FOODIE SPECIAL .....................Greed is Good

Greed is Good



The street food in Chatori Gali in Bhopal is just the place to savour nawabi food

Have you ever felt like a chicken in a marinade just before it is skewered and singed in a tandoor? Forgive me if this question sounds a little kitschy, but in Bhopal, I did not know what else to feel like. Lying flat on my belly in a 400-year traditional hammam, scrubbed, oiled and slathered with a thick layer of tur meric and a million other herbs, I smelt like last night's leftover in a refrigerator.

“Stay like this for 10 minutes only then will the turmeric get into your skin,“ the hammam matron hollered in structions in the domed steam room. In the city founded by Raja Bhoj in the 11th century, I lay meek and immovable like a dead chicken. Like the chicken curled up in a bowl soaking the spices. Now, get my chicken-in-marinade dilemma? Sitting tight with green oil dripping from my hair, I tried crack ing my skin's current spice-code. Did the herbal pack have the Bhopal rizala's mint, coriander and cardamom? Saffron and butter of the sheermal? Salt of the sulemani chai (tea)? And the milky creaminess of Top n Town, Bhopal's favourite ice cream? The matron wouldn't tell me. “It is secret,“ she chewed a paan, thumped her chest as if she'd skewer me after 10 minutes.

Those 10 minutes that the turmeric took to sink into my skin, I went on a mind food-trail. I walked back hundreds of years and into the kitchen of Bhopal's nawabs and stumbled upon myriad influences. Sitting in the heart of India, Bhopal has had so many culinary influences that unlike Lucknow and Hyderabad, it has no prominent food identity.Many Influences Bhopali food is neither sour like Hyderabad food nor rich like Lucknow; it is laden with influences from Malwa, yet is very distinct. The Bhopali rizala is green while the Hyderabadi is fiery red; the Bhopalis like their dal kha da (not cooked to gooey con sistency) and even drop the q from Hyderabadi qorma and spell with k -korma .What really sets it apart is the influx of veg etables even in non-vegetarian dishes like keema maithi, filfora and shaljam gosht.

Filfora had me chuckle -imagine tubby cooks hand hammering strips of meat and cooking it hours over slow fire. However, before I could throw the imagined shaljam (turnip) in the meat, the matron returned. With hot water and an oversized oven-mitten, she sponged the marinade (okay, herbal pack) off my back. I felt squeaky clean. And famished to my last bone.

There was a feast waiting for me at Corner Bar, the restaurant in Courtyard by Marriott.“Bhopalis begin their day with spicy, slightly sweet poha topped with sev and finish it off with jalebi,“ Courtyard's executive chef Ajay Chaudhary said as he began his first lesson: in Bhopal do as Bhopalis do. Kept warm by a flickering candle, there was poha in a buffet wok and jalebis twisted with their own sweetness. They say, the best Bhopali pohas are made by people from Indore and Sehrore. I wouldn't know. Chaudhary's poha was stupendous. Another breakfast staple is bhutte ki khees (corn cooked in milk). And, yes, the sulemani chai, the sweet salty tea that simmers all day in the samovar and is served with ladles of thickened milk.No, out of the can condensed milk here.That is sacrilege in food-loving Bhopal.

“I can cook a Bhopali rizala for you,“ says Chaudhary. I pulled a burgundy bar stool and plonked on it like a begum. With a difference, though. There were no antique silver utensils that I had seen in Gulshan-e-Alam (Golghar), nor the famed custom-made crockery of Nawab Shahjehan Begum. For me, there were hard anodized woks, machine-ground spices and chicken instead of the Nawab-favourite mutton. The chef sautéed the chicken in ghee (clarified butter), added cashewalmond paste, slow cooked and finished it off with the green paste (chilli, coriander, mint) that makes Bhopali rizala so different from other Nawabi rizala.

With piping hot rizala in a bowl, I walked into Courtyard's Bay Leaf, a fine dining restaurant. One look at the menu and I knew I could span time zones. The food is progressive Indian. Shorba Imtiyazi. Makai aur khoye ki seekh. Mughlai chatka. Adraki gilafi sheikh. Laskari kaaliya. I yearned for the sheermal, sweet bread leavened with yeast.The rizala pairs perfect with sheermal. I broke the golden bread and felt like a Bhopali Begum, specially the one who left pure goldsilver threads in Gulshan-e-Alam for the birds to build nests of!

Old-world Charm

“How about a spin around the Greedy Lane?“ Marketing communications executive Jayadev Nakka's question took me by surprise. I sure hadn't pigged like a glutton in Bay Leaf. “Chatori Gali in Old Bhopal is a haven for foodies, specially if you love all things meaty.“ I immediately bought into Nakka's suggestion. But the Greedy Lane had to wait because it is only after dusk that the nahari pot is opened in the gali. I, however, had to see Old Bhopal which is cluttered with mosques and havelis.

On a mission to taste sulemani chai and savor Bhopali paan , we drove through crowded lanes and parked near the chowk.Syed Farhan, Marriott's sales and marketing man, knew exactly where to find perfect paan and best chai. I maneuvered fast cars and slothful cattle towards Shahab Tea Corner where a bearded Muhammad Hanees was pouring salted black tea over a ladleful of thickened milk. Price: `5 per glass.

On large platters lay sweet samosas stuffed with coconut and dried fruits. At just an arm's length away, Nawab Khan with a metal hairband was making paan like a cat on helium -in a blink he pinched out countless condiments from small containers, topped them on the leaf. And lo! The eight-rupee paan was ready. The nawabs often served atar-paan (perfumed betel leaf ) after meals to honour guests.

Ask any Bhopali and he'd tell you all about their sweet tooth. “It is not sweet tooth. In Bhopal, all teeth are sweet,“ Jayadeva asserted. Beyond the jalebis, there's kalajamum , phirni and kalakand . God never packed a sweet tooth for me, but Jayadeva was raving so much about the Obedullaganj kalajamun that I got tempted enough to drive nearly 20 km out of the city to a nondescript Puran Hotel that sells kalajaumn by the hundreds every day. In a large cast iron wok were floating little red kalajamuns.There were so many takers that I had to wait for my turn before digging a plastic spoon into an absolutely melt-in-the-mouth kalajamun. Price: `10 each.

Later, I walked on the periphery of Upper Lake where a mustachioed Raja Bhoj stands tall on the pier and an off-tune Jimmy was belting '70s hits. Dusk was setting in. I stood by Raja Bhoj's statue. In my hand was a sheermal. The burnished orange of the setting sun lent sheen to the sheermal. In Bhopal, I no longer felt like a chicken in a marinade just before it is singed in the tandoor.That moment, I could turn into a khansama and hand hammer strips of meat into a scrumptious filfora, under the stern gaze of an imagined nawab.

Preeti Verma Lal  ETM29MAR15