When I was a child, eating out meant heaps of plump tandoori chicken, rich mutton lajawab and glistening butter naan. In short, it meant a Mughlai meal with all the trimmings. Onion in vinegar, nimbu pickle and oodles of cholesterol.
The restaurants were usually dimly lit, with heavy cutlery and copper handis. It didn’t really matter whether we went to Delhi Darbar, Khyber or Copper Chimney; or whether the cuisine actually hailed from Punjab or Hyderabad, Kashmir or the kitchens of the Mughal emperors. It made little difference whether we ordered a chicken Rashida, a murgh Nargis or a chicken Mughlai. Somehow we always ended up with a cool glass of jal jeera, a platter of tikkas, meat in nutty, buttery gravy, and an overfull tummy.
Which was fine because it was always satisfying and enjoyable.
Then one day, we stopped visiting our old haunts. We found ourselves driving all the way to Bandra to try out a new Thai restaurant or a small Italian eatery. Or queuing up outside the suddenly popular Malvani seafood restaurants of Fort. And just like that, the mutton rogan joshes and bhuna goshts receded into the background. They became old friends with whom I lost touch.
Till a couple of weeks ago, when I received an unexpected parcel from a new restaurant called Desi Culture. It was a cardboard box that held six glass jars — one filled with nimbu achar, one with a spicy digestive, one with a laddoo-based dessert. I opened one of the jars at random, and almost got knocked off my feet by the rich aroma.
Packed in that jar was the most un-jarlike of dishes — a smoky, sensational butter chicken. Another jar held a sinful paneer tikka masala. And the last one a dal makhani. A delicious calling card from the past.
All of a sudden, I found myself craving for those magnificent naans and raitas; those perfect gravies and succulent kebabs. The food of childhood celebrations. The flavours of the Doordarshan generation.
Except that, when I started looking around, I realised that Mughlai and Punjabi fare had moved with the times. Clearly, the new breed of Indian-food-is-cool restaurants like Bombay Canteen, Indian Accent and Bombay Vintage had achieved the unlikeliest of makeovers.
Think butter da lasagna served with lachchha paratha and makhani foam. Or chicken tikka meatballs or a silken tofu kofta. Tandoori Mexican chicken. Chicken tikka makhani served with spaghetti.
I’m a bit chary about dishes that try to criss-cross the globe; and of restaurants that come with tags like “progressive” and “molecular gastronomy”. Which is probably a bit narrow-minded. After all, Mughlai cuisine is the original fusion food. The cuisine that began in the kitchens of Babar — who brought to India, not just an army, but immense nostalgia for a childhood spent under blue, expansive skies and craggy mountains of Uzbekistan. His cooks employed their simple grilling techniques upon Indian ingredients, and a new food story began.
Each emperor added his own chapter. Humayun, who spent so much of his life in exile, brought Iranian dishes onto the table. While Akbar — perhaps because he married into every corner of the country — introduced more Indian dishes to the menu. Noor Jehan was interested in European food, and enjoyed pretty flourishes, like yoghurt set with fruit juices in the seven colours of the rainbow.
In fact, food historians like Salma Husain point out that Akbar was a vegetarian for three days of the week and had his own kitchen garden that he nourished with rosewater. Similarly, it was Shah Jahan who instructed his cooks to add more haldi, jeera and dhania to the food for their medicinal properties. Legend has it that his cooks also added red chilli powder to keep evil spirits at bay.
Husain, in her many books on the subject, bemoans the fact that the Mughlai cuisine we consume is just a mishmash of oil and spices. Many of the subtle flavours have been lost. But then, the Mughal emperors fed their chicken, goats and sheep a bunch of goodies including gold and silver pellets. Their khansamas used a mix of rainwater and water from the Ganga for that perfect flavour. And the Mughal kitchens were run by PM-level officials who probably had a tough time making sure that each of the 100 dishes served at dinner was plated and garnished just right.
The secrets of the royal kitchens gradually made their way across the country — not just to the fancy kitchens of princely States but also to the gullies of Lucknow and the bazaars of Old Delhi and Ahmedabad. And from there, over the centuries, to the chandeliered restaurants and dial-a-biryani services of Mumbai.
So the next time I dial for a reshmi tikka or a biryani, I’ll send a thank-you to all those faddish emperors. And their poor, harassed kitchen managers.
Bhuna gosht
3 tbsp mustard oil
1 tbsp mustard seeds
3 green and 2 black cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick (about an inch long)
3 bay leaves
4 chopped onions
750g mutton cut into bite-sized pieces
3 chopped tomatoes
4 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
2 tbsp dhania-jeera powder
2 tsp red chilli powder
A pinch of haldi
3 tbsp plain yogurt
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
1 Heat mustard oil in a heavy-bottomed pan with a lid. Add mustard seeds, cardamom, cinnamon and bay leaves. Add the chopped onion and fry until translucent and soft.
2 Add the meat and brown for four minutes. Add the tomatoes and stir in the dhania-jeera powder and ginger-garlic paste. Add half a cup of water, cover and simmer for five minutes. Keep adding water. Make sure the ingredients don’t burn from the bottom.
3 When the mutton chunks are tender, stir in the yogurt. Add salt and pepper to taste
Shabnam Minwalla is a journalist and the author of The Strange Haunting of Model High School and The Shy Supergirl