juhi, 17, helps around the house while Kunal, 21, her elder son, aspires to join the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and spends all day studying. Kaushal, 17, has just finished school.

Hemwanti does the bulk of the cooking. The day begins with a cup of sweet milky tea for everyone.

Fresh parathas (made using sunflower oil) with a vegetable dish are next, with more tea. One vegetable the family cannot do without is potato, which is added in all dishes. The vegetable dishes are prepared in mustard oil, a throwback to the tradition followed in the area the Pandeys hail from—Bihar.

Hemwanti packs lunch for her husband, Kamal Kishore (50), and more often than not it is the same food they’ve had for breakfast, with the addition of a

Diet analysis: “The Thakers should guard against empty calories. It is easy for children in that bracket to snack on fatty or starchy food. Sweetened drinks are another red flag. Sedentary lifestyles don’t lend themselves well to luxuries in calories that more active groups can afford, but ironically, may not have money to spend on,” says Bangalore-based diet counsellor Mansi Bhartia.

Diet analysis: “The Pandeys eat a diet high in fat and carbohydrate but low in vitamins. They do not spend on fruits or consume enough dairy,” Bhartia observes. “If they supplemented their diet with fruits, it will improve their vitamin intake hugely.”

edentary India must eat less. The combined assault of globalized food and little physical activity has altered the eating requirements of the country across sectors, and to meet these changes, a new Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) was announced on 27 July.

The latest RDA, a revision from its 1998 version, charts specific calorie intake for separate categories of men and women—sedentary, moderately heavy labour, or heavy physical labour. Overall the verdict is that new India is exerting itself less, and must, therefore, reduce overall calorie intake.

Prepared by the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad, the nodal agency for the plan, this RDA attempts to localize the understanding of dietary patterns.

The current RDA is based on the lifestyle changes recorded in the last 10 years and also takes into account the local public distribution system, government spending and population data.

“The change in traditional to modern foods, changing cooking practices, increased intake of processed and ready-to-eat foods, intensive marketing of junk foods and ‘health beverages’ have affected people’s perception of food as well as dietary behaviour,” says the report.

While these processed foods have penetrated deep into urban pockets, they’re not far from the rural population either, says D. Raghunatha Rao, assistant director and convener, extension and training division, NIN. “Carbonated beverages are common in villages, and a lot of the rural population has shifted from heavy farm labour to other jobs that are not as physically intensive. So their diet remains more calorific, but is not matched by output,” he says.

In addition, a lot of traditional foods, such as millets, that used to be a staple for many areas, are not being consumed or cultivated.

Millets such as jowar, bajra, etc., give essential fibre and micronutrients, he adds.

Basing the guidelines on the ideal adult male (20-39 years with 60kg body weight) and female (18-29 years with 55kg body weight), the energy requirements are thus: For men in sedentary jobs, 2,320 calories; for men doing moderate work, 2,730, for men performing heavy work, 3,490 calories. For women in sedentary jobs, it is 1,900 calories; for those in moderate work, 2,230, and for women doing heavy work, 2,850 calories.

“Although overall people from all these groups show a decrease in physical activity, the only category where the calorie intake has been increased is the 13-17 category,” says Rao. The calcium requirement too has been raised, from 400mg per day to 600mg, for both men and women. Vitamin D will be soon added to the list.

Salt, used more generously in India than globally, has been flagged for causing hypertension. The requirement has been brought down from 10g per day to 6g, from all sources. “Excessive salt has become a way of life because of all the processed and junk foods being consumed nowadays. But excess sodium causes hypertension and the only way to prevent this from happening is, control the intake of salt,” Rao says.

Shreya Ray

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Acchamma Monthly spend on food (approx.)

`3,000

Daily calorie intake per person: 900­1,000 kcal (approx.)

Total members: Five Daily staple: ‘Ragi mudde’ Acchamma, 70, works as a caretaker and lives in a small one-bedroom accommodation at Vanitha Sadhana Girls High School, a school for destitute girls, in Mysore. Two of her sons, Chandrashekhar, in his 50s, a shopkeeper, and Nagaraj, in his 40s, an electrician, as well as her daughter Uma’s 13-year-old son Punit live with her. Uma, 38, a helper at the school, visits daily and has at least one meal at Acchamma’s house.

Acchamma, who cooks and keeps house, prepares food for five people, including herself, daily.

The meals are simple and usually consist of a maximum of two dishes. Acchamma estimates that they use about a quarter-kilo of cereal for the family per meal and pegs the daily food bill at about `100.

The day starts with breakfast, which is a mixedrice dish (made with spices and maybe eggplant) or semolina upma. Breakfast is washed down

with coffee and Acchamma sets about preparing lunch and dinner soon after. Usually, the family eats finger-millet dough, called ragi mudde, with sambhar. The sambhar is made with vegetables such as carrots, drumsticks and beans, but more importantly, always contains sprouted lentils—chickpea, peanuts or even green gram—which are home-made.

Acchamma grinds the ingredients for the sambhar daily, using spices such as cinnamon, cloves, pepper, chillies and garlic. She buys about 20g of each spice and this lasts for the month.

Dairy is consumed in the form of a cup of yogurt for each member with at least one meal. The vegetable intake is limited to whatever goes into the sambhar and rarely does the family eat side dishes.

The meals are vegetarian. Other than banana, the family hardly eats any fruit. Sometimes, they do get locally grown jackfruit and mangoes. Dinner consists of leftovers from lunch. Ragi mudde, being heavy and not easily digestible, is not eaten at night and is substituted with white rice.

For a festival or puja, a special treat such as a payasam or kheer (thickened milk, sugar and vermicelli or rice) is made.

Diet analysis: “Acchamma’s family, while not being malnourished, could do with about 500 or so more calories, given their activity levels. Their diet is high in protein, thanks to ragi, which stands them in good stead. This may not be the case in cultures where ragi is not popular,” says Bhartia.

Multitasker: Acchamma cooks lunch and dinner at one go.

Green zone: Nirmala at her farm outside Mysore, the source of all the vegetables the family cooks every day.

OUT OF THE ORDINARY The Chandrashekhars Monthly spend on food (approx.), on buying cereals

`3,000

Daily calorie intake per person: 1,800­2,000 kcal (approx.)

Total members: Four Special treat: Fig ‘halwa’ made with jaggery The Chandrashekhar family lives an interesting gastronomic life. There are stark differences in their kitchen habits from those of a middle-class urban household because they eat what they grow on their farm outside Mysore. The senior couple has written books in Kannada on seasonal, natural and healthy eating.

The household consists of Nirmala (48), her husband A.P. Chandashekhar (53), son Abhijith (27) and daughter-in-law Shrilatha (22). While the Chandrashekhars own a fridge, they use it only to store milk. Everything else is freshly prepared and consumed immediately. They use only coconut oil for cooking, and minimally at that. They eat a lot of greens and use the leaves of almost all the

SWEET, SOUR OR SPICY Don’t be fooled by the unassuming dollop on your plate: chutney comes in mind­boggling varieties B Y S HREYA R AY shreya.r@livemint.com

···························· he word chutney has been borrowed to describe Chutney Music, a genre of Indo-Caribbean fusion music created by Indian immigrants who moved to the Caribbean. Midnight’s

T

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT; LOCATION & FOOD COURTESY ITC MARATHA, MUMBAI

Children, Salman Rushdie’s epic novel, uses chutney as a metaphor to talk about biases in personal narratives. The word itself can be traced back to its Sanskrit origins—chatan, meaning, to lick. Perhaps, that must be its primary objective.

Sweet, salty, sour, spicy,

grasshoppers, marijuana and mangoes, there aren’t too many flavours or things that haven’t been chutnified. “The chutney is primarily an aperitif that was created as an accompaniment to something,” says Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal, a Mumbaibased food writer.

This being the brief, the chutney has been interpreted locally.

“Despite the teeny-weeny space it occupies on the plate, the varieties of the chutney are mind-boggling,” she adds.

Chutneys can be fresh, made just by p o u n d i n g together ingredients like the

Explosion of flavour: (clockwise from left) Coconut chutney, tomato chutney, tamarind chutney, green curry leaf chutney and beetroot chutney.

vegetables they grow. The family does not believe in buying vegetables from outside. They amend their diet according to the seasons.

A typical day at the Chandrashekhars’ farm starts with a breakfast of dosas. These are made with no oil, and cover-cooked. The dosas can be made with cucumbers and ground rice, while the chutneys are made with mango (in season) and mustard. On other days, they make dosas out of the stem of the banana plant (locally known as dindu) with ground rice. A cup of coffee accompanies the dosas. Lunch is rasam (a tamarind and jaggery spiced soup), wild, boiled rice with a side dish of black-eyed peas, majjige huli (a yogurt preparation, a little like the Gujarati kadhi but not sweet). Avial, made with different vegetables cut in 1-inch pieces mixed with mango or tamarind, is a must along with a cup of yogurt per family member. There is no concept of snacking in this household. Working on the farm takes up the entire afternoon and the Chandrashekhars return home at dusk to eat an early dinner, which mirrors their lunch.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

celebrated coconut chutney in most southern states, or they can be cooked. The tamarind chutneys from the southern states, and most Bengali chutneys, like the plastic chutney with papaya, or the common tomato chutney, are usually cooked. The cooked chutney category overlaps slightly with pickles and most dictionaries describe pickles as a subset of the chutney, says Ghildiyal.

“Chutneys have no preservatives unless some ingredient by default works as a preservative, like in the south they use tamarind, which is also a preservative. In other places, lemon juice or vinegar serves the same purpose,” says Ghildiyal.

Like most cuisine, the chutney adapts itself to local produce and local needs. Colder climes in Uttarakhand, for instance, have given rise to a til ki chutney (sesame seed chutney) as well as a bhang ki chutney (marijuana coupled with kagzi nimboo, a type of lime), both consumed for their heatinducing properties.

The same way, most of the coastal chutneys have a lot of chillies, first because of their easy availability (especially green chilli on the coasts), but also because chillies—and the sweat they induce—help keep the body cool, says chef Manu Nair, Dakshin, ITC Grand Maratha, Mumbai.

The chutney is popular in almost every pocket of the country but in the south, the chutney is present in “pretty much all the three meals of the day”, says Nair. There are two types of

chutneys, classified by how perishable they are: fresh chutneys that need to be consumed on a daily basis (the common chutneys with coconut, coriander, tomatoes), and the longer-lasting ones.

These non-perishable ones have evolved because of the pilgrimages that happened—and still happen—in the south.

The longer-lasting ones come in varieties: podi (dry chutneys) and thovial (semi-dry). “Thovial, because of the high level of tamarind, can stay fresh for a long time—such as pumpkin thovial, cabbage thovial.

Podis are made with varieties of dal that are first roasted, mixed with spices, then dried, and tamarind is added to them,” says Nair. The most popular podi—now also sold packaged

by MTR—is the mulaga podi or gunpowder that goes well with idli and dosa.

The idea of a chutney being the same as “reduction” (a fruit/ vegetable cooked to a concentrate) has worked well with Indian chefs hoping to contemporarize Indian food. Chef Joy Banerjee, chef-owner of Bohemian, a fine dining restaurant in Kolkata, has used the traditional Bengali kashundi (a chutney made using mustard and a touch of mango) to make a stirfried chicken with orange, for his Durga Puja menu this year.

An already popular item on his menu is the grilled fish marinated with cool-er (kul) chutney. “The cool-er chutney contains chilli, coriander, works as a wonderful sweet-sour marinade for the fish,” says Banerjee.

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EVERYONE’S INVITED Assam

Orissa

Hurung is a dessert fit for Ahom kings. It is usually eaten after a thali of “royal” food (peppery pigeon meat, mustardy hilsa). It has warm, melted jaggery, thick clotted cream and hurum rice (puffed rice, which is a crispier version of muri).

A plebeian version is eaten for breakfast, where the puffed rice is substituted with chira (flat or beaten rice), bora (sticky rice) or sandor guri (ground rice) and doi (sweetened yogurt) or milk for cream.

Kashmir In a cold climate such as Kashmir’s, richness in food is a given. But in a cuisine of whole spices and a generous dose of red chilli, there are few options for sweets and desserts. The shufta is a rare exception, traditionally prepared during festivals and marriages. A lavish assortment of dry fruits and saffron, shufta’s basic purpose is to induce heat in the body, so winter might be a good time to try this.

Shufta

SERVES 4 Ingredients 125g paneer (cottage cheese) 25g whole cashew nuts 25g almonds 20g raisins 25g dry dates 20g coconut (dry, desiccated or fresh) 1-2 small cardamoms 20g desi ghee (clarified butter) A pinch of saffron Method Before you begin making the shufta, keep the following prepared: For sugar syrup, take 1 litre water and 1kg sugar, and boil together till the quantity halves.

Soak seedless dates and raisins in water for an hour before cooking the shufta.

Peel the almonds and cut into smaller pieces.

Chop cashew nuts and slice the coconut.

Dice cottage cheese into tiny pieces and deep-fry.

To make the shufta, take a thick-bottomed pan and heat desi ghee. Sautè some crushed cardamoms and strands of saffron. Add the cottage cheese.

In another pan, blanch the dry fruits and coconut; strain and add to the pan along with the sugar syrup. Mix well and garnish with saffron on top.

Recipe courtesy Chor Bizarre, Savoy Suites, Sector 16, Noida.

Hurung

Bihar

SERVES 6

The Biharis are fond of red meat and keema (minced mutton) is a particular favourite. The keema aloo chop makes for a perfect teatime snack or even a starter, especially for those who are bored with the usual pakodas or fried fare. The semolina coating gives this cutlet a slightly crunchy texture.

Keema Aloo Chop

MAKES 2 PIECES

Ingredients 250g potatoes, boiled 400g onion 1 tsp garam masala K tsp garlic-ginger paste A pinch of cumin powder 80g keema (minced meat) 4 tbsp suji (semolina) 2 tbsp refined flour K tsp green chillies K tsp coriander, chopped Salt to taste Oil to fry Method Cook the keema with 150g onion, K tsp garam masala and garlic-ginger paste. It should take about 10-15 minutes. Add salt. Leave aside to cool. You can also use leftover cooked keema. Sauté the remaining onions until golden brown and crispy and leave aside.

Take the boiled potatoes and mash them. Add the golden brown onions, remaining garam masala, cumin powder, green chillies, coriander, salt and mix well. Now make a boat-shaped patty and put in the keema. Close the patty.

Make a thin batter of refined flour and water and dip the patty in this watery mix. Now coat the patty with semolina on both sides and deep-fry in hot oil.

Serve the cutlets with tomato, coriander chutney and pao bhaji buns.

Recipe courtesy Puja Sahu, The Pot Belly, Shahpur Jat, New Delhi.

Karnataka Obbattu or holige occupies an important spot in any festive meal in Karnataka. It can be served with ghee or milk when hot, or even eaten with fruit salad as an accompaniment.

The ingredients for the dish change according to the area of the state—while Mangaloreans and Bangaloreans make it with boiled dal (lentils) or jaggery as a stuffing, it is made with grated coconut and jaggery in Udupi district.

MAKES 15 PIECES Ingredients For the dough 500g refined flour 5g turmeric 100ml sesame/ groundnut oil Salt to taste For the filling 1 coconut, grated 100g jaggery 10g powdered cardamom 25ml ghee Method Mix the refined flour with water, salt and turmeric to make a soft dough. Pour the sesame/groundnut oil around the dough and rest it for 3 hours.

For the filling, grind the grated coconut to a coarse paste. Heat pounded jaggery in a thick-bottomed pan and add the coconut paste. Stir till the mixture thickens. Add cardamom powder and half the quantity of ghee. Keep aside. Now make small rounds of the dough and slightly smaller rounds of the coconut mixture. Push the coconut balls inside the dough, cover it well and then flatten with a rolling pin greased with oil. Heat a skillet, and cook both sides with ghee, until golden brown.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PRIYANKA PARASHAR, DIVYA BABU, ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY, ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR & DHRUBA DUTTA/MINT

VIDEO

Recipe courtesy Shillong-based freelance writer Janice Pariat.

Obbattu

Recipe courtesy chef Venkatesh Bhat, South Indies, Indira Nagar, Bangalore.

SLIDE SHOW

Ingredients 250g jaggery 200g puffed rice 2 cups cream 1 cup water Desiccated coconut (optional) Method Cook the cream in a heavy-bottomed pot on top of a double boiler (over simmering water) until it is reduced to about half. It should be the consistency of butter, with a golden crust on top. Let it cool and refrigerate overnight. Stir crust into cream before serving. Melt lumps of jaggery with water and strain through a sieve to ensure a smooth, thick consistency. Place the puffed rice in a bowl, spoon the clotted cream on it and pour the jaggery. Garnish with desiccated coconut.

To watch our chefs and food consultants cook the recipes, visit www.livemint.com/foodmap.htm For recipes from Gujarat and Puducherry, visit www.livemint.com/maprecipes.htm

Rajasthan Biscuit bhakri is a non-baked version of the traditional cookie. Ideal as an evening snack with saffron milk or sweet tea, this disc of dough can either be sweet, savoury or a mix of both. The best way to consume these is to make bhakri fresh and have them while they are hot, but they can be stored for a couple of days.

Biscuit Bhakri

MAKES 8­10 PIECES Ingredients 2 cups wheat flour K cup besan (chickpea flour) 1-2 tbsp ghee K cup milk 2 tbsp sugar (or shakkar) A pinch of salt Method Knead the wheat flour, besan, ghee, milk, sugar and salt to form a hard dough. You can add some hot water if need be while kneading. Make small round balls and roll the dough into small roundels about half-an-inch thick. You can use a puri maker plate.

Toast the discs on a skillet on both sides on a slow flame till mild brown without using any oil or ghee. Serve with tea or milk.

Recipe courtesy Rajdhani restaurant, Connaught Place, New Delhi.

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ross out samosa, kachori, rasgulla and halwa from your party menu. Next time you have a do at home, don’t scamper around looking for finger-food options or poke into bakeries or mithai shops to order boring desserts.

Just go through our collection of snacks and sweets from various states and dazzle your guests with your new-found culinary expertise. Initiate their exploration of India through biscuit bhakri from Rajasthan, bafla from Madhya Pradesh, obbattu from Karnataka, hurung from Assam or patudi from Uttarakhand, and watch how your parties go from hum-ho to the most exciting soirées in town.

Recipes sourced by Amrita Roy, Arun Janardhan, Komal Sharma, Pavitra Jayaraman, Seema Chowdhry and Shreya Ray. Write to lounge@livemint.com

West Bengal

Soru chakuli, literally a thin pancake, is a staple made from ground dal and rice. Quick, light, nutritious, low-cal, vegetarian, even vegan—it is traditionally eaten as a between-the-meals snack. Its heavier and richer cousin is the budha chakuli. But its rustic simplicity makes the soru chakuli more versatile: As a snack, serve it with a dip, or jazz it up with a stuffing of khoya or grated coconut or a khoya-coconut mix and serve it as a dessert.

Pithey is a genre of traditional, home-made dessert that pre-dates the more famous of Bengal’s desserts—sandesh and rasgullas.

Made during the month of poush (starting mid-December) on the occasion of Makar Sankranti, most pitheys contain jaggery and coconut, a way to combat the cold weather. In recent times though, coconut is increasingly being replaced by khoya. The Gokul Pithey is a deep-fried roll, with a coconut and khoya filling, dipped in sugar syrup.

Soru Chakuli

Gokul Pithey

MAKES 8­10 PIECES

MAKES 4 PIECES

Ingredients 300g rice 200g urad dal (husked) 250ml water 50ml oil A pinch of salt Method Rinse and soak the rice and dal together overnight. Drain the water and grind the mixture into a thick paste. Add water and whip well to form an even batter of the consistency of a pancake/dosa batter. Cover and let it rest for 20-30 minutes.

Heat a skillet on medium heat and smear it with a tablespoon of oil. Turn the heat low. Pour a ladle of the batter in the centre.

Using the back of the ladle, quickly and evenly spread the batter in circular motions across the skillet. Don’t spread it too thin. Unlike a dosa, a soru chakuli is not very crisp, but slightly spongy, rather like an appam.

Cook for a couple of minutes, flip it over and cook for another minute and take off the heat.

Repeat till all the batter is used up. Remember to grease the skillet afresh before pouring the batter every time.

Ingredients 150g maida (refined flour) 50g semolina 250g sunflower oil (100g to make the batter, the rest to fry) K coconut, grated 100g khoya 2-3 green cardamoms, powdered 250g sugar (100g for filling, 150g for sugar syrup) Method Make a thick batter with the maida, semolina, 100g oil and a cup of water. Let it sit for 30-40 minutes.

Heat a kadhai (wok) over medium flame and put in the coconut, sugar and khoya. Mix and let it roast for a while.

Keep stirring so that it does not stick to the bottom of the pan.

When the sugar caramelizes, add the powdered cardamom.

Take off the flame and cool.

Shape into small balls. Dip the khoya balls into the batter and deep-fry in oil.

To make the syrup, heat half a cup of water and 150g sugar.

Cook till a thick consistency is reached. Dip the pitheys into the syrup and let them cool. Serve.

Recipe courtesy Dalma, Orissa Niwas, Bordoloi Marg, New Delhi.

Uttarakhand A quintessentially mountain dish, the patudi is perfect for those times when you need to rustle up a snack in a hurry. Or you’ve managed to get really good greens, like ones picked fresh from the garden. Quickly done and spicy, this savoury is a healthy alternative to the deep-fried pakodas. The patudis taste especially good with the traditional accompaniment of hing ka achar (green mangoes pickled in asafoetida, salt and red chillies), washed down with a cup of piping hot tea!

Patudi

MAKES 12­16 PIECES Ingredients 250g greens (you can use any leafy green of your choice), chopped fine 1 green chilli, minced 1 tbsp (or just enough to bind) besan (chickpea flour) Salt to taste but on the lesser side as greens are inherently salty Oil to pan-fry Method Place the chopped greens in a large bowl or plate. Add salt, chillies and mix. Add the besan, start with 1 tbsp and add more if required. There should be enough flour to bind the greens. When a handful of the mixture, squeezed in your fist, holds, you are set.

Heat a non-stick pan on medium flame. Add a little oil to the pan and drop in a handful of the green mixture. Flatten to form a small patty. Allow to cook. When the side in contact with the pan is golden going on brown, flip over and cook the other side.

Continue till done. Serve hot.

Recipe courtesy Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal, a food writer who blogs at A Perfect Bite.

Recipe courtesy consultant Gopa Chakladar, WelcomHotel Sheraton, Saket, New Delhi.

Madhya Pradesh The bafla is a whole-grain wheat bread, unleavened, with minimum water, cooked in boiling water like a dumpling.

The dough is the same as the Rajasthani bati. The traditional way of preparing crispy deep-fried bafla is from wheat flour mixed with ghee and spices. This is usually made on special occasions. The old-fashioned maharajs, or cooks, still use dried cow dung as fuel because they believe that’s the only way to get the right temperature to cook this. While the standardized samosa, jalebi and peanuts are the common street snacks, bafla blurs the meal borders—it suits any time or mood and, with great versatility, accompanies dal, pickle or curry.

Bafla

SERVES 4 Ingredients 2 cups whole-grain wheat flour 1 cup melted ghee K cup warm water A pinch of salt Melted ghee for rolling Method For the dough: Mix salt and flour. Put in ghee and rub it in well so that the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Gather flour to make a mound with a well in it.

Add warm water and start mixing the dough and knead well. Divide the dough into balls of 1K-inch diameter and cover them with a damp cloth or plastic film.

Rest it for an hour at room temperature.

Next, slightly flatten the balls with your hands. Do not use a rolling pin.

Brush the exterior with melted ghee.

Boil water and add salt to it (K tsp of salt to K cup water). Put in the dough balls and bring to boil. Turn down the heat to simmer. Cook for 20-25 minutes. Drain the bread in a colander. Heat the oil in a kadhai (wok) till light smoke starts to rise. Fry the dough balls till the exterior is a hard crusty brown (it should take 7-8 minutes, sometimes more).

Recipe courtesy chef Sahdev Mehta, executive chef, Courtyard By Marriott Pune Hinjewadi, Hinjewadi, Pune.

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EVERYONE’S INVITED Assam

Orissa

Hurung is a dessert fit for Ahom kings. It is usually eaten after a thali of “royal” food (peppery pigeon meat, mustardy hilsa). It has warm, melted jaggery, thick clotted cream and hurum rice (puffed rice, which is a crispier version of muri).

A plebeian version is eaten for breakfast, where the puffed rice is substituted with chira (flat or beaten rice), bora (sticky rice) or sandor guri (ground rice) and doi (sweetened yogurt) or milk for cream.

Kashmir In a cold climate such as Kashmir’s, richness in food is a given. But in a cuisine of whole spices and a generous dose of red chilli, there are few options for sweets and desserts. The shufta is a rare exception, traditionally prepared during festivals and marriages. A lavish assortment of dry fruits and saffron, shufta’s basic purpose is to induce heat in the body, so winter might be a good time to try this.

Shufta

SERVES 4 Ingredients 125g paneer (cottage cheese) 25g whole cashew nuts 25g almonds 20g raisins 25g dry dates 20g coconut (dry, desiccated or fresh) 1-2 small cardamoms 20g desi ghee (clarified butter) A pinch of saffron Method Before you begin making the shufta, keep the following prepared: For sugar syrup, take 1 litre water and 1kg sugar, and boil together till the quantity halves.

Soak seedless dates and raisins in water for an hour before cooking the shufta.

Peel the almonds and cut into smaller pieces.

Chop cashew nuts and slice the coconut.

Dice cottage cheese into tiny pieces and deep-fry.

To make the shufta, take a thick-bottomed pan and heat desi ghee. Sautè some crushed cardamoms and strands of saffron. Add the cottage cheese.

In another pan, blanch the dry fruits and coconut; strain and add to the pan along with the sugar syrup. Mix well and garnish with saffron on top.

Recipe courtesy Chor Bizarre, Savoy Suites, Sector 16, Noida.

Hurung

Bihar

SERVES 6

The Biharis are fond of red meat and keema (minced mutton) is a particular favourite. The keema aloo chop makes for a perfect teatime snack or even a starter, especially for those who are bored with the usual pakodas or fried fare. The semolina coating gives this cutlet a slightly crunchy texture.

Keema Aloo Chop

MAKES 2 PIECES

Ingredients 250g potatoes, boiled 400g onion 1 tsp garam masala K tsp garlic-ginger paste A pinch of cumin powder 80g keema (minced meat) 4 tbsp suji (semolina) 2 tbsp refined flour K tsp green chillies K tsp coriander, chopped Salt to taste Oil to fry Method Cook the keema with 150g onion, K tsp garam masala and garlic-ginger paste. It should take about 10-15 minutes. Add salt. Leave aside to cool. You can also use leftover cooked keema. Sauté the remaining onions until golden brown and crispy and leave aside.

Take the boiled potatoes and mash them. Add the golden brown onions, remaining garam masala, cumin powder, green chillies, coriander, salt and mix well. Now make a boat-shaped patty and put in the keema. Close the patty.

Make a thin batter of refined flour and water and dip the patty in this watery mix. Now coat the patty with semolina on both sides and deep-fry in hot oil.

Serve the cutlets with tomato, coriander chutney and pao bhaji buns.

Recipe courtesy Puja Sahu, The Pot Belly, Shahpur Jat, New Delhi.

Karnataka Obbattu or holige occupies an important spot in any festive meal in Karnataka. It can be served with ghee or milk when hot, or even eaten with fruit salad as an accompaniment.

The ingredients for the dish change according to the area of the state—while Mangaloreans and Bangaloreans make it with boiled dal (lentils) or jaggery as a stuffing, it is made with grated coconut and jaggery in Udupi district.

MAKES 15 PIECES Ingredients For the dough 500g refined flour 5g turmeric 100ml sesame/ groundnut oil Salt to taste For the filling 1 coconut, grated 100g jaggery 10g powdered cardamom 25ml ghee Method Mix the refined flour with water, salt and turmeric to make a soft dough. Pour the sesame/groundnut oil around the dough and rest it for 3 hours.

For the filling, grind the grated coconut to a coarse paste. Heat pounded jaggery in a thick-bottomed pan and add the coconut paste. Stir till the mixture thickens. Add cardamom powder and half the quantity of ghee. Keep aside. Now make small rounds of the dough and slightly smaller rounds of the coconut mixture. Push the coconut balls inside the dough, cover it well and then flatten with a rolling pin greased with oil. Heat a skillet, and cook both sides with ghee, until golden brown.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PRIYANKA PARASHAR, DIVYA BABU, ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY, ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR & DHRUBA DUTTA/MINT

VIDEO

Recipe courtesy Shillong-based freelance writer Janice Pariat.

Obbattu

Recipe courtesy chef Venkatesh Bhat, South Indies, Indira Nagar, Bangalore.

SLIDE SHOW

Ingredients 250g jaggery 200g puffed rice 2 cups cream 1 cup water Desiccated coconut (optional) Method Cook the cream in a heavy-bottomed pot on top of a double boiler (over simmering water) until it is reduced to about half. It should be the consistency of butter, with a golden crust on top. Let it cool and refrigerate overnight. Stir crust into cream before serving. Melt lumps of jaggery with water and strain through a sieve to ensure a smooth, thick consistency. Place the puffed rice in a bowl, spoon the clotted cream on it and pour the jaggery. Garnish with desiccated coconut.

To watch our chefs and food consultants cook the recipes, visit www.livemint.com/foodmap.htm For recipes from Gujarat and Puducherry, visit www.livemint.com/maprecipes.htm

Rajasthan Biscuit bhakri is a non-baked version of the traditional cookie. Ideal as an evening snack with saffron milk or sweet tea, this disc of dough can either be sweet, savoury or a mix of both. The best way to consume these is to make bhakri fresh and have them while they are hot, but they can be stored for a couple of days.

Biscuit Bhakri

MAKES 8­10 PIECES Ingredients 2 cups wheat flour K cup besan (chickpea flour) 1-2 tbsp ghee K cup milk 2 tbsp sugar (or shakkar) A pinch of salt Method Knead the wheat flour, besan, ghee, milk, sugar and salt to form a hard dough. You can add some hot water if need be while kneading. Make small round balls and roll the dough into small roundels about half-an-inch thick. You can use a puri maker plate.

Toast the discs on a skillet on both sides on a slow flame till mild brown without using any oil or ghee. Serve with tea or milk.

Recipe courtesy Rajdhani restaurant, Connaught Place, New Delhi.

C

ross out samosa, kachori, rasgulla and halwa from your party menu. Next time you have a do at home, don’t scamper around looking for finger-food options or poke into bakeries or mithai shops to order boring desserts.

Just go through our collection of snacks and sweets from various states and dazzle your guests with your new-found culinary expertise. Initiate their exploration of India through biscuit bhakri from Rajasthan, bafla from Madhya Pradesh, obbattu from Karnataka, hurung from Assam or patudi from Uttarakhand, and watch how your parties go from hum-ho to the most exciting soirées in town.

Recipes sourced by Amrita Roy, Arun Janardhan, Komal Sharma, Pavitra Jayaraman, Seema Chowdhry and Shreya Ray. Write to lounge@livemint.com

West Bengal

Soru chakuli, literally a thin pancake, is a staple made from ground dal and rice. Quick, light, nutritious, low-cal, vegetarian, even vegan—it is traditionally eaten as a between-the-meals snack. Its heavier and richer cousin is the budha chakuli. But its rustic simplicity makes the soru chakuli more versatile: As a snack, serve it with a dip, or jazz it up with a stuffing of khoya or grated coconut or a khoya-coconut mix and serve it as a dessert.

Pithey is a genre of traditional, home-made dessert that pre-dates the more famous of Bengal’s desserts—sandesh and rasgullas.

Made during the month of poush (starting mid-December) on the occasion of Makar Sankranti, most pitheys contain jaggery and coconut, a way to combat the cold weather. In recent times though, coconut is increasingly being replaced by khoya. The Gokul Pithey is a deep-fried roll, with a coconut and khoya filling, dipped in sugar syrup.

Soru Chakuli

Gokul Pithey

MAKES 8­10 PIECES

MAKES 4 PIECES

Ingredients 300g rice 200g urad dal (husked) 250ml water 50ml oil A pinch of salt Method Rinse and soak the rice and dal together overnight. Drain the water and grind the mixture into a thick paste. Add water and whip well to form an even batter of the consistency of a pancake/dosa batter. Cover and let it rest for 20-30 minutes.

Heat a skillet on medium heat and smear it with a tablespoon of oil. Turn the heat low. Pour a ladle of the batter in the centre.

Using the back of the ladle, quickly and evenly spread the batter in circular motions across the skillet. Don’t spread it too thin. Unlike a dosa, a soru chakuli is not very crisp, but slightly spongy, rather like an appam.

Cook for a couple of minutes, flip it over and cook for another minute and take off the heat.

Repeat till all the batter is used up. Remember to grease the skillet afresh before pouring the batter every time.

Ingredients 150g maida (refined flour) 50g semolina 250g sunflower oil (100g to make the batter, the rest to fry) K coconut, grated 100g khoya 2-3 green cardamoms, powdered 250g sugar (100g for filling, 150g for sugar syrup) Method Make a thick batter with the maida, semolina, 100g oil and a cup of water. Let it sit for 30-40 minutes.

Heat a kadhai (wok) over medium flame and put in the coconut, sugar and khoya. Mix and let it roast for a while.

Keep stirring so that it does not stick to the bottom of the pan.

When the sugar caramelizes, add the powdered cardamom.

Take off the flame and cool.

Shape into small balls. Dip the khoya balls into the batter and deep-fry in oil.

To make the syrup, heat half a cup of water and 150g sugar.

Cook till a thick consistency is reached. Dip the pitheys into the syrup and let them cool. Serve.

Recipe courtesy Dalma, Orissa Niwas, Bordoloi Marg, New Delhi.

Uttarakhand A quintessentially mountain dish, the patudi is perfect for those times when you need to rustle up a snack in a hurry. Or you’ve managed to get really good greens, like ones picked fresh from the garden. Quickly done and spicy, this savoury is a healthy alternative to the deep-fried pakodas. The patudis taste especially good with the traditional accompaniment of hing ka achar (green mangoes pickled in asafoetida, salt and red chillies), washed down with a cup of piping hot tea!

Patudi

MAKES 12­16 PIECES Ingredients 250g greens (you can use any leafy green of your choice), chopped fine 1 green chilli, minced 1 tbsp (or just enough to bind) besan (chickpea flour) Salt to taste but on the lesser side as greens are inherently salty Oil to pan-fry Method Place the chopped greens in a large bowl or plate. Add salt, chillies and mix. Add the besan, start with 1 tbsp and add more if required. There should be enough flour to bind the greens. When a handful of the mixture, squeezed in your fist, holds, you are set.

Heat a non-stick pan on medium flame. Add a little oil to the pan and drop in a handful of the green mixture. Flatten to form a small patty. Allow to cook. When the side in contact with the pan is golden going on brown, flip over and cook the other side.

Continue till done. Serve hot.

Recipe courtesy Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal, a food writer who blogs at A Perfect Bite.

Recipe courtesy consultant Gopa Chakladar, WelcomHotel Sheraton, Saket, New Delhi.

Madhya Pradesh The bafla is a whole-grain wheat bread, unleavened, with minimum water, cooked in boiling water like a dumpling.

The dough is the same as the Rajasthani bati. The traditional way of preparing crispy deep-fried bafla is from wheat flour mixed with ghee and spices. This is usually made on special occasions. The old-fashioned maharajs, or cooks, still use dried cow dung as fuel because they believe that’s the only way to get the right temperature to cook this. While the standardized samosa, jalebi and peanuts are the common street snacks, bafla blurs the meal borders—it suits any time or mood and, with great versatility, accompanies dal, pickle or curry.

Bafla

SERVES 4 Ingredients 2 cups whole-grain wheat flour 1 cup melted ghee K cup warm water A pinch of salt Melted ghee for rolling Method For the dough: Mix salt and flour. Put in ghee and rub it in well so that the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Gather flour to make a mound with a well in it.

Add warm water and start mixing the dough and knead well. Divide the dough into balls of 1K-inch diameter and cover them with a damp cloth or plastic film.

Rest it for an hour at room temperature.

Next, slightly flatten the balls with your hands. Do not use a rolling pin.

Brush the exterior with melted ghee.

Boil water and add salt to it (K tsp of salt to K cup water). Put in the dough balls and bring to boil. Turn down the heat to simmer. Cook for 20-25 minutes. Drain the bread in a colander. Heat the oil in a kadhai (wok) till light smoke starts to rise. Fry the dough balls till the exterior is a hard crusty brown (it should take 7-8 minutes, sometimes more).

Recipe courtesy chef Sahdev Mehta, executive chef, Courtyard By Marriott Pune Hinjewadi, Hinjewadi, Pune.

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KITCHENS I

ndian food is not defined just by state boundaries. Within each state, there are significant differences in cooking styles and ingredients, depending on the community you belong to. In some cases, religion too plays an important role in how the food items are sourced, prepared and served. Yet other cuisines are a mishmash of different regional fare and now stand out as culinary delights. We identified a few communities—Sindhi, Bunt, Bene Israeli, Anglo-Indian, Bohri, Khasi, Coorgi, Kayastha—and asked authors, chefs, consultants and food aficionados to tell us what makes these cuisines unique, how they came about, and what the must-use ingredients are. Here’s what you should keep in mind if you plan a menu based on one of these cuisines.

BOHRI CUISINE

TAKE IT WITH A PINCH OF SALT Lasagna and dining tables are fast replacing traditional Bohri ‘thaals’, and the lavish meals that accompany them B Y G AYATRI J AYARAMAN gayatri.j@livemint.com

···························· lush, soft purple carpet under your feet, and a pop-in sevaiyan ni laddu fresh from Eid festivities melting in your mouth, are enough to make you want to go traditional and do away with the furniture at home.

Lamiya Amiruddin, 45, a catering graduate who now runs her own chocolate cookie home business, has taken to keeping Bohri cooking traditions alive for her family in a changing world.

Amiruddin and the family continue the grand ol’ and quickly fading Bohri tradition of eating in a thaal (a large common platter) the traditional way—sitting on the floor. A thaal can seat up to eight people, and must always be

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treated with respect. Which means you never put it down till at least one person is seated, and it is never left unattended.

“The ‘new Bohris’, as we like to call them,” says Amiruddin, “now serve lasagna and garlic bread on the thaal.” Of Surti origins, she explains there are differences in food styles even among Bohris, who hail from Ahmedabad, Kutch and Surat. For instance, the sevaiyan ni laddus are Surti Bohri.

Parveen Railwayvalla, who is known in the Bohri community for making safras—the decorative cloths thaals are laid on—explains that most Bohris typically eat kharak, which is soaked dates stuffed with the khoya mixture used in sevaiyan ni laddus of ground sugar and badam-pista (almond-pistachio) powder.

Dal­Chawal Palida

SERVES 8 (AS PART OF A ‘THAAL’)

Dal­Chawal Ingredients 250g basmati rice 150g boiled tuvar dal (yellow lentil) 1 large tomato and onion 250g mutton (optional) K tsp ginger-garlic paste and whole jeera (cumin) 5-6 curry leaves 2 green chillies, slit 2 tsp kothmir (fresh coriander) Ghee as required Salt to taste Method Boil the rice with a 1-inch cinnamon stick, 3 cloves, 2 cardamons and garam masala. In a pressure cooker, boil mutton with ginger-garlic paste (if not using mutton, leave out the ginger-garlic paste) and salt. In a pan, heat some ghee and add sliced onion.

Sauté till pink. Add green chillies, curry leaves and cumin. Chop the tomato and add to the pan. When soft, add boiled dal, mutton and sauté. Add kothmir.

In a degchi (large pot), spread some ghee and half the boiled rice. Cover the rice with a layer of the dal and mutton mixture; cover that with the remaining rice. Keep on low flame for 10 minutes and serve with palida (recipe below).

Optional: Smoke the rice with red-hot coal and pour ghee on the coal. Seal the degchi for 5 minutes.

Palida Ingredients 150g tuvar dal 3-4 tsp ghee 1 onion and tomato each, chopped 2 tbsp besan (gram flour) 1 tsp each of whole jeera (cumin), methi (fenugreek) seeds and red chilli powder 2-3 pieces kokum 1K tsp

The thaal Amiruddin uses to demonstrate the menu is a gift that went out earlier this year from Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, the spiritual leader of the Bohris, to every Bohri family in Mumbai on his 100th birthday.

Every meal begins and ends with an offering of salt to stimulate the taste buds, and to symbolize the coming together of the family at the start of the meal; you don’t begin until everyone is seated. On happy occasions, this is followed by an amuse bouche of sodanna, a mixture of white rice, sugar and ghee (clarified butter)—it is a symbol of auspiciousness. “The courses follow a mithaas and a kharaas, a mithaas and a kharaas,” she explains. One sweet dish followed by a savoury, by a sweet and a savoury, and so on;

dhania (coriander) and jeera (cumin) powder mix 6-7 cloves of garlic, ground to a paste Salt to taste 2 drumsticks (cut in 1K-inch pieces) or chopped bottle gourd (doodhi) Method Boil the dal with a pinch of turmeric and the drumstick pieces. When the dal is soft, drain the water and keep both aside. Use the dal for the rice preparation. Heat ghee and sauté the onion with fenugreek seeds, whole cumin, coriander and cumin powder, garlic paste and red chilli powder. Add besan and roast for a few minutes. Add the hot dal water and mix till there are no lumps.

Add the chopped tomato and allow to simmer for at least half an hour till the consistency thickens. Add the drumsticks, which were boiled with the dal, and kokum and continue boiling for 15 minutes. Serve with rice.

Recipe courtesy Lamiya Amiruddin.

More recipes at www.livemint.com/bohri.htm

KAYASTHA CUISINE

BANQUET MEAL Given to dining at emperors’ tables, these men (and women) of letters take pride in eating well B Y A MRITA R OY amrita.r@livemint.com

·························· ever put paneer (cottage cheese) on the table when entertaining Kayasthas. It may sound like a strange injunction to hear north of the Vindhyas, but ignore food consultant and columnist Anoothi Vishal’s advice, and your reputation as a host will be ruined. For the Kayasthas take pride in their refined tastes. Even chicken has only recently been allowed to grace banquet tables.

The Kayasthas are not a geographically or linguistically defined community, but a sub-caste traditionally associated with the administrative professions and spread across the country.

Historically, these men of letters served as ministers, treasurers and accountants in the royal courts of medieval India. “It is not one cuisine, but rather a sophisticated version of that regional cuisine. So in Bengal, it would be dominated by rich fish curries, while in Punjab and Delhi, it would be koftas and pulaos. In Maharashtra and fur-

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ther south, the coastal Kayastha communities have a wide selection of seafood dishes,” says Preeta Mathur, whose book Courtly Cuisine: Kayasth Food through the Ages is due to be published by Roli Books in October. In north and central India, it was the proximity of the Muslim rulers that informed their culinary habits. It was considered a mark of refinement to eat goat and lamb meat, she says.

Even vegetarian dishes served in Kayastha homes would be elaborate affairs. “Bharwan subzis (stuffed vegetables) are common. There will be at least one meat dish for dinner every day,” says Alka Mathur, who runs a catering business, Kayasth Food Boutique, in Vasant Kunj, New Delhi.

The heavy use of spices is a hallmark of the cuisine. Black cardamom, with its sweet, heady aroma, is a must in meat-based dishes. “Badi elaichi not just made them taste good, but smell great. A typically Kayastha cooking tradition inherited from the Muslims is yakhni, which means meat stock,” says Vishal.

COURTESY ‘COURTLY CUISINE’/ROLI BOOKS

the dessert always being served first. A typical meal would be a thal halwa followed by rotis, a mutton gravy and a vegetable, like a cold baingan bharta and spring onion salad in curd, laddus, lacchka (a cracked wheat halwa) or a yogurt pudding, concluding with a rice dish like a dal-chawal palida or a khichdi and khurdi (an Indian version of a Scotch broth—a thick soup made of mutton and Bengal gram dal).

On new year or a wedding, the thaal holds up to 22-52 dishes. In a Bohri home, when you ask “What’s for dinner?”, the answer is never a vegetable, which is never the main course.

Watch how ‘keema samosas’ are made.

One for the family: Lamiya Amiruddin with the thaal.

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

Dhungare Kathal Biryani SERVES 4­5 Ingredients For the jackfruit 500g unripe jackfruit (kathal), cut into 1K-inch pieces 3 medium-sized onions 4 green chillies, slit and deseeded 1-inch ginger, grated N tsp garlic paste 1 tsp each coriander and red chilli powders 2 tsp garam masala powder 1K cups yogurt, whisked K cup each mint and coriander leaves, chopped 200g ghee (clarified butter) Salt to taste For the biryani 400g basmati rice, soaked in water for half an hour and drained 4 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and halved 3 medium-sized tomatoes, cut into big chunks Juice of 1 lemon 3 dried apricots, soaked in half-cup water and puréed A pinch of saffron, soaked in 2 tbsp warm milk 2 black cardamoms and 2 cloves (whole) 1-inch cinnamon stick (whole) Salt to taste For the dhungar 2 tsp ghee 1 clove 3 pieces of charcoal Method Parboil the rice with black cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon and salt.

Drain the water and spread on a tray to cool. Remove the spices. Heat ghee in a pan and fry the onions till golden. Keep 2 tbsp aside and grind the rest into a paste. Fry the jackfruit till golden and keep aside.

Fry the potatoes. In a big bowl, mix ginger, garlic, green chilli, green coriander, mint leaves, garam masala, fried onion paste and yogurt.

Pour over the fried jackfruit and let it sit for 15 minutes.

Heat ghee in a heavy-bottom pot on a low flame. Stir in the salt, coriander powder and red chilli powder. Add the jackfruit and stir.

Layer the potatoes and tomatoes over the jackfruit. Finally, cover with the rice. Pour the apricot pulp and lemon juice over the rice and sprinkle the saffron milk.

For the dhungar: In a small metal bowl, take smouldering charcoal pieces, blow off the ash and place a clove on them.

Pour 1 tsp ghee on the charcoal and as it sizzles and smokes, quickly put it on the rice and cover the pot with a lid. Let the smoke infuse the dish for about 5 minutes. Remove the bowl and pour the remaining ghee on the rice. Seal the lid with dough and dumcook. After 15 minutes, turn off the heat and let it rest for 10 minutes. Serve hot, garnished with fried onions.

Recipe courtesy Courtly Cuisine: Kayasth Food through the Ages (Roli Books).

More recipes at www.livemint.com/kayastha.htm

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KHASI/JAINTIA CUISINE

Bangude Pulimunchi

BUNT CUISINE

SERVES 2

FLAMING HOT

Ingredients 4 bandage fish (mackerel) 100g onion, chopped 5g ginger and garlic, chopped 1 sprig curry leaves 75ml cooking oil 30ml tamarind pulp 3g turmeric powder Juice of one lemon 2 cups water For roasting 100g red chillies (Byadgi) 20g whole coriander seeds 10g cumin seeds 5g peppercorns Method Roast the dry ingredients, ginger and curry leaves with a little oil, make a paste in a blender, and keep aside. Marinate the fish with turmeric powder and lime juice for 5 minutes. Heat oil in a pan. Sauté the chopped onion and garlic for 5 minutes, and then add the ground masala. Stir for 3-5 minutes. Add water, a little at a time, sauté till the masala is cooked. Add the fish, the tamarind pulp and salt and simmer till the water evaporates. Serve hot with rice or neer dosa.

Recipe courtesy Naren Thimmaiah, executive chef, Gateway Hotel, Bangalore.

More recipes at www.livemint.com/bunt.htm

A cuisine that uses coconuts to sweeten a dish and Byadgi chillies to give it a bright­red colour, all at once B Y P AVITRA J AYARAMAN pavitra.j@livemint.com

··························· he Mangalorean Bunt community, wealthy landlords originally from the Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka, has an elaborate cuisine that cherishes the use of local produce and fruits, spiced with ingredients such as Byadgi chillies.

Cooking and eating habits vary every 100km in this belt, but there are several common features. “The variety in the food of the Bunt community comes from the fact that they have always been wealthy and have had access to all sorts of ingredients and of the best quality at that,” says Naren Thimmaiah, executive chef at Gateway Hotel, Bangalore.

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For instance, Byadgi chillies could be sourced from north Karnataka because the community could afford it. Pepper, Thimmaiah says, came in through the ports in this coastal area, and entered the cuisine. Now Byadgi chillies, in powder, paste or crushed form, make the essential ingredients for any seafood or meat preparation, along with turmeric powder, salt, lemon juice or tamarind pulp. The Bunt community believes these chillies enhance the taste of a dish, prolong its shelf life and add medicinal value to it.

Coconut is used in oil, milk and grated form in pretty much every dish, says Saranya Hegde, author of Mangalorean Cuisine, a recipe book that has become the go-to book for many Bunts.

Coconut adds a rich texture to

most of the recipes, with chillies and other spices balancing the sweetness.

The most distinct feature of the cuisine, however, is the use of tamarind as a souring agent, rather than the lemon or kodampuli used in the neighbouring state of Kerala, or the kokum used by the region’s Christian community.

“Though meat forms an important part of the meal, we do have vegetables that are used to make dry side dishes,” says Hegde, who grew up in Mangalore, spending her childhood in an ancestral home that housed close to 100 relatives. “The stress

on food and the quality of food is high. I learnt most of my cooking from my mother,” she says, adding that a good meal, especially one at a wedding or any celebratory ceremony, will be largely non-vegetarian—fish and poultry—with just one or two vegetarian sides.

Although steamed rice figures prominently on a lunch or dinner plate, other versions of rice in the form of neer dosas or kori rotis are just as popular.

···························· n a food trip through the south and east of Mumbai, the old-fashioned names of Sindhi restaurants, called after the people who began them, still stand out. Nanumal Bhojraj.

Bhagat Tarachand. Jhama’s (named for Jhamalal Lulla).

Unlike communities whose restaurants first sprang up when people from their part of India migrated to the city for work, Mumbai’s Sindhi restaurants were begun by Hindu refugees who migrated from Sindh after Partition, many close to the camps where they first lived.

Most Sindhi restaurants run wholesome, traditional kitchens, but like their Gujarati and Udupi counterparts, serve no meat.

While teewarn, mutton in an onion-based curry, is an iconic dish and a speciality when Sindhi homes have visitors, there are many who prefer vegetarian food for religious reasons: A favourite

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WANPHRANG DIENGDOH/MINT

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Beef up: Bih’s doh shiang cutlets. cooking doh shiang (minced beef cutlet), because “it makes for both a quick snack and can also be part of a meal”. Her doh shiang is soft, crumbly and mildly spicy, and is perfect when eaten with a portion of putharo (rice pancake) and pickled soh phoh (a Khasi pear that’s more tangy than usual).

During weddings and festivals, the food is usually the same, with a few additions like ja snam (brown rice cooked with chicken’s blood) and dai iong (lentils made with black sesame paste). The people are also fond of fish fried to a crisp in mustard oil, local wild mushroom, banana flower (usually made into a chutney), muli khleh (grated radish with white sesame paste), and smoked pork cooked with sweet red pumpkin.

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It might be a kissing cousin to more well-known north Indian cuisines but the differences are significant. Its dominant flavour, says Alka Deepak Keswani, who runs the blog Sindhirasoi.com, is “basic, rustic, mainly because of plenty of fresh vegetables and a limited use of spices”. Keswani runs the blog Sindhirasoi.com and says that masala, for Sindhis, means a hint of turmeric, coriander powder and garam masala—never overpowering. What sets it apart is a love for dried mango powder (amchoor), and dried pomegranate seeds. The earthiness of ginger and garlic and the tang of tomatoes or tamarind—traditional bases for Sindhi gravies—is “all it takes”.

Film-maker Shona Urvashi, who comes from a family of food lovers and has been cooking since

Ingredients Kkg minced beef A 3-inch piece of ginger 1 tsp ground red chilli 2-3 cloves (optional) 4 tbsp mustard oil Method Boil the minced beef with water (just above the level of the meat), until almost completely dry. Let it cool. Heat the oil. Grind ginger to a paste and mix well with the meat. Add ground chilli, cloves and salt. Roll the mixture into balls the size of golf balls. Deep-fry until dark golden brown.

Recipe courtesy Kong Bih. More recipes at www.livemint.com/khasi.htm

Sindhi Basar Paneer SERVES 4

Sindhi food is distinct in flavour and ingredients from its more well­known north Indian counterparts community cookbook is Dada J.P. Vaswani’s 90 Sindhi Vegetarian Recipes. Paneer (cottage cheese), some say, became a Sindhi staple in the refugee camps where sour (curdled) milk could ill-afford to be wasted.

Perhaps this is why Sindhi food outside the community remains best identified by sai bhaji, a mash of spinach, other greens and vegetables, and Sindhi kadhi, a tomato- and tamarind-flavoured gravy made with roasted gram flour and fenugreek seeds.

There are also the robust tastes of the dal pakwaan (deep-fried flatbread and chana dal) breakfast, tuks (double-fried crispy potatoes) and bhee (lotus stem) curry.

At Sindhi restaurants, you’re likely to relish gulab jamun (darker and heavier than the norm) and gajar ka halwa; if you’re invited to a Cheti Chand (or Sindhi New Year) meal, you’re likely to encounter khas khas jo seero (poppy seeds halwa) or singhar ji mithai (sweet made with unsalted sev).

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B Y J ANICE P ARIAT ···························· he cuisine of the Khasis and Jaintias in Meghalaya relies on a few staple flavours, including mustard oil and black and white sesame seed paste. The rice, either plain white or jadoh (a fluffy yellow version cooked with stock and meat), is eaten with a variety of smoked or unsmoked meats or fish curries, and light stews usually made with tyrso (pungent mustard leaves), jhur sdieh (mixed fried vegetables) and tungtap (dried fish chutney) or tungrungbai (chutney made from fermented soyabean and black sesame seed paste).

The best local food usually isn’t served in posh, fancy restaurants; instead, Meghalaya is dotted with small jadoh stalls where locals drop in for sha (tea), jingbam (snacks) and full meals at all hours of the day.

One of the most popular places in Laitumkhrah (one of Shillong’s main commercial and residential areas) is the family-run Jaintia Jadoh Stall. Shongsuklang Langsteih, the young chef there, enjoys cooking doh khleh (meat mixed with ginger and onion) because “it’s light, can be prepared quickly and has little or no masala”. This dish comprises cuts of pork and the animal’s soft parts (including intestines and brain), mixed gently with fresh ginger and onion. Kong Bih, who runs a small stall near the Laitumkhrah market, however enjoys

MAKES 12 CUTLETS

THE MOVABLE FEAST supriya.n@livemint.com

This no­spice cuisine relies on the quality of the meats to enhance the taste of its dishes

Doh Shiang

SINDHI CUISINE

B Y S UPRIYA N AIR

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE FLAVOURS

HEMANT MISHRA/MINT

she was a teenager, says the delicate, sweet flavour of basar or onions, sautéed white rather than brown, is one distinguishing feature of some Sindhi foods. The Sindhi makhani dal that she makes for an everyday meal is a slowly churned yellow dal, rather than the dark, textured one you eat with a Punjabi meal.

Keswani explains that Sindhi culture’s hybridity has allowed it to survive and accommodate outside influences—Persian, Mughal, Sikh—for centuries.

Perhaps its true distinctiveness is really in its adaptability.

Ingredients Kkg fresh malai paneer 6 large onions 3 pods of garlic, slightly crushed 1 large piece of ginger 3 pods of green cardamom 1 small bunch of coriander leaves, freshly chopped 3 green chillies 1 bay leaf 1 tomato, finely chopped Turmeric powder, red chilli powder and cumin powder to taste 1K tbsp coriander powder Rock salt to taste Method Chop onions, not too finely. Skin and crush pods of garlic. Pour oil as required into a colander and heat on high fire. Add bay leaf (tejpatta), roughly chopped ginger, cardamom and green chillies, split lengthwise. When the oil releases the aroma of the chillies, add the chopped onions. Toss and stir continually, then add a pinch of turmeric, just enough to give the mix colour. Add the onions and stir until they begin to turn transparent, then add garlic. There should only be a hint of garlic. Add tomato.

After a minute or so, add the paneer, chopped into crumbly cubes. Add a pinch of red chilli powder at this stage (the quantity may be determined by how spicy you prefer it). Stir until the spice is cooked. Add 1 tbsp of chopped coriander and stir. Add a pinch of rock salt, coriander powder and a small pinch of cumin powder. Add the rest of the chopped coriander and mix well.

Serve hot with Sindhi roti and makhani dal.

Recipe courtesy Shona Urvashi, film-maker.

More recipes at www.livemint.com/sindhi.htm

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BENE ISRAELI CUISINE ANGLO­INDIAN CUISINE

KONKAN KOSHER

COLONIAL COUSINS

Bene Israeli cuisine innovates with local ingredients under kosher laws B Y S UPRIYA N AIR

A leftover from the Raj days that still brings joy to all

supriya.n@livemint.com

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B Y S EEMA C HOWDHRY seema.c@livemint.com

········································ ondon Bagchi, a Kolkata-based musician and food aficionado, loves Anglo-Indian cuisine because it was a style of cooking that embraced everything that was Indian and mixed it up with all that was European.

Chef Sharad Dewan of The Park, Kolkata, puts it a little differently: “It is an Indian cuisine of a certain community influenced by British, French and Portuguese cooking styles. It changes from one region to another, especially when it comes to spices.” So in the south, Anglo-Indian dishes tend to use pepper, cinnamon, cardamom; in the Goa-Mumbai belt, souring agents such as vinegar and kokum are popular, whereas in the east, the gravies use less spice.

“However, you will notice that the basic recipes remain the same. The ingredients change in accordance to the availability of local items.

For example, the Railway Mutton Curry made in Kolkata is likely to use mustard oil, while in Bangalore we will use sunflower oil. Or the aloo chop in Kolkata will be more like the Bengali kobiraji cutlet and use a lamb mince filling, while in the south or Goa, the chop will have a beef mince filling,” says Bangalorebased Bridget White-Kumar, who has authored six books on Anglo-Indian cuisine.

Be it Mulligatawny soup, mutton chop, Devil Chutney, veg croquettes, caramel custard or bread pudding, this cuisine retained a distinct entity as it evolved in different parts of the country, and retained a commonality that anyone familiar with old-style clubs and gymkhanas in India will find easy to identify with.

“Walk into any club that has been around since the early 1900s and order the good old

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Mutton Crumb Chops SERVES 2

Ingredients 4 mutton chops—ask the butcher to flatten them 2 tsp pepper powder 2 eggs, beaten well 2 onions, grated finely, with the juice squeezed out 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce 2 tbsp ginger paste 1 tbsp tomato ketchup 1 tbsp parsley Salt to taste Breadcrumbs 4-5 tbsp oil Method Marinate the mutton chops in salt, pepper, parsley, ginger and onion paste, a dash of Worcestershire sauce and

··························· ndians may think of latkes, brisket and kugel when they think of Jewish food. But a Bene Israeli meal could include anything from moogachi usal to modaks: foods they share in common with coastal western Indians of all faiths.

Los Angeles-based chef and writer Kaumudi Marathé, author of The Essential Marathi Cookbook, and herself from the Kokanastha Brahmin community, ticks off the most characteristic ingredients of these cuisines.

“Lots of rice, mango, coconut milk,” she says. “It’s difficult to describe any cuisine briefly, but if I absolutely had to, I’d say it’s like Maharastrian Kokanastha cuisine that conforms to Jewish dietary laws.”

Esther David, author of Book of Rachel, an Ahmedabad resident and a Bene Israeli, expands on the culture of kosher in these parts. After the loss of the holy books in the shipwreck, she says, “For long, we had an oral tradition, which included the dietary law which says, ‘Thou shalt not cook the lamb in its mother’s milk’. Indian Jews, and indeed Jews all over the world, do not cook meat dishes in yogurt or milk-based products.

“Yogurt and dairy products

chicken roast. You are unlikely to get the British version which just uses garlic, thyme, pepper and salt. The roast will have turmeric, ginger and maybe even a garnish of coriander.

While the technique of cooking is not tampered with much, at least in the earlier part of the last century, the khansamas (cooks) of the Raj most certainly did add local spices and ingredients to escape the blandness of European food,” says Delhi-based caterer Rajshree Sen, who runs Food For Thought, which specializes in Bengali and Anglo-Indian cuisine.

“Perhaps the additions started when the cooks moved out of European home kitchens and started cooking at clubs. Here, they could experiment and add spices that were often missing and tough to include in kitchens run

by British madams,” says Bagchi.

Among the common ingredients of this fusion cuisine are Kharagpur masala (common in the east), vinegar, tamarind or kokum used as souring agents, turmeric, Worcestershire sauce or ketchup, green chillies and ginger. “The Kharagpur masala is a milder version of garam masala. This one does not have black or green cardamom, and is named after the old Raj railway town Kharagpur. In the east, you will find people using this masala-mix for dishes such as the Railway Mutton Curry all the time,” says Dewan. White-Kumar says another significant departure from pure European cuisines was the accompaniment of rice and rolls (or chapati) with maincourse dishes rather than sticking to bread all the time. “In fact, the famous mince ball curry or kofta curry is served with either saffron or turmeric coconut rice.” ketchup overnight, or for a couple of hours at least, in the fridge. Heat oil in a flat frying pan. Dip the chops one at a time in the beaten eggs and then cover with breadcrumbs. Shallow-fry in the hot oil on low heat until golden brown on each side.

B Y A RUN J ANARDHAN

Take a cup of raisins, add 2 tsp grated ginger, a couple of chopped green chillies, 2 tbsp tamarind paste, K tsp powdered red chilli, 1 tsp sugar and salt to taste. Add a glug of vinegar. Purée in the mixer. Serve with mutton crumb chops or with masoor dal and rice.

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··························· t’s an old-fashioned thrill for game or hunting that’s given the Coorgis their love for pork, one of the few regions in the country that pays particular attention to this form of meat.

The Kodavas, a martial race once defiant of Muslim rule, historically remained fearless soldiers. Their food habits reflect this cultural trait because the pork is not domesticated bovine but wild hunted boar, which is how the community would prefer it. With forests getting depleted and wildlife laws prohibiting game hunting, the Coorgis have, however, had to settle for less in their pork.

Chandra Shekhar Pandey, executive chef at the Courtyard

By Marriott Pune Hinjewadi, who did a project on Coorgi food while in catering college in Bangalore, says pork makes its way not just into the famed Pandi curry but also into meat pickles.

The pickles traditionally do not use oil as a preservative; instead, spices and salt brine are used.

Coorgis also make pickles using fish, kumu (mushroom) and baimbale (tender bamboo).

“Kodavas are basically agriculturists who get busy transplanting in the rice fields from June to August-end,” says Kishor Cariappa, a media consultant and the moderator of a blog on the community. “So on 3 September, they have a festival Kailpold or Kail Muhurta where pork is consumed in abundance.

Farmers need the extra fat and energy after the hard work for three months transplanting rice.

Coorg is also cold and monsoon months can be harsh.”

“We are strict non-vegetarians,” insists Naren Thimmaiah, executive chef at the Gateway Hotel in Bangalore, though, he adds, there are many vegetarian options also in Coorgi cuisine.

He says Coorgi food, usually spicy, has predominantly depended on local produce,

Pandi Curry (pork curry)

PHOTOGRAPHS

VIDEO

BY

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

To watch our chefs and food consultants cook the recipes, visit www.livemint.com/communityfood.htm

Ingredients 10 tbsp wheat extract, or chik 7 litres coconut milk 14 tbsp sugar 100g almonds 1 tbsp vanilla essence Edible colour, rose pink Method If you wish to make your own wheat extract, soak whole wheat in water for three days, changing the water occasionally till the grain puffs up.

Grind wheat in a hand-operated machine to a smooth paste, spread out on a plate and dry in the sun. When completely dry, break into pieces and store in jars. If using readymade chik, make a paste of chik with water and let it stand for 4 hours until the water surfaces. Remove the excess water.

Mix coconut milk and sugar with the paste and cook on a slow fire, stirring continuously for 4 hours till the paste thickens and leaves the pan.

Add vanilla and colour, and cook for half an hour. Spread on a flat surface and when cool, cut into diamond shapes, decorate with almonds and eat fresh.

Recipe courtesy Esther David and her friend Julie Pingle, who caters to the Jewish community of Ahmedabad.

Dominantly non­vegetarian, with a taste for pork, Coorgi cuisine uses local produce and sometimes fruit to make it spicy and interesting

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are not eaten immediately after eating meat dishes but after a few hours. Fish without scales, animals with cloven hooves and pork are taboo. Often, there are separate vessels for milk and meat. The slaughter of animals is done in a specific manner. So most Indian Jews prefer to be vegetarian and only eat meat dishes when they are slaughtered according to the law.

Often, we also avoid eating beef to respect our Hindu neighbours,” says David.

The milk-meat taboo creates Bene Israeli food’s most distinct taste. Coconut milk, used in place of milk, is the key flavour, says David. So are kokum and Konkani fish masala. Marathé points out that Jewish chefs also found a way around using yogurt in marinades: Lemon juice or lime juice does the trick.

Seafood is loved. And “poha (beaten rice) is used by almost all Bene Israeli Jews for the ritual of Malida, made as an offering to Prophet Elijah, for wish fulfilment,” David says.

“For Shabath (Sabbath) prayers or Passover services or to break the Yom Kippur fast, we often make a sherbet of black currants in the absence of wine, especially in Gujarat, which is a dry state. For Jewish New Year, the fragrant rose-coloured chik-cha-halwa is a signature Bene Israeli dessert.”

FOOD THAT NEVER BOARS

Devil Chutney

Colonial hang­ over: Rajshree Sen says Raj­era clubs serve the best Anglo­Indian dishes.

SERVES 2 ‘THALIS’

COORGI CUISINE

arun.j@livemint.com

Recipes courtesy Rajshree Sen. More recipes at www.livemint.com/ angloindian.htm

Chik­Cha­Halwa

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Ingredients 1kg pork 100g onion 20g garlic 30g ginger 20g green chillies 50ml Coorg vinegar Salt to taste 50g coriander leaves Pinch of turmeric powder For the masala powder 40g coriander seeds 10g cumin seeds 5g cardamom and cloves 10g red chillies 5g cinnamon 20g black pepper 10g mustard seeds 10g poppy seeds

whether it’s hunted or grown locally. So the vegetarians are partial to dishes like Baimbale Curry (made from bamboo shoots), Chekke Curry (unripe jackfruit) and Maange Curry (raw mangoes with spices and jaggery).

Coorgis are essentially rice eaters—the all-time favourite being akki otti (rice chapatis made from a dough of cooked rice and rice flour) and puttu (steam-cooked dishes).

“The basic ingredients of a traditional gravy for a Coorg curry,” says Thimmaiah, “whether vegetarian or non-vegetarian, is coconut, ground with onions, garlic and a selection of other spices. In the past, coconut oil was used for cooking, also due to our geographical proximity to Kerala. But because of health issues, coconut oil is now used sparingly or not at all.”

“Refined vegetable oil is the substitute, resulting in a loss of the authentic taste of Coorg dishes,” he adds.

Method Roast all dry ingredients for the masala powder till light brown in colour and powder to a coarse consistency. Cut the pork into 1-inch size with the skin and fat. Marinate it with a dash of turmeric powder, salt and 10ml Coorg vinegar. Crush onion, garlic, ginger, coriander leaves and green chillies to form a rough masala paste.

Cook marinated meat with masala paste and masala powder on medium flame so the meat gets cooked in its own juices. Add remaining vinegar after 15 minutes and a little water. Simmer for 20 minutes (this is a semi-dry dish that tastes better the next day).

Recipe courtesy Naren Thimmaiah, executive chef, Gateway Hotel, Bangalore.

ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT

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ON A CURRY TRAIL

Five­spiced state: Bengali fish curry with the tradi­ tional paanch­phoran tempering; and (below) whole spices.

It might be uniform in its international avatar, but in India it’s a different colour wherever you go

The united colours of curry: (below, clockwise from far right) Get a taste of Ben­ gali sorse mach, Andhra chepa pulusu, Chettinad chicken, Malabar fish curry, Goan fish curry and Awadhi lamb shahi korma at Amaranta, The Oberoi, Gurgaon.

B Y S HREYA R AY shreya.r@livemint.com

······················· erhaps this is the plight of any food that goes international—ask pizza chefs in Florence what they think of Pizza Hut’s Cheese Margherita—but to the world outside, the curry, authenticity be damned, is a soupy mass of spices you spoon up with rice.

As Lucknavis, scoffing at plebeian variants in the rest of the country, and Gujaratis, sniffing uncomfortably at garlicky Goan vindaloos, would agree, there is no one curry. The curry as a panIndian phenomenon was a concept created by—and for the benefit of—British colonial masters who used it to describe “an unfamiliar set of Indian stews and ragouts”, according to Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors by Lizzie Cunningham (2006).

Spicy in the deep south, mild in the central states, yogurt-sour in some states, to kokum-tangy in others, the contours of the curry are different everywhere. From historical to geographical, many factors determine the differentness of the curry within India; in fact, there are as many curries as there are Indias.

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Changing geographies, changing curries While there is no one curry from

a region—in fact, the curry varies from household to household as “eating is all about personal pleasure”—there are some typical curries in regions, says Salma Husain, a Delhi-based food historian and author of The Emperor’s Table: The Art of Mughal Cuisine. “Weather and ingredients are the main factors that determine the colour, texture and taste of the curry. So colder regions will have rich and exotic curries like the korma (cooked in yogurt and ghee, or clarified butter), whereas warmer regions will have lighter curries cooked in water, such as the kalia, for meats/fish,” she says. Typically, the curry is at its most spicy in the southern coastal states, particularly Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, and gets milder as you go up towards Gujarat and Bengal, says Saneesh Varghese, head chef, Amaranta, The Oberoi, Gurgaon.

The same rule applies to the colour of curries as well—most curries from a region will have a typical colour. “The northern part of India—with Kashmir and the hills—mainly has pinkish red or white curries such as the yakhni, red because of the Kashmiri chilli and

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT; LOCATION AND FOOD COURTESY A MARANTA, T HE O BEROI, G URGAON.

white because of yogurt. In central India, the curry is predominantly yellow, with Rajasthan on one side and Bengal on the other, where they use a lot of mustard, along with yogurt,” says Ananda Solomon, executive chef, Vivanta by Taj, Mumbai. “Hip downwards”, the curry gets browner in colour because more spices are used.

Local produce is the mainstay of the curry, which is why on the coasts, fish and coconut can be found in almost every curry.

While fish is popular in all coastal states except Gujarat (because of vegetarianism), in Bengal it is bit of a hero (specifically, hilsa for those from what used to be East Bengal, and prawn for West Bengal; check the fish prices during a Mohun Bagan-East Bengal football match), pretty much having determined the cuisine. “They value the freshness of the fish highly and, therefore, the curry is generally light and low on spices to preserve the flavour of the fish.

The only element of spice comes from the mustard.” says Devraj Halder, executive assistant manager (food and beverages) The Suryaa, New Delhi. “Even the ingredients are ground the same day using a sil-batta (flat stone-grinder) (because poppy seeds cannot be ground properly in a mixergrinder),” says Halder. Coconuts are common on the Konkan Coast in Maharashtra, Goa, coastal Karnataka and Kerala because the Konkan Coast ones have a creamy texture. The east coast, on the other hand, has dry coconuts, says Solomon. “This is why curries in Bengal, Orissa don’t use coconut. They use khus-khus (poppy seeds) instead as a thickening agent,” he says.

Often, many regions will use the same main ingredients with different results. The final touch comes from the tempering, which defines the “the ultimate taste” of the curry in the same way as it makes the dal different everywhere, says Halder. “The two versions of the cauliflower curry—using cauliflower and potatoes—in Bengal and Punjab are vastly different because of the tempering. The Punjabi aloogobi uses achari tadka (a spicy mix of roasted coriander, red chillies and mustard powder).

The Bengali phoolkopir dalna is a light curry with delicate paanch-phoran (Bengali tem-

pering using nigella sativa, mustard, fenugreek, cumin and fennel seeds) minus the clarified butter,” adds Halder.

Even the oil used to cook the curry changes with geography. In Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, says Varghese, they mainly use groundnut oil because peanuts are grown there. In Karnataka, the curry on the coastline, as along the rest of the Konkan Coast, is made with coconut oil.

They also use a bit of vegetable oil. In Kerala, it’s 100% coconut oil because of the abundance of coconuts. In Tamil Nadu, they use gingelly oil (sesame oil), which gives a muddy, earthy flavour to their curries. Andhra curries are done in groundnut oil.

Orissa, Bengal, Punjab and Kashmir use mustard oil. Mughlai cuisine uses ghee and refined oil.

When history determines flavour History has played a prominent role in shaping the curry. Early travellers to India via the spice route, the Portuguese, British and French colonizers, have all left their mark on the curry, says Husain. “Different cooks came from different places and brought with them their ingredients and styles,” she says.

The curry, in the entire belt from Pakistan to Kolkata, is mildly spicy and creamy, with a tinge of sweetness. This belt was influenced by the ruling Mughals, themselves influenced by the Persians, who came via the spice route and introduced dry fruits, cream/yogurt into their food. “Most places ruled by Muslims have curries that are heavier in nature. They’re based in stock with lots of nuts, cashews, onions, as well as khus-khus, like kormas and razela in the east, essentially of Persian back-

ground,” says Halder. Although the texture of the curry across this belt changes—with the typical Lucknavi curry being thicker than the Bengali curries—the sweet taste typical of the Bengali curry is a legacy of the Mughals.

Likewise, the Goan love for vinegar as a souring agent is a legacy of their Portuguese masters. Souring agents in the curry differ across regions and while the northern belt and Bengal use yogurt, the Konkan Coast and Kerala use the freely available kokum fruit, and Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, tamarind. Goa uses vinegar—as do Sri Lankans; in fact, the celebrated vindaloo is a Goan reinterpretation of the carne de vinho e alhos (pork cooked slowly in wine vinegar and garlic), the dish the Portuguese brought with them to India, according to Cunningham’s book.

It wasn’t just the visiting colonizers that brought their flavours to the curry. The opposite was also true—locals travelling outside came back with more flavours. The Chettiars, the travelling community in Tamil Nadu, came up with their celebrated Chettinad curry because of their interactions with the world outside. The 18-spice mix—black peppercorn, red chillies, curry leaf, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, bay leaf, cumin, fenugreek, fennel, Marathi moggu, star anise, kalpasi, poppy seeds, nutmeg, mace, coriander seeds, coconut—is a result of their travels outside Tamil Nadu to the Nilgiri Hills, as well as meetings with various foreign merchants, says Varghese.

From the spice route to India to the west, creamy on the Konkan Coast to delicate on the east, the only constant about the curry is change.

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Yakhni SERVES 6

Two recent books hark back to the authors’ family kitchens, attempting to keep alive two little documented cuisines PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

At home: For Sarla Razdan, the years of cooking for family and friends was all the research she needed.

B Y A MRITA R OY amrita.r@livemint.com

·························· erhaps it’s Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant which was crowned the best in the world by Michelin twice in a row for reinterpreting quintessentially Nordic/Scandinavian cuisine. Perhaps it’s the pictures of US First Lady Michelle Obama hoeing and raking lettuce beds in the White House kitchen garden. “Back to the roots” seems to have taken root in all matters culinary.

In India, the trend is reflected in a spate of cookbooks that focus on largely undocumented cuisines, particularly of smaller linguistic or religious groups.

Roli Books’ Kashmiri Cuisine through the Ages by Sarla Razdan and Westland’s The East Indian Kitchen by Michael Swamy, both published recently, follow in the tradition of last year’s well-received The Suriani Kitchen by Lathika George. Forthcoming titles from Westland’s Kitchen series include The Uttaranchal Kitchen and The Gujarati Kitchen. The line-up at Roli Books includes Courtly Cuisine: Kayasth Food Through the Ages about the food typical of the sub-caste spread out from Delhi to Kerala, and Punjab to Assam. Written by food columnist Preeta Mathur, a Kayastha herself, it will be out next month. Another Roli title due later this year is on a unique culinary tradition that, though not defined by a regional group, is perhaps even more defined by its cultural heritage—the food of the army kitchens in cantonments and barracks, written by a former army officer’s wife, Kikky Sihota.

Kashmiri Cuisine and East Indian Kitchen celebrate the culinary inheritance of their authors: Razdan’s book extensively features recipes of lesserknown Kashmiri Pandit dishes as well as the more renowned Muslim wazwan staples, and Swamy’s is about a cuisine that marries Portuguese and local Konkan traditions. Though Razdan hasn’t tagged her recipes as “Pandit” or “Muslim”, it’s easy to tell them apart—unlike the Muslims, Pandits do not use onions, tomatoes and garlic, and the predominant flavour is of asafoetida, mustard oil and ginger powder. Meat dominate both cuisines, but Pandit cuisine offers more in terms of vegetarian dishes. Their cuisine does

P

Kashmiri Cuisine through the Ages: Roli Books, 144 pages, `495.

The East Indian Kitchen—Enduring Flavours of Maharashtrian­ Portuguese Fusion Cuisine: Westland, 228 pages, `395. not include chicken or eggs.

Rice and greens like haak (collard greens) and mongi (knol khol) are everyday staples, while dal is a rare treat. Muslims use red cockscomb flower to colour their meat dishes a deep red, while yogurt is the base of most meat dishes and some vegetarian dishes among the Pandits.

Razdan’s fondest memories of her mother centre, unsurprisingly, around their hearth in Srinagar. Summer or winter, she would be up before the sun, cleaning, chopping and cooking to make sure her children got a full lunch before they left for school at 9. Those memories have translated into Kashmiri Cuisine, so alongside the famed rogan josh, gushtaba and rishta, are lesser-known wangen yakhni (fried aubergine in yogurt), al rogan josh made with pumpkin or mach t phool (lamb cooked with cauliflower). The sheer number of dishes that include fruits as an important ingredient is a revelation: There’s lamb stuffed with apri-

cot, lamb cooked with apricot or plum, aubergine with apples, and plums and potatoes. “The one thing that, Pandit or Muslim, all Kashmiris share is the lack of a sweet tooth. We are not a great people for desserts.

Among the few sweet dishes we have is shufta,” Razdan says.

While Razdan relies solely on the lessons learnt in the kitchens of her mother and motherin-law and perfected in her own, Swamy, whose mother is an “East Indian”, backs up the recipes collated from family and friends with notes on the history of the dwindling community of Maharashtrian-Portuguese extraction. His short introductory history of this community of North Konkan Catholics, who were first baptized by the Portuguese, provides some insight into the strangely named community: The East Indians formally christened themselves after the British East India Company in 1887 in the hope of landing lucrative “company” jobs.

The mixed parentage of the cuisine is reflected in dishes such as the heavily spiced duck indad or beef with fenugreek, or the ghee (clarified butter) that features as the cooking medium in most recipes. Even the Bifes a Portugeuza, a kind of beef steak, can’t do without the iconic “bottle masala”—a mix of 21 spices.

So called because of the large bottles they were stored in, it is the star of the East Indian kitchen—complete with its own secret formula that is passed on from mother to daughter and never revealed to strangers. The book lists three separate recipes.

For a Cordon Bleu chef brought up on his grandmother’s cooking, compiling a book of her traditional recipes should have been a piece of cake. Yet Swamy found ferreting out the recipes the trickiest part of his research. He wheedled cousins, cajoled aunts and sweet-talked strangers to get them to part with recipes from a cuisine that has hardly been documented.

The community’s reluctance to share its secrets with the world is threatening its culinary tradition. “You’ll not find East Indian cuisine on any restaurant menu. It is a cuisine which is dying out,” says Swamy, who works as a consultant and food stylist. According to him, the book is the first effort at formally documenting the cuisine.

His editor, Deepthi Talwar, however, says while one may not know it as East Indian, most foodies would have tasted East Indian staples such as vindaloo or sarapatel. “What we look for are books that describe how to cook typical dishes from the area, but also give the reader insight into the culture and people, and how it informs the cuisine,” Talwar says of the Kitchen series.

Next up is food writer Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal’s book on the cuisine of Uttaranchal. Married into a Pahadi family, Gildiyal says there are rarely any books on the subject and it was one of the reasons she decided to document the simple, rustic, bursting-withgoodness food of the people of Kumaon and Garhwal. It’s a cereal-rich cuisine, deriving its protein mainly from dals.

And there’s the famed Dehra Dun rice. “Dals are very essential to the cuisine, especially urad.

There’s some 30-40 ways of cooking urad.” Millets are another staple. “The cuisine is very basic, but because it relies on fresh produce, it’s very very tasty,” she says.

Much of the greens came from kitchen gardens and fruits from the orchards, and, in the days when hunting was allowed, meat was the game caught by the mensfolk.

No part of the animal was allowed to go to waste—leftover meat was pickled for the harsh winters, trotters were made into a soup, and the intestines into a kind of blood sausage. “The most notable dish would be a kachmauli—a whole goat or lamb is smoked for hours over a fire of green leaves and tender twigs. The meat is taken off the bone while still slightly underdone, and tossed in mustard oil, salt, chilli and turmeric.”

It’s such “back to the roots’ stories that have finally spiced up the prospects of earthy cuisines long overshadowed by their glamorous rivals.

Ingredients 1kg lamb, cut from breast and shoulder with bones 110ml mustard or refined oil 1 cinnamon stick 3 black cardamoms 4 green cardamoms 2 bay leaves 2 cloves 3 tsp fennel powder 2 tsp ginger powder 3 cups yogurt 1 tsp cornflour 1 tsp black cumin seeds (shah jeera) Salt to taste Method Heat the oil in a pressure cooker; add cinnamon, 1 black cardamom, 2 green cardamoms, bay leaves, cloves and lamb. Fry for 10 minutes. Pour six cups of water and add fennel and ginger powders and salt to taste. Pressure-cook for 10 minutes. Remove the lid when the pressure drops and check if the meat is tender. Drain the stock from the pressure cooker into a separate vessel.

Whisk the yogurt in a bowl. Add to the stock, stirring with a ladle and bring to a boil. Add the meat and cook till the gravy thickens. Whisk 1 tsp cornflour in 4 tsp water, add to the meat. Coarsely grind the remaining cardamoms, black and green, and add to the gravy. Sprinkle shah jeera.

Serve hot with steamed rice.

Recipe courtesy Kashmiri Cuisine through the Ages.

Sopa de Lentilha com Toucinho SERVES 4 Ingredients 250g husked, split Bengal gram (chana dal) 75g butter 2 onions, finely chopped 4 garlic flakes, diced 2 celery stalks, diced 3 carrots, diced 500g tomato purée 1 litre any stock 1 tsp salt 1K tsp freshly ground black pepper To garnish 200g bacon, diced Method Wash the dal and drain. In a pan, boil the dal in six cups of water. Lower the heat and simmer till tender.

In a fresh pan, melt the butter and sauté onions over low to moderate heat till translucent. Add garlic and celery, and sauté briefly. Mix in the remaining ingredients, except the garnish. Cook for 15 minutes. Liquidize the soup to a coarse purée in a blender. Return to pan and heat through. In a small frying pan, fry the bacon over very low heat in its own fat, till crisp.

Serve hot soup, garnished with bacon.

Recipe courtesy The East Indian Kitchen.

Fusion food: (left) The quintes­ sential bottle masala takes its name from the large bottle it is stored in; and a stuffed chicken that uses Indian ingredients and Western techniques.

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A ‘NO MASALA’ CULTURE

COURTESY ASHISH CHOPRA

INDRANIL BHOUMIK/MINT

MANIPUR Manipuris pride themselves on having the largest repertoire of dishes in the region. It is typical to flavour dishes with ngari (fermented fish) or sun-dried fish. A popular dish is tangal meh (green leafy vegetables seasoned with fermented fish).

The Meiteis, the state’s majority ethnic group, are Hindu Vaishnavites. Their religious eating restrictions (only vegetables and fish) make their culinary spreads the most accessible for those from outside the region.

Singzu (Manipuri salad) SERVES 5­6 Ingredients Kkg unripe papaya 2 tbsp gram flour (besan) 3 dry red chillies 2 small fermented fish 1 tsp salt Method Peel the papaya and cut it into thin slices. Dry-roast the gram flour till golden brown. Dry-roast the chillies with fish and grind to a paste with 1 tbsp water. Combine the paste with gram flour and salt. Add the papaya. Serve as an snack.

ARUNACHAL PRADESH Food from this state is marked by its simplicity—most often, fresh ginger is the only spice, and it is added after the dish is removed from heat so that the flavour lingers. The Adi tribe, one of the major tribes of the state, relish their smoked meat.

Asin Puinam (fish in bamboo hollow) SERVES 5 Ingredients 500g small, fresh river fish 2K cups of rice 1 tsp ginger paste and salt, each 3 green chillies, chopped 2 bamboo hollows, 3x5 inches Method Clean and wash the fish. Drain thoroughly. Wash the rice and drain. Combine all the ingredients in dry bamboo hollows.

Seal the mouth of the bamboo with a foil and place over a charcoal fire. Cook for about 30 minutes, rotating to cook evenly. Serve in the bamboo hollows.

Guided by a single spice note, food from the North­East is healthy and easy to prepare B Y A NINDITA G HOSE anindita.g@livemint.com

···························· f oil and masala are the two defining factors of Indian cooking, this is not an Indian meal.

Ashish Chopra, food consultant and author of NE Belly (a self-published book, now forthcoming from HarperCollins), has the ingredients of the Naga pork dish he’s making neatly laid out in black earthen pots, or hampais. He puts the pork to boil with a handful of chopped fresh ginger and puréed tomato. An hour later, the pork has cooked in its own fat. A plateful of fresh leafy greens and a couple of Raja Mirchas—believed to be one of the most fiery chillies in the world—marry the pot. What emerges is delectable: A bland yet fiery stew served on steamed rice that addresses almost all your dietary concerns.

The gastronomic nuances of the “Seven Sisters”, as the states of the North-East are called (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura), have remained as little known as the several hundred languages spoken by the tribes of this region. Either that, or they’ve been fetishized, with the focus on smoked woodworms and monkey meat from Nagaland, fried grasshoppers from Arunachal Pradesh and dog meat delicacies of Mizoram.

Things are changing, in small doses, with restaurants such as Nagaland’s Kitchen opening up in New Delhi. Reservations are now “strongly suggested” by the management staff of the 10-month-old eatery. On any given weekday, up to 30 plates of its most popular dish—Naga-style pork ribs served with Raja Mircha chutney—are dished out. What is promising is that only about half of the restaurant’s clientele is from the North-East.

The food from this part of the

I

MIZORAM

Fresh palate: (from top) Fried grasshoppers are a delicacy in Arunachal Pradesh; women in Imphal, Manipur, selling fresh vegetables; and pork with leafy greens and Raja Mircha. country is light, healthy and easy to prepare. While consumption patterns differ across the region, the basic components of a meal remain the same: steamed or boiled rice accompanied by a gravy-based meat or fish dish and a chutney, washed down with a soup of boiled vegetables.

Most North-Eastern kitchens will stock dry meat. Hoihnu Hauzel, journalist and author of The Essential North-East Cookbook (Penguin, 2003), describes a traditional kitchen as having “a dozen or more skewers with salted meat hanging over the kitchen fire”. But despite the predominance of meat and fish, the people of the North-East are heavy vegetable consumers as well, given the fact that these grow naturally and in abundance. The cuisine is high in nutritional value and fibre, and low on calories.

The taste markers for the region are fermented fish, bamboo and soyabeans, which are used variously, and impart a unique flavour.

So predominant is the fermented soyabean, in fact, that Hauzel likens its place in the North-East kitchen to the coconut in a south Indian one.

A couple of chillies, ginger or garlic are all that’s used for spice. When turmeric is used, fresh turmeric is dug out from kitchen gardens.

When improvising, it’s useful to remember that in North-East Indian food, a single spice note guides a dish. It is, as Chopra says, a fiercely “no masala” culture.

The simple fare involves boiling shredded vegetables or large chunks of meat with salt. Fresh ginger sprinkled with salt is usually served as an accompaniment. Most Mizo kitchens will have a sawm bel (small container) with fermented meat. This is called Mizo cheese.

Mizo Bai (vegetable stew with Mizo cheese) SERVES 5

PHOTOGRAPHS

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PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

Tribal instinct: Ashish Chopra has written extensively on North­ Eastern food.

NAGALAND Nagaland has almost 16 tribes and a number of sub-tribes with distinct food habits.

Tribes like the Semas and Angamis prepare their pork with akhuni (fermented soyabeans) while Ao Nagas love their pork with anishi—a preparation made of dried yam leaves. Raja Mircha, or Naga chilli, is a fiery red chilli that features in several dishes along with ginger or garlic.

Pork with leafy greens and Raja Mircha SERVES 4 Ingredients 1kg pork with the skin and fat 250g lal saag and 250g pui saag or available leafy greens 50g ginger, finely chopped 2 Raja Mirchas (for the adventurous) 300g puréed tomato Salt to taste Method Pressure-cook pork, tomato, ginger, salt with a little water for 20 minutes (or slow-cook in a hampai for 50 minutes). Add Raja Mircha, lal saag and other leafy greens. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve with steamed rice.

Ingredients 75g red pumpkin leaves 12 French bean leaves 2 medium-sized brinjals or 1 cup bamboo shoots 2 okras and green chillies (chopped), each 5g lengmaser (a local herb), optional K tbsp rice 1 tsp salt A drop of indigenous soda or pinch of sodium bicarbonate 1 tbsp Mizo cheese (fermented pork) or fermented fish Method Wash the pumpkin and bean leaves and tear by hand. Cut the brinjals or bamboo shoots into 2-inch pieces. Place 2K cups of water in a pan over high heat, bring to a boil and add all the ingredients except the soda and Mizo cheese. Bring to a boil again, add soda and Mizo cheese. Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes till the vegetables are cooked.

TRIPURA With the influence of Bangladeshi immigrants, people from Tripura like a little colour in their food—they use turmeric.

Meals revolve around shidal, a fermented fish preparation made by adding salt and mustard oil to fish, stored in an airtight container for two weeks, till pungent.

Chakhui Butwi (fermented fish with ginger) SERVES 4 Ingredients 3 medium-sized fermented fish 1 tbsp ginger, shredded A pinch of sodium bicarbonate 1 tsp salt Method Place 2K cups of water in a pan and bring to a boil. Add the ingredients and boil till the gravy thickens. Garnish with lime leaves (optional) and serve with steamed rice.

Recipes courtesy Hoihnu Hauzel.

For recipes from Assam and Meghalaya, turn to Pages 10 and 13.

SLIDE SHOW

VIDEO

To watch Ashish Chopra make his pork dish, visit www.livemint.com/northeastfood.htm

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DESIGN ON THE MENU

Lamps, tables, bead partitions— unique decor ideas spotted at restaurants that you can adapt for your home B Y K OMAL S HARMA komal.sharma@livemint.com

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q LAMPSHADES FLIPSIDE, HAUZ KHAS VILLAGE, NEW DELHI The six-month-old Café FlipSide has become popular for its casual, “let’s hang out” vibe. Owner Raavi Choudhary says: “We didn’t have the budget for a big, commercial interior design project. FlipSide is an extension of my living room. It’s personal

and an ever-changing environment.”

A Japanese umbrella hanging upside down doubles up as a chandelier over a secluded couch, making for FlipSide’s best seat.

Radiating a warm yellow light, this is a 60-year-old, delicate, original Japanese umbrella gifted to Choudhary by his uncle’s friend, who lives in Japan.

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DIVYA BABU/MINT

t LIGHTS

What you need: If you don’t have such an heirloom, don’t worry. You can use any decorative umbrella made of handmade paper or Jaipuri cloth. Get an electrician to fix the wiring. These umbrella lights work well in corners or as the centrepiece in a room, forming a halo on the ceiling as well as giving a diffused light.

THE POT BELLY, SHAHPUR JAT, NEW DELHI In this café that serves Bihari food, owners Puja Sahu and Vivita Relan wanted everything to be in commune with nature.

The café overlooks tree tops, and the partners wanted to continue the green theme indoors. “That’s how the idea of lamps that resemble flowers came up,” says Sahu. Colourful woven-cane lampshades, some in the shape of flowers and others just inverted baskets, hang from the ceiling at The Pot Belly. And that’s not all: Sahu and Relan have used cutting-chai glasses and glass jars as bulb holders. “We chased cane-furniture makers and got them to design these for us especially and then just got an electrician to fix up the wiring,” says Sahu. Each lamp costs `700 approximately.

What you need: Cutting-chai glasses or any other glassware you’d like to use. Also, source cane baskets or especially woven cane lampshades. Make sure the baskets you choose are not too tightly woven.

COURTESY ESTIA

u DINING TABLES GREY GARDEN, HAUZ KHAS VILLAGE, NEW DELHI While you wait for your meal to arrive at Grey Garden, there is something else to keep you occupied. Teakwood tables with glass tops and a compartment underneath act as show windows. Vintage watches, old perfume bottles, kitschy matchboxes, dried leaves and other such charms are sandwiched between the glass-top tables. Designed by Himanshu Shani, who runs Cell DSGN, a design consultancy studio, and designer Mia Morikawa, the idea was to give each table a character.

“My partner at work, Shalabh Singh, collects matchboxes, so we made one with those. Mia used some net lace accessories that were left over from her garments, so we put that in. She also likes to collect sands from different parts of the world, so we used those in cork bottles,” says Shani.

What you need: While these tables at Grey Garden are for sale—the table costs `15,000 and if you want one filled with accessories, it will be priced at `45,000, while those with vintage pieces go up to a lakh—you can create your own table. Those nostalgia-ridden trinkets kept away in boxes can be put on your tables in the dining or living area at home.

They’re sure to be conversation-starters. Get in touch with Grey Garden at info@thegreygarden.com

p BEAD CURTAINS ESTIA, ALOFT HOTEL, WHITEFIELD, BANGALORE The brief given to architect and designer M.C. Tilak Raj for the Mediterranean restaurant Estia was that it should reflect the cuisine being served. The furniture is made of dark brown wood to create a rustic look and provides a contrast to the bright sea blues and whites of the upholstery.

The striking bead curtains adorning the French windows that separate the bay area (next to the pool) from the restaurant draw attention. Designed by Sreeti Mondol, who works with brightly coloured glass beads, the curtains stand out for their colours and texture.

“The curtains create a seamless partition of sorts,” says Mondol, adding that the beads, made of glass, have been sourced from across South-East Asia and more prominently, India.

What you need: Bead curtains can be used easily at home. “Most clients requested for my curtains as separators between the kitchen and living room,” says Mondol, adding that these can also be used at the entrance to a terrace or balcony, or simply as a separator of rooms.

Door-sized curtains (3x7ft) cost `12,000-15,000. Get in touch with Mondol at 9845508083.

Pavitra Jayaraman contributed to this story.