FOOD SPECIAL...SOUPS AND STEWS

 Goulash for the Soul 

This is the time for soups and stews: from a Czech chicken broth to slow-cooked shabdeg

    With the winter chill setting in, this is just the right time to go for soups and stews, to let vegetables and meats simmer, swirl and coalesce into hearty broths. Indian cuisines, particularly of the north, borrow much from Central Asian traditions, and many of the slow-cooked curries and stews based on the Mughal style of cooking reflect that. Dishes like shabdeg and nihari are just right for this weather: the meat, with spices and veggies, are traditionally left to simmer overnight in its own juices on a slow fire so that flavours can assimilate, the flesh fall off the bone and the marrow seep into the curry. Both are delicacies that we do not come by easily these days, but we can still attempt to recreate them, with some effort, in our kitchens. But before we come to that, here’s a look at another interesting cuisine: Czech.
Prague, Served Hot
What can be better than stews and soups from the elusive corners of Eastern Europe to stave off the cold? While everyone recognises Prague for being the cultural capital it is, Czech pub grub and its other home offerings are not quite known. Recently, I came across a young chef from the country, Michal Jerabek, who was cooking at the Eros in Delhi, and he taught me a couple of simple recipes you can replicate at home.
    Czech food is simple — breaded deepfried fish, beef croquets, sausages, sour cabbage and boiled potato salads are often on the plate. The most distinctive feature are the dumplings made from flour or potatoes that are served up with stews and meats, with a little cream and pureed fruit sauce for garnish. Even if you can’t go the whole hog and serve up a meal exactly like that, try doing a goulash at home.
    Hungary has claimed the stew for its own but it is Czech too as is the recipe I have: For a kilo of meat (a mix of chicken and pork), you would need a kilo of onion, plus garlic, salt and pepper, caraway seeds, paprika, tomato puree and marjoram. Fry the onions and the meat brown and season these. Then add the puree and paprika, and add water to boil. Cook on a low flame for an hour or so till the meats are tender and the flavours well blended.
    The Czech chicken broth also uses the technique of slow cooking. But it is as simple as putting pieces of chicken, celery, onion, carrots, bay leaf and all spice in water and letting it all simmer for two hours. You can add home-made noodles for a one-pot lunch or dinner.
Shanks and Turnips
In Old Delhi, the most famous winter stew used to be the shabdeg — lamb shanks cooked with turnips and carrots that are in season. Traditional cooks would bury entire handis of the meat and veggies — heated from the bottom — in the ground. By morning, the meat
Winter Broth
for Dummies
This is the season where you find so many tubers and greens that making a soup or broth should be easy. Certainly nothing can be simpler: dice as many veggies as you like, cook them in water or stock. Thicken the broth with cornflour or pureed vegetables. You can add to the pot noodles or pasta or bits of meat, shredded chicken, chopped-up sausage.
Season with any combination of spices — from soy sauce to oregano, depending on the cuisine you like.
If you want, you can add a bit of readymade pesto to the broth: make a base with a bit of Thai red curry paste (out of a packet again) and add fresh herbs like coriander, basil, mint, whatever takes your fancy.
For more flavour, always start by tempering some strong flavouring agent like garlic in oil, then add the meats and veggies and finally water/stock. You can pre-make the stock and store in the freezer. Or you can crumble cubes of flavouring.
Never overcook the veggies — leave them al dente, it adds a bit of crunch to the broth.
would be falling off the bone. At home you can slow-cook the shanks with turnips and carrots. First sauté whole garam masala and the meat in ghee and then let it cook slowly, adding some water to it. After a couple of hours when the meat is well cooked, strain the liquid. To this add brown onion paste and black pepper powder. Bring it to a boil and add the pieces of mutton back with some more cut veggies. Serve hot.
How Green is the Soup
If you are looking at soups, Chinese flavours are always welcome. Some of us can do basic things like sweet corn chicken and hot and sour: in fact, these have become the new comfort dishes. But I learnt two new concoctions from master chef Tong Sing Wah at C’est Chine, Jaypee Palace, Agra. The chef is quite a celebrity in the town, refusing to compromise on flavours and cooking personally for guests in his huge open kitchen. I watched him at work last week and learnt to do a ginger-green vegetable soup.
    Take green veggies like cabbage, spinach and pok choy (it is easily available but the chef’s Kolkata-born wife Rosie let me in on a home secret — you can use sarson ka saag, mustard greens, instead). Chop these into 2-inch pieces. Fry ginger slices in oil, add water and bring to a boil. Now add vegetables. Let these blanch for a few seconds. Remove from fire. Season and serve hot. This is a home-style recipe not usually found on restaurant menus.
    For chicken lemon coriander soup, you would need coriander paste, lemon zest, chopped green chillies, chopped vegetables like carrots, beans and cabbage and chicken stock that you can pre-cook and keep. Keep aside the boiled and shredded chicken. In stock and water, boil the vegetables, add chicken and season with coriander, chillies and lemon. Finally thicken with cornflour