Mishmash India
From khichdi to pongal, the one-pot hodgepodge binds the
country, but the dish is not as simple as it is often made out to be
Whether you breakfast on ven pongal tomorrow or
donate pots of black urad and rice cooked with amla, the fact that the year’s
first festival involves the ritualistic taste of the mishmash is significant.
The celebration of Makar Sankranti with khichdi, the one-pot dish, is a
symbolic celebration of life and regeneration — with newly harvested rice and grain.
It also affirms the importance of what is perhaps India’s most inventive dish.
Think khichdi, and a simple dish of rice and dal
comes to mind. It is anything but — there are millet khichdis; those cooked
with safflower seeds and corn; and the meat khichdis that defy the impression
that this is essentially a vegetarian dish. There are bold versions that
delight in everything from caramelised onions to saffron and black cardamom. As
Birbal rightly points out in a delicious fable, the only indispensable ingredient
to cook a khichdi is fire. It is a dish that defies stereotypes, cuts across
class and caste and shows us the key to Indian cooking is inventiveness.
Pongal, which is considered traditional and homely,
too shows innovation, as the Tamil mishmash has adopted newer ingredients and
cooking methods. In Chennai, food researcher Shri Bala, who has been studying
Sangam literature (400 BCE to 300 CE), says early versions of pongal had a few
basic ingredients. “Moong gram was the ancient lentil (toor came later). Rice
was used by the wealthy and millets by ordinary people. Then a mixture of four
things called sambharam was used to flavour the dish — salt, black pepper,
cumin and curry leaves,” says Shri Bala Nothing, however, can beat the fabled
nawabi khichdi when it comes to inventiveness. The raqabdars (specialist cooks)
of Lucknow were highly paid for their creativity, according to Abdul Halim
Sharar’s 19th century classic Guzishta Lucknow. One of their
creations was a khichdi made of almonds and pistachios carved to resemble
individual grains of rice and lentils.
We may never get to taste it but other historic
khichdis have been recreated. Persian scholar Salma Husain records the
preferences of the Mughals in her book The Emperor’s Table.
According to her, Jahangir was fond of lazeezan, an
elaborate dish of moong dal and rice, layered with meat koftas and flavoured
with saffron, cream, almonds and rose petals. Aurangzeb loved the relatively
spartan qabooli — rice and Bengal gram, where the dal was first bhunao-ed in
yoghurt.
The qabooli must have travelled to the Deccan, where
it still exists, albeit as a dying dish. Asma Khan, lawyerturned-chef whose
restaurant Darjeeling Express has been garnering acclaim in London and who is
set to feature as the first chef from Britain on the popular Netflix
series Chef’s Table this spring, recalls her first taste of
qabooli in Hyderabad. She found the name striking because it sounds like what a
bride says at nikah: “Qabool hai, I do.” Khan cooks it for her catering
services in London while her restaurant features the UP-style khichdi with
garam masala. Spiced with black cardamom, cloves, tej patta and cinnamon, it is
another example of inventiveness, turning a common man’s dish into elite,
aromatic food.
At Bengaluru’s Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR), bisi bele
bhath, too, has had a makeover. “It is a spiced-up version of the traditional
Mysuru dish concocted by my great-uncle Yagnanarayan Maiya (one of the founders
of MTR),” says Hema Malini Maiya, MTR’s third-generation co-owner.
Neither dal nor rice is essential for these
mishmashes. Either or both can be substituted with a re gion’s staples.
Chef Ranveer Brar mentions the kusubi huggi from
northern Karnataka as one of the unique preparations that he has come across.
Made like a salty porridge with rice and the milk extracted from kusubi
(safflower) seeds, this is a festive dish cooked with a turmeric leaf thrown
in.
In Rajasthan, soitas, which are porridge-like, are
traditionally cooked with either bajra or jowar and meat. Chef Akshraj Jodha of
ITC Windsor in Bengaluru has put this recipe on his coffee shop menu.
Then there is Indori khees, a mishmash of corn, which
is often dubbed khichdi in parts of Gujarat. This has inspired chef Manish
Mehrotra to create a comfort dish at his new restaurant Comorin in Gurgaon.
Mehrotra seems to have a fascination for khichdi, which shows up in different
avatars on his menus: bajra khichdi with beef laal maas in London, gobindbhog
khichdi with paturi in Gurgaon and Lucknowi khichda with lamb in his upcoming
menu at Indian Accent in Delhi. “It is versatile and a complete meal and can be
used as a comfort dish or to highlight other hero dishes,” says Mehrotra. “In
India, khichdi is not one dish but a term to refer to the consistency of a dish,”
he says.
Even this is only partially true. The soita can be
runny. Khichda, cooked with fivesix dals, and the Bengali bhog khichuri with
vegetables are mashy. Then there are khichdis which are dry. The green gram and
basmati khichdi that I ate some years ago at filmmaker Muzaffar Ali’s home had
each grain separate and glistening with ghee. It was served with caramelised
onions and a shorba. A khichdi to challenge stereotypes.
The writer looks at restaurants,
food trends and culinary concepts
Anoothi Vishal
ET13JAN18
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