What do north Indians eat?

This is a rant that was building up in my head for a while now. A few months ago I had read an article which - if I had to put it in a sentence - un-generalized Gujarati food for north Indians who think that Gujaratis add sugar to every dish. That's partly true but it's not just north Indians who think this way. I have met a number of Maharashtrians and south Indians who share the same thought. In fact, Indians generalize almost every cuisine and culture. Generalizing is our favourite sport.

Anyhow, getting back to this article. While the writer ’saved’ Gujarati food from this brutal generalization, he went ahead and generalized north Indian food. Actually, bashing it to an extent. There are a number of things that irked me. First, what do you categorize as north Indian food? From Uttar Pradesh to Punjab and even Kashmir, all the states are considered north India. The food of one state is vastly different from another. Second, we’re not all butter chicken eating and naan chomping people who don't know about any dal beyond the kali dal or don't cook rice that's anything less than basmati.

So, this is the post where I un-generalize the food from UP. People usually know Uttar Pradesh’s food as the kebabs and biryanis of Lucknow or Awadhi cuisine as it's famously known. But, that's only a part of the kind of food we make and eat. The varied casts have their own recipes and methods. For eg the Khatris of UP (the cast to which I belong to) are broadly vegetarians and don't use too much onion and garlic in their food. I’ve grown up eating bhindi cooked in ajwain and jeera and lightly boiled kathal (jackfruit) fried in besan. The parwal at my home was always cooked with potatoes in turmeric, red chilli powder, amchoor and dhaniya powder. The vegetable is cooked till its sides are curled and it's as crispy as a chip. We eat nenua (torai) cooked with sliced radishes (it adds a lovely flavour to the otherwise bland subzi). Baingan (small variety) is cooked with potatoes and tomatoes in a tempering of methi seeds, ginger and whole garlic. These are just the mainstream vegetables. We cook a number of off-beat ones too. My grandmother used to make lotus stem in curd gravy and I faintly remember eating amiya (raw mango) subzi made by my great grandmother. My mother cooks turnip with carrot, beetroot, spinach and tomatoes which is a lovely blend of subzi and soup. Heck, we also use raw papaya to make a nice curry.

And yes, we know our dals beyond the buttery and creamy black dal. We cook arhar dal on a regular basis which is tempered with jeera and hing in desi ghee. There's also a technique to make perfect dal, mix dhuli masoor (the orange one) to arhar in 1:4 ratio and you’ll get that perfect consistency which is neither watery nor goopy thick. We also make chana dal with lauki and plain kali masoor with tadka of garlic. We have mixed dal too - arhar, masoor, moong, chana - fried with onions and tomatoes. Our besan ki kadhi with soft besan pakodas - trickled in from Punjabi cuisine - is famous across the country. Our khichdis are incomplete without aloo chokha (potato mash), dahi, pickle and onion on the side. In fact, our food has a healthy dose of accompaniments, be it bathue ka raita or pudine ki chutney. We pickle almost every vegetable and fruit and you’ll find our kitchens stocked with variety of mango, lime, radish, carrot, cauliflower, garlic, ginger, green chilli, red chilli, jackfruit, monkey jack, and gooseberry pickles.

We don't usually cook basmati at home. There's a range of short grained, fragrant rice like shakkar chini and kala namak available in the market which are similar to Kolkata’s gobindobhog in both texture and taste. This rice also goes in making tehri - a variet of pulav with cauliflower, potato, onions and green peas. You’ll find it loaded with carrots in winter. There's another dish made of rice and dal called phale which is specific to UP. Rice is soaked, ground into a thin paste, cooked to form dough like consistency, rolled into thick disks, stuffed with urad or chana dal paste and boiled in water. These rice rolls are eaten with hot ghee or spicy garlic chutney.

Then there's Kayasth community known for its non-vegetarian food but also has some brilliant vegetarian dishes. Their stuffed tomato subzi for instance where the centre part of the tomato is scooped out and stuffed with mashed potatoes. These are then cooked in a gravy made with that scooped out pulp. They make masoor ke shaami kebab - I tried them at a pop-up recently - a brilliant take on mutton shaami. And, who hasn't heard of kathal ki biryani.

Head towards Merath, Varanasi or Allahabad and you’ll get kachori thali in every street complete with urad dal kachoris, aloo ki subzi, kaddoo ki subzi, lauki ka raita and imli ki chutney. The rustic litti-chokha - brinjal roasted on cow-dung cakes and mashed with potatoes, tomatoes, sliced onions, chillies, mustard oil, lime juice and salt eaten with sattu stuffed dough balls - is poor man’s food and is slowly gaining popularity as a main-stream dish. Matar ka nimona - a curry made with green peas is one of the main dishes in eastern UP.

There’s a lot to the food of UP and I haven't even scratched the surface here. The breakfast dishes and sweets need a separate post.

Recipe - Makhane Ki Sabzi

You guys know how much I am influenced by my mom’s cooking. Her ability to consistently churn out the same recipe with same precision year after year is what blows me over. One of such recipes is this Makhane ki Sabzi. Makhana or Lotus Nut is one of the most beautiful yet underused ingredients according to me. Usually it’s fried and eaten as an evening snack or added in panjiri and kheer. While there are various regional recipes, I have rarely seen restaurant menus using it creatively. Coming back to the recipe, this sabzi was a hit among my parents’ friends and we’d host special dinners and lunches where she made makhane ki sabzi and naan. Trust me, no one even cared for chicken and mutton. Yup, it’s that good.

You can also check out this recipe on Local Banya's blog and if you intend to cook it go buy the ingredients from their aisle right away.

Ingredients:
100 gms makhana (chopped)
25 raisins (chopped)
10 cashew nuts (chopped)
10 almonds (chopped)
4 chuhara (chopped)
50 gms green peas
2 dry red chillies
2 green cardamom
1 clove
1/2 inch piece of cinnamon
2 tbsp ghee
1 cup milk
1/4 tsp pepper powder
Salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat ghee in a heavy bottomed pan.
2. Throw in red chillies, clove, cinnamon and cardamom and fry for few seconds.
3. Add makhana, raisins, cashew nuts, almonds, chuhara and green peas. Fry them for two minutes.
4. Add milk and let it cook till the milk thickens.
5. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Serve with roti, paratha or best, with naan.

You can make it richer by adding mawa or khoa instead of milk. Decorate it with dry fruits and cinnamon stick for better presentation. 

Holi Recipes - Dahi ki Gujiya

Holi is almost here and the festival always reminds me of late night gujiya making sessions. We used to shift the gas stove in the living room where Mom would pack the gujiyas and Dad would fry them. I never cared for the sweet gujiyas much. My favourites were all the savoury things that Mom would make - mathri, papdi chaat, namakpare etc. Her speciality though was dahi ki gujiya also called dahi wade or dahi bhalle. Mom's version had a filling of green chillies, raisins and ginger in it which was like surprise packed inside the gujiya. Take a bite and you would suddenly get sweet and spicy taste. Today I am sharing the recipe of my mom's famous dahi ki gujiya. Try it and you'll forget the best of dahi wadas you'd have eaten.

Ingredients

For Gujiyas

500 gms white urad dal (soaked overnight)

1/4 cup chopped green chillies

1/4 cup chopped raisins

1/4 cup chopped ginger

1/4 tsp hing (asafoetida)

Oil for deep frying

For Chutney

1 cup jaggery

1/2 cup tamarind pulp

1/2 tsp red chilli powder

For Serving

500 gms thick curd
2 tsp sugar
Chopped green coriander
A mix of salt, red chilli powder and roasted cumin powder (1 tsp each)

Method

1. Drain the water from the soaked urad dal and grind it into thick paste.
2. Mix hing in this paste. We won't add salt so that you can store the gujiyas for longer.
3. Heat oil in a wok. Take some paste in your hand, keep some chopped chillies, raisins and ginger in the centre, close it to shape it like a gujiya and deep fry till it turns golden.
4. Remove the gujiyas from oil and instantly drop them in a bowl full of salted water which will discard excess oil and soften the gujiyas. But if you're planning to store them for later then don't do it right away. You can soak the gujiyas in salted warm water half an hour before serving.
5. Heat tamarind pulp in a pan, add jaggery and red chilli powder and heat it till it turns into a thick chutney. Let it cool down completely. Yu can store it in the fridge for later.
6. Add sugar to curd and whisk it.
7. Now squeeze out excess water from gujiyas and place them in a bowl. Tp them with whisked curd, chutney, season with spice mix, garnish with coriander and serve.

Exploring Lucknow’s Vegetarian Side

Lucknow, like any other small Indian town, is a slow city. A city which runs at its own pace, lazily. There are few things that'll get the city folks up and running. But mention Netram Ajay Kumar’s jalebi and you’ll find them dressed, out of the house, on their two wheelers in a flash, that too early in the morning. The more than 100 year old shop (it’s been there since 1854) in the middle of Aminabad has been a favourite of many generations. A huge

crowd waiting for golden jalebis and khasta in the morning boasts of its popularity. It’s one thing to eat the thick, crisp, sugar syrup loaded jalebis at Netram and another thing to watch them being made. The old halwai, sitting with a composure that’ll shame the trained chefs, drops batter from a brass tumbler into hot oil with quick flicks of his wrist. Ask him to pose for a pick and he’ll do it with an ease of a filmstar, while still doing his job at the same speed. To balance out the sweetness of jalebis there’s khasta - deep fried flaky pastry stuffed with urad dal paste, served with spicy chhole, chutneys and onions. The khasta-jalebi breakfast is what Lucknow wakes up to, almost every day.

While Netram holds the reigns where jalebi is concerned, there are multiple favourites for khasta. Some for quality and other for pure nostalgia. Durga Khasta Corner in Hussainganj is another popular khasta joint where you’ll find a huddle of guys getting their morning fix or getting khastas packed for the whole family. The USP here is the pasty chhole scooped over hot khastas. 

At Netram, breakfast gets over by 10 and the shop gets ready for lunch. Puffed kachoris

stuffed with urad dal bobbing in hot oil, practiced hands making imartis and constant orders of kachori thali is what an afternoon looks like here. The thali has four crisp, double fried kachoris, potato curry, dry pumpkin sabzi, dry potato and cauliflower sabzi, bottle gourd raita and sweet chutney - the last one is so good it’ll make you take some home. Ask nicely and the waiter will happily pack some for you. Wrap up this meal with imarti or ras malai.

Want to make the Kachori Thali at Home? Check out recipe here.

As the Sun sets the city gets ready to take on the varity of chaat sold at every nook and corner. A hop, skip and jump away from Netram there's a small shop at the corner of the street, Shree Kalika Chaat House. They're making chaat since the days of my grandfather and great grandfather and the size of the shop and quality of food is still intact. Try the pani ke batashe here with spicy and tangy pani. The papdi chaat is a package of flavours - flat and crisp puris topped with potato, boiled white peas, red chutney, green chutney and a special masala sprinkled on top. The matar ki tikki, a Lucknow speciality is a simple preparation of pan fried boiled white peas garnished with chaat masala, green coriander and a spritz of lime. Don’t leave without eating their gulab jamuns - small, bite sized and full of sugar syrup. Walk exactly 10 steps to Prakash Kulfi for one of the best kulfis in Lucknow. The shop has been there since ages and serves just one flavour - kesar pista. 

If you loved Kalika’s chaat, wait till you go to Pt. Ramnarayan Tiwari Chaat Wala in Ganeshganj. The old shop is divided between two brothers so make sure you go to the one on the right. The chaat at Tiwari needs your complete attention so be suffeciently hungry and not in a rush. Start from pani ke batashe right outside the shop. The crisp batashas are filled with boiled white pea and spicy-tangy water in four different flavours - hing (asafoetida), lime, sweet with tamarind and a spicy one. Try the hing one and you’ll go for the second plate. All the waters have right amount of tang and spice. Once you’ve laid the geoundwork for the evening with batashas, move on to matar ki tikki - the one served here is better, crispier and spicier than Kalika. Aloo ki  tikki with whisked yogurt, sweet chutney garnished with thin potato wafers, green coriander and chaat masala is a burst of flavours. The dahi wadas are good too but the curd is tad too sweet sometimes. If you manage to save some stomach space after the tikki have a grand finish with tokri chaat - it's a basket of deep fried potatoes stuffed with aloo tikki, wada, papdi, dahi, chutney and garnished with pomegranate, chopped coriander and chaat masala. Lucknow takes immense pride in its tokri chaat so yes, go for it. 

Another famous chaat place here is Royal Cafe in Hazratganj. It's said that in the good old

days ordering food from Royal Cafe was the sign of being wealthy. You can try the chaat if you’re in the area. However, I’d still suggest that you go to Tiwari. But while you are Ganjing (roaming around in Hazratganj is called that) go and eat the dahi wadas at Gupta - a small wagon which is parked right outside Vallabhbhai Park in the evening. His dahi wadas are chilled, soft with creamy dahi.

Want to take a break from the chaat? Go to Burma Bakery in Ganj and buy their butter biscuits, cake rusk and jeera biscuit. 

One of the best things about eating in North India is the dhaba experience, and no I don’t mean a fancy restaurant dressed up as dhaba. I mean the real experience where you get in, eat and get out. Pappu Da Dhaba near Lucknow University is one such place; famous among students and working bachelors for its cheap and homely food. It's a small eatery on the road side with rickety wooden tables and benches where strangers share tables. The menu rotates and has dal, a dry sabzi, a paneer dish, egg curry, kadhi on some days and soft tandoori roti. The food is simple, not very spicy and unlike regular dhabas low on oil. You also get ande ki bhujiya with bread and parathas for breakfast. 

Lucknow is definitely a city rich with non-vegetarian food - kebabs, biryani, curries and kormas. But for every non-vegetarian dish there's an equally good vegetarian dish which I am trying to explore. More when I visit my hometown next. 

A Punjabi food haven in Mumbai

Being anywhere remotely close to Matunga East for me has always meant eating at one of the South Indian joints. A lot of our working saturdays (my office is in Matunga West) are planned around going for a Keralan meal at Mani’s Lunch Home or wolfing down hot rasam-vadas and paniyarams at Arya Bhawan. Two weeks ago when I planned a trip to Shanmukhanand in Sion to attend a concert, my brain was already hatching ideas to eat at either Arya Bhawan or the legendary Mysore Cafe.

On Sunday afternoon we drove to Sion and I suddenly realized that I was a hop, skip and jump away from Sion Koliwada. Which meant that Chawla’s chole-kulche joint mentioned by Gaurav on his blog (Eating Out In Bombay) was somewhere here. I asked around and we paced towards the area which was soon to become a mini Punjabi food paradise for me in Mumbai.

The tandoors (clay ovens) outside every shop took me back to my childhood when every summer holiday was spent eating rotis straight out of these tandoors. My nana-nani’s (maternal grandparents) village in district Udhamsingh Nagar was inhabited by Punjabis and there wasn’t a single house without a large tandoor in its courtyard. After the last game of eye-spy or langdi-kabaddi when we walked back home in the evening, calls of "rotti kha le" (come have food) from every home would entice us; their doors always stood ajar to welcome whoever was passing by.

How to make a perfect Sabudana Khichdi

Sabudana khichdi (or tehri as we call it in Lucknow) is easily a unanimously favourite dish during fasts. Sabudana is not a grain or pulse and is full of carbohydrates which fills you up really fast. Top it with dahi and it makes for a complete meal. I still remember, when my mother used to fast she’d cook sbudana khichdi for all of us; even if we weren’t fasting. I always loved the way she made it, slightly sticky and spicy. When I came to Bombay I ate the less spicier version with curry leaves. I didn’t like it initially but then developed a taste for it. This khichdi becamr my go-to Sunday meal while I was living alone. Eventually I learnt the process of how to make the non-sticky khichdi. Here’s my mom’s recipe. Take note of the first two steps, they are the most important ones.

Suhaal with boiled potatoes - A snack from Uttar Pradesh

If you've ever wandered in the bylanes of Lucknow, Banaras or any other city in Uttar Pradesh you must have found people snacking on something beyond kachori and samosas. These crispy, savoury pastries called suhaal. Since its eaten with spicy boiled potatoes you can also call it a disentegrated samosa. Now, we don't have enough places that make decent UP style samosas or kachoris in Mumbai so finding suhaal is out of question. So this Diwali when I was craving for some I thought of making it for brunch. Sharing the recipe was the obvious next step after we gobbled down all the suhaals with the yummy potatoes. By the way they can also be eaten with pickle or boiled, spiced white peas (also know as ragda in Mumbai). But trust me, potatoes are the best. So go ahead, try the recipe and let me know how they turned out.

Ingredients

Maida or all purpose flour -  250 gms

Oil - 4 tbsp for flour and 500 ml for frying

Ajwain - 2 tsp

Salt 2 tsp

For potatoes

Potatoes (boiled) - 3 medium sized

Spring onion - 1

Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp

Roasted cumin powder - 1/2 tsp

Lemon juice - 1/2 tsp

Fresh coriander (chopped) - 1 tsp

Salt to taste

Method

1. Mix maida and oil till all of it is soaked in oil.
2. Add ajwain, salt and water and knead it in a tight dough.
3. Make small balls and roll each one into thin disks.
4. Prick them with a fork. This is to avoid them from puffing up while frying.
5. Now cut each disk into halves, fold every half to form a triangle. Use a little water to stick the corners together.
6. Heat oil in a wok and fry the triangles till they turn crisp and brown. Don't fry more than 5-6 at a time.
7. Remove and keep aside. Let them cool down.
8. Peel and mash the potatoes, add all the ingredients and mix.
9. Serve the crispy suhaal with spiced, boiled potatoes.

Gorakhpur style Mutton Curry: That's what you need to curb the homesickness

If you follow me on Twitter you might have seen me tweeting about my cravings for this Gorakhpuriya style mutton curry. Frankly, it's no rocket science and a very basic and rustic recipe. All you need is good mutton and good idea of proportions. It's a very spicy preparation and it's the only spicy dish that I crave for. Usually my dad cooks it and he's gentler while using the chillies. However, this time around I had my brother (Uncle's son) visiting from US who is a bigger carnivore than I am. He cooked the mutton which burnt a whole in my tongue but was amazing at the same time. The craving has settled for the time being.

Before you move to the recipe there's a very important instruction that I need to share; please make this in mustard oil only or else you won't get the same flavour.

Prep Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 90 mins
Serves: 3 very hungry, hardcore non-vegetarians or 5 people with decent appetites

Ingredients:
Mutton - 1 Kg (make sure it's the cut from chest and above)
Onions - 1 Kg (sliced)
Garlic - 1 whole pod (peeled)
Ginger - 50 gms (finely chopped)
Cinnamon - 2 inch stick
Black cardamom - 4
Green cardamom - 8
Black pepper pods - 12
Cloves - 8-10
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Mace - 1 tsp
Bay leaves - 5
Dry red chillies - 10-15 (depending how spicy you want it to be)
Green chillies - 5 (sliced in halves)
Yogurt - 1 cup
Mustard oil - 3 tbsp
Salt to taste

Method:

• Wash the mutton properly and keep aside.
• Heat oil in a pressure cooker and not pan cause it's easier this way if you want to pressure cook the mutton later.
• Throw in cumin seeds and add onions once they start to splutter. Fry onions till they turn pink. 
• Add garlic, chopped ginger and the rest of the whole spices. Fry for another 5 minutes.
• Add mutton and mix with the masala and let it cook in the water released by the onions.
• Let the mutton cook for an hour. Add water if needed.
• After an hour add yogurt, green chillies and salt and mix well. Add more water if you need thin curry.
• Cook for another 30 mins.
• Check if the mutton is cooked. If not pressure cook it. 2 whistles will be enough.
• Let the cooker cool down before you take the lid off. Serve it with rice, roti or litti and trust me, don't bother garnishing or plating it. It's best eaten desi style; straight from the cooker.

There's another version of this recipe where all the ingredients are thrown in together in a heavy bottomed vessel and cooked together for 11/2 hours. Yogurt is added after an hour. It tastes better if you cook it in an earthen pot or handi.