banaras ka khana

I was going through the old pictures of Banaras I have clicked over the years and stumbled upon a bunch of pictures of this quaint Japanese cafe and restaurant from our visit two years back. Yes, I had planned to share a review but something or the other kept me occupied and this experience could never be shared.

Better late than never. This cafe is called i:ba and has a rustic zen to it's decor. We were actually taken in for a surprise when we entered at lunch time that day. We were the only guests in the restaurant and settled down quickly, claming all the space to ourselves. One look at the menu and we understood they have a fairly good Japanese spread but they do serve some pasta and chow mien fare as well, they even has some Indian meals back then. Not sure whether they have changed the menu in the last 2 years since we were there.

The decor definitely appealed to us. Comfortable couches and low tables mostly but a few dining tables too so one can choose what suits better.

Rustic Indian murals, woodwork and some cane baskets etc paired really well with a calming blue sky painted along the roofing. Well air conditioned and well kept I must add, though I felt the servers could be more presentable.

We had gone there with a good mind to try Japanese food in Banaras. Had heard about the owner who is a Japanese and had married a local girl to settle down in the city. Such stories of romance between foreigners and locals is not new for the city but it is always great to witness if it brings something good to the city too. I would want the society to be more open to new ideas and changes but we can do with a cafe where we can get to eat some Japanese food for now.

It would be even better if they get fish suited for sushi and sashimi too and if they get to serve all types of meats some day.

We could get an idea that the menu was designed to cater to the city folks more than the tourists. I feel more youngsters and students go there for experimentation and may be for a quite date. The pricing can pinch a student's pocket in the city though, but they can always decide to eat just one filling dish and not eat many courses.

The menu is printed in a very basic manner, making the dishes understandable for a person who is eating Japanese food for the first time. I appreciate this effort.

We ordered Pan fried gyoza, Miso soup, Curry Udon, Mutton Yakiniku don and a set Japanese meal platter. For the two of us this was quite a lot of food but we wanted to taste as much as we could.

I liked the use of local vegetables in every dish we tasted. There is not much option to get fresh variety of mushrooms, imported greens and sea food in the city and I don't mind local ingredients being used for the food.

i:ba uses good quality Wakame, dried Shitake and Miso paste etc to bring flavour I could see. Miso soup was spot on, perfect.

They import many Japanese ingredients and the taste of miso paste and pickles (on the side) was impeccable but the use of local vegetables lends a taste that gives it a local twist even if it is not intentional. I must add that the taste of local vegetables grown in the Gangetic plains is different from anywhere else and we do notice the change of taste even when compared to Delhi.

The use of mutton and chicken only in the non vegetarian dishes is understandable as serving Beef or Pork in the city wouldn't be possible. Not sure if it is allowed but most people wouldn't go to places where these meats are served as much I understand.

I am glad there is a Japanese restaurant in the city which is a great respite from the chaats and street food for a traveler. There are many more gems in the city that I have been planning to write about. A nice bakery called English bread that serves wonderful Bagels apart from other breads and pastries, another Lebanese cafe that someone runs in his courtyard and many tea shops and cafes that cater to the foreign travelers more than the desi ones, but worth a visit to understand how so many people keep coming back to Banaras.

It is not just the spirituality, there is something more to the culture and lifestyle that attracts travelers from all around the globe.

Tomatoes lend a wonderful flavour to fish steaks when simmered for some time. I usually like fish with bones and skin for my curries as the skin and bones bring all the flavours of fish alive. I wouldn't ever use fish fillet for curries unless I am serving it to fussy guests. But trust me this simple tomato fish curry would floor some of those fussy eaters too.

A tomato based fish curry, as simple as it can be. I mean no overpowering spices, very nominal cooking oil used and very few steps to make the curry. A mild whiff of nigella seeds and a tangy taste of tomatoes complimented well by a bit of garlic is somewhat describes this curry totally, of course the red chilli balances the act. And that's about it. No other flavours spoiling the tomato fun.

Most of my Indian style fish curries are inspired by Bengali fish curries and this is one of them. I started eating fish influenced by some Bengali friends and I owe it to them the way I can handle my fish. And note that this tomato fish curry has to be cooked in mustard oil, else you will get something else, you may like it but not you will miss some magic that mustard oil lends to this curry.

ingredients
(2 servings)

2 large fish steaks about 120-150 gm each
2 tsp besan (chickpea flour)
generous pinch of salt and turmeric to smear the fish steaks
400 gm tomatoes (desi tart and sweet variety please)
3 cloves of garlic
1 green chilli broken
1/2 tsp red chilly powder
1.5 tbsp mustard oil
1/4 tsp kalonji or nigella seeds
handful of chopped coriander greens
salt to taste

procedure..

Smear the salt and turmeric over the fish steaks and dredge very lightly over a very thin layer of chickpea flour.

Heat mustard oil in a cast iron pan and shallow fry the prepared fish steaks.

In the meanwhile chop the tomatoes roughly and make a paste along with garlic cloves. Keep aside.

In the remaining oil after shallow frying the fish steaks, add the nigella seeds and green chilli pieces. Wait till nigella seeds get fragrant and pour the tomato paste over it. Add salt, red chilly powder, half of the coriander greens (preferably the stem parts) and let it come to a soft boil.

Slide the fried fish steaks in the simmering tomato gravy, add a little hot water if you want the curry thinner and simmer for about 5-6 minutes.

Adjust seasoning, add a little sugar ( I needed 1/4 tsp) if the tomatoes are too tart.

Serve hot with plain boiled rice, garnished with the remaining coriander greens.

Rustic, simple, clean flavours that make everyday food so much more desirable. You can serve some vegetable stir fry with this meal of some raw salads too. We had a lavish fish meal with these fish cakes along with this tomato fish curry.

Here is another tomato based fish curry where I have used Bombil or Bombay duck. One more tomato based fish curry is a bit complex with some spices used and a little rich too. You can see I love using tomatoes in my fish curry, but this one is the simplest of all tomato fish curries I make.

Do let me know whenever you try this. It will be good to mention that this curry tastes great with just some lightly fried boiled potatoes or even paneer. Or use the besan ki katli or patode to make this curry. So there are many vegetarian versions too.

A dear reader of this blog had requested the recipe of Doli ki roti long back and I had been planning to post the recipe since then. I made doli ki roti a few times since then but could not click pictures as it was either made for dinner or for a gathering where serving the roti hot out of the pan is priority and clicking pictures doesn't come in the way.

And then I heard Babso Kanwar and Pushpesh Pant talking about Doli ki roti at Oberoi Gurgaon when Lost recipes of India were being showcased. I got to know that doli ki roti is available somewhere in Multani Dhanda in Delhi, I am yet to visit Multani Dhanda to taste the doli ki roti but there is so much more to doli ki roti than just the taste and texture.

This doli ki roti is actually a deep fried flat bread made using 'sourdough leavened dough' but it is very different from kulcha or bhatoora. The taste is complex and aromatic because of the use of spices in the sourdough starter.

It will be good to recount that all breads in the Multan and Punjab region were made using leavened dough in the past and that too in a community tandoor called sanjha chulha. Women in rural Punjab would gather at this community tandoor to make their everyday rotis. The fried variations of the bread will be cooked at home of course.

The use of sourdough in everyday roti was a norm in Punjab, Multan of undivided India and Himachal which was part of Punjab in older days. The sourdough was called 'khatta' and a small piece of dough was reserved from the previous day, to be added to the fresh dough which was rested for a couple of hours before making fresh rotis.

This sourdough fermentation ensured lower the amount of phytic acid (study) in all these breads and added many more micro nutrients to it, though the people might have been unaware of this fact. But it is a fact that dietary habits and procedures evolve in a specific way, in the direction of well-being. Positive effects on health will be noticed sooner or later and the foods that cause well-being will be continued and those causing harm will be discarded.

To make doli ki roti the sourdough was prepared in a special way, using spices and poppy seeds along with jaggery for added flavours. This sourdough starter was shared with extended family and friends too. The use of spice definitely discourages rotting of the prepared bread for longer duration because spices are naturally antimicrobial. Imagine how much antioxidants were added to the bread through the spices.

I noticed that this spiced sourdough is quite stable at room temperature. This jar of the sourdough is a month old and has not been fed since it was fermented for the first time using the spices. Half of it was used for making doli ki roti and the other half was fed a month later. It revived beautifully. Read about a regular sourdough here.

Doli ki roti was named so because the roti keeps well for 3-4 days and used to be great as a traveling food. It was probably packed with the just married daughter along with her doli, a palanquin in which the married couple used to be carried to the groom's home. A blogger friend Alka Keswani says it was named as doli ki roti because the fermented sour dough was prepared in a vessel called Dol.

Evidently, making sourdough was an art perfected quite well by people eating wheat in this country.

My recipe is based on the doli ki roti that my friend used to share with us whenever this roti was made at her home. Her family was from Multan, settled down in Banaras, they have a carpet export business based in Bhadohi.

recipe of doli ki roti...

ingredients and procedure for the sourdough

Usually whole spices are boiled in water for sometime and I used to do that earlier, now I just add powdered spices to hot water to make it wasy. There is no change of taste.

a cup of hot water
pinch of clove powder
pinch of nutmeg powder
1/8 tsp of black cardamom powder
1/4 tsp of cinnamon powder
2 tbsp of chopped jaggery
1 tbsp of poppy seeds
pinch of salt

Everything is mixed together and kept in a glass jar with loosely fitted lid. I needed to keep it for 2 days before I could see bubbles. Then I added 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour and whisked once. Again the jar was closed and kept for 2 days. It smelled divine by this time, the yeast and the spices make some magic in this spiced sourdough. Note that this sourdough keeps well on room temperature for about a month. You can make a large batch of this sourdough to keep making doli ki roti frequently.

ingredients and procedure to make the doli ki roti..

For about 10 small doli ki roti I used half of this starter and 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour. Knead a plaible dough using some more warm water and let the dough rest for 2 hours at least or till it doubles in volume.

Now heat up ghee or oil in a kadhai and fry thick pooris using this dough. Usually the thick pooris are patted on the palms but you can roll them out on a rolling board.

Deep fry till golden brown on both sides and serve with any curry you like. We enjoyed the doli ki roti with lauki chane ki daal and lobiya wala sarson ka saag this time and this meal was quite heavy I must add.

This is plain doli ki roti but another richer version has a chana daal stuffing in it. My friend's mother used to knead the dough with some soaked chana daal so the doli ki roti had some chana daal studded in it. That made the bread almost like a full meal in itself.

Try making doli ki roti if you like deep fried food or you want to relive a tradition that is rarely seen now. It might not be a lost recipe but I don't see people around me making it often, though bhatoora is very commonly made and enjoyed and has even become the most popular Delhi street food. I need to go to Multani Dhanda now.

Singhade ka achar (pickled water chestnuts) is one of those seasonal pickles that very few people make. In fact pickling was mostly associated with aam ka achar, bhari mirch ka achar or nimbu ka achar more and these pickles were a must have in any Indian kitchen (read north Indian kitchen). But few families (read chatori families) kept pickling seasonal vegetables on the sly and serving such seasonal pickles as a fresh condiment to bring variety and taste to the everyday meals.

All of those gobi matar ka achar, gobhi, shalgam, gajar ka achar, sem ka achar and even alu ka achar made with new potatoes come into this category of seasonal pickles. Many of these pickles are called pani ka achar as no oil is used in making these or very little oil just to bring the spices to life. It will be useful to mention that pani ka achar is more of a mustard based pickle that gets fermented a little in a day or two and tastes very good, apart from being a good probiotic supplement. I will share a few recipe of pani ka achar, this mooli ka achar comes into that category.

This singhade ka achar has the pickling spices used for aam ka achar, the most common and popular pickling spice mix in north India. I made sooran ka achar recently with the same spices and it has been the must have condiment on the table right now. You can pickle any vegetable and even some fruits using these spices, the treatment of the vegetable will differ according to the water content they have.

And singhadas have loads of water in them. The tough skin contains the nut (kernel) inside which is in fact a very soft and watery nut. They start coming to markets in early winter, the season lasts about 6-7 weeks. The water chestnut kernel gets harder and more starchy by November, the hard kernel is preferred more for boiled water chestnuts and curries.

Some people like this achar made with softer (tender) water chestnuts while some like it with the hard ones. I prefer the soft singhada for achar.

Singhade ka achar is a fresh pickle that is meant to be consumed in maximum 2 weeks. It can be preserved for longer duration but the fresh taste will be lost after a month or so and the specialty of this pickle will be lost.

Each water chestnut is peeled in a specific way so as to keep the soft parts of the skin on and to remove the hard horns, also to remove the tip from both ends to allow the pickling spices to seep in.

The picture below would give you an idea about how to peel the water chestnuts to make the achar.

ingredients
(to fill up a 500 ml jar)

500 gm water chestnuts (singhada)
15-20 gm salt (keep it lesser if you want to eat more singhade ka achar for every meal)
2 tsp turmeric powder
2 tbsp yellow mustard powder
1 tbsp whole fennel seeds (sounf)
2 tsp fenugreek seeds (methi)
1 tsp omum (ajwain)
1 tsp nigela (mangrail or kalonji or kalo jeere)
pinch of good quality asafoetida (hing)
2 tsp red chilli powder or to taste
2 tbsp mustard oil

procedure

Rinse and clean the water chestnuts nicely. Drain. No need to sun dry.

Peel the water chestnuts, they look like this after partial peeling. Alternately, you can just remove the thorns and cut the water chestnuts in 2 halves lengthwise.

Boil enough water in a deep pan to submerge all the water chestnuts. Add a little salt (1 tsp per liter) and tip in the water chestnuts in boiling water at once. Wait for 2 minutes and drain the hot water, retain the water chestnuts in a colander.

Add the salt and turmeric powder to the water chestnuts and toss to mix. Now add the mustard powder too, toss and keep aside. Start preparing for the other spices.

Heat mustard oil in a pan, add the asafoetida, fenugreek seeds and nigela seeds one by one, waiting a few seconds before one spices starts sizzling. Then add the fennel and omum (ajwain) together and remove the pan from stove.

Mix well, add the red chilli powder and pour the spice mix over the water chestnuts seeped into salt, turmeric and mustard powder. Mix well to coat them all and fill in a sterile glass jar. The pickle will be ready to eat in 2-3 hours.

Refrigerate after about 4 hours. This pickle keeps well refrigerated for 2-3 weeks. At room temperature it lasts for a couple of days, adding more salt and mustard oil can make it stable at room temperature.

The water chestnuts release a lot of water by the next day, shake well before serving. You can add boiled and cooled baby potatoes to this pickle to make a nice variation after 3-4 days when there is enough watery liquid in it to soak up the potatoes.

The kernel of the water chestnuts remain whitish but take up the flavours of the spices very well.

You would love singhade ka achar I am sure and will keep making it once you get the taste. It is as easy as making a subzi and can be served as a side dish during singhada season. Tastes great with parathas and daal chawal, tahiris and khichdi etc.

There a loads of singhada recipes on this blog. Check out the singhade ke atte ki roti if you haven't seen already. Singhade ke atte ki roti is a fasting bead recipe you might like to try this Navratri.

Fresh raw water chestnuts or Caltrops are in season and thankfully we get them here in the capital too. Apparently Delhi has a lot of 'rainwater' bodies around the city too and the singhada comes from those and from far flung areas as well. We do get a deluge of singhade during this season and we end up buying a couple of kilos every week. The reason for another singhada post just after the Singhade ka achar.

And no, we are not fasting during Navratri though we used to look forward to this fasting season eagerly every year. Times change, no regrets.

We eat a lot of singhade every season. The most common way to eat is this simple stir fry with cumin seeds and lot of freshly milled pepper. This recipe is common in singhada growing areas of Eastern UP and Bihar, as my family learnt it from a family friend who had their own ponds of singhada around Chandouli in Banaras.

This jeerey wala singhada was more of a tea time snack or an evening snack for everyday and a meal for fasting days. People don't wait for fasting days when singhada is in season. By the way, the same recipe is made with baby potatoes of the new season too, to be served as a snack and that is very different from jeera alu.

Jeerey wala kachha singhada recipe

ingredients
(2 large breakfast servings or 4 snack servings)
650 gm raw tender peeled water chestnuts (1 kilo singhade after peels removed)
1 tbsp ghee
2 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
1 tsp or to taste freshly milled pepper (or crush in mortar and pestle)
pink salt (sendha namak) to taste
lime juice if required (we never use it but you may like it)

procedure

Halve the water chestnuts so they make bite sized pieces and cook quickly too. Cutting them into halves ensures absorption of the salt better. Note that medium mature singhadas taste great in this stir fry. Very hard and mature ones are suitable for boiled snacks and curries.

Heat the ghee in a deep pan (kadhai) and tip in the cumin seeds. Let them crackle before you dunk in all the peeled and halved singhade. Add salt and stir fry in medium heat for a couple of minutes. Cover and cook for a couple more minutes.

Add the freshly crushed peppercorns, stir and cook some more till the singhada pieces start looking glazed. It is ready once you see the singhada pieces getting glazed with a slight change in colour.

You can add some lime juice or a hint of amchoor powder if you wish.

Serve right away.

Sometimes I add a little chopped coriander greens to it and skip adding pepper.

Both the variations are very different from each other because minimal seasoning results in a very fresh flavour that changes even if you change one ingredient.

You can add garlic chives or thyme too if you wish, I generally don't deviate from our traditional seasonings for this one. Though I use singhada from Chinese type stir fries too.

Now coming to a singhade ki subzi which is cooked in a true Banarasi way. During fasting or otherwise too, Banarasis love to cook the curries with milk and khoya when there is a special occasion. This is one of those milky curries that taste so good with kuttu or singhade ki puri that you may want to observe fasting forever. We have it with singhade ki roti mostly.

Kachhe singhade aur Makhane ki subzi
(serves 2-3)

ingredients
500 gm peeled and halved raw water chestnuts
100 gm or 2 cups of makhane (fox nuts)
2 tbsp khoya (preferably home made khoya)
1 cup milk
1 tbsp everyday curry powder (mix of coriander seeds, cumin, pepper and tejpatta)
1/2 tsp turmeric powder (optional, some people don't add this)
pink salt to taste
handful of chopped coriander greens
2 +1 tsp ghee (total 1 tbsp)
1/2 tsp cumin seeds

procedure

Heat 2 tsp ghee in a deep pan (medium heat) and tip in all the makhana in it. Keep stirring to roast them evenly. They get roasted in about a couple of minutes and get crisp. Remove from pan and let them cool on a plate.

Heat 1 tsp ghee in the same pan and add the cumin seeds. Add the everyday curry powder , bhuno for a few seconds till it gets aromatic and add the crushed khoya. Bhuno till everything gets mixed well and aroma emanates.

Add the chopped singhade, milk, salt and let all these simmer together for 5 minutes. Add the fried/roasted makhane and simmer again till the makhane shrink in size and get soggy with the gravy. You may want to add a little more milk or water to get a desired consistency. I added some water to get a thinner curry that I like.

Once a thin layer of fat comes on top the curry is ready. Some people deep fry the makhana in ghee and this curry looks totally submerged in ghee and that is tasty too, but we can't afford to have those curries any more at this age and with this almost sedentary lifestyle.

This light yet so delicious singhade aur makhane ki subzi is just my type. I often have it as a meal in itself. Try doing that and let me know.

Many people have been pointing at severely polluted water bodies in the periphery of the city where all the sewage goes and more waste is dumped, where they say singhada is grown. But when you think of it, this plant cannot grow in polluted water bodies with so much of rotting organic and chemical waste. Singhada or water chestnuts (Indian) grows in shallow ponds and marshes where water collects after the rainy season.

Of course all water bodies and even soil is polluted but we need not to worry about the water chestnuts coming to us from sewage dumps. This crop needs immaculate and accurate methods of seed saving after the crop is harvested and then the germinated seeds are broadcasted (a method of sowing) in newly filled up shallow water bodies around farming areas after monsoons and in private ponds and lakes too.

Water chestnuts are safe to eat. We should worry more about the synthetic colours in cake frostings and even in some health drinks and fruit juices these days.

I never thought I should be sharing a palak paneer recipe on my blogs. It was too ordinary everyday recipe that I thought everyone would know. After all you don't need any special skill to make palak paneer, that is what I thought. And then someone asked me whether I have palak paneer recipe on the blog when I suggested it in her meal plan.

I realised such regional recipes have become popular because of their popularity in restaurants and people relate these recipes with heavy and rich curries they eat at those restaurants. The simpler homely deliciousness of palak paneer and such recipes stays limited only in their respective regions. That was enough reason for me to think about posting some of the very ordinary but popular recipes so whoever wants to try the homely version of palak paneer gets a chance to taste the original flavour. Although the original or authentic taste may be an illusion as every family has it's own recipe, my intention is to get the unspoiled taste of spinach and paneer in the curry.

Also, as I learn more about the complex recipes I realise we need to have exact and accurate recipes of the simpler food too as a simpler recipe is more likely to get lost for the lack of seriousness attached to it. If we know the simpler version we can always add on our own twist to it according to seasons and taste. Like I make a palak paneer tahiri sometimes with leftover palak paneer or add some sweet corn kernels to the plain palak paneer to make it more interesting.

Note that palak paneer can be made in a jiffy if the palak (spinach) has been cleaned, rinsed, chopped and steamed already. This is the way I store my spinach mostly. Once the greens are chopped and lightly steamed, it refrigerates well for 3-4 days and freezes well for months. I keep it in a container for 3-4 days.

Alternately, cleaned unwashed spinach also keeps well for a week, if wrapped in brown paper or cloth napkin. Just rinse, chop and use as required.

My simplest palak paneer recipe has been the most popular with any guests and even kids. Even my daughter used to love the simpler version of palak paneer. So the first recipe is the plain palak paneer that gets ready in just about 10 minutes if you have the steamed spinach ready in the fridge.

Note that you can use the stems of spinach too for palak paneer if the leaves are tender, but if the spinach leaves are mature and the stems are hard, it is better to remove the stems as it may make the curry slightly bitter.

Plain palak paneer recipe (no onion garlic)...

ingredients
(2-3 servings)

2 cups steamed spinach
100-150 gm paneer cubed
2 tbsp ghee
1/2 tsp cumin powder
salt 1/3 tsp or to taste
1 tsp pepper
1/4 cup whisked fresh yogurt

procedure

Puree the spinach and keep ready.

Heat the ghee lightly and tip in the cumin powder. Pour the spinach puree as soon as the cumin powder starts sizzling. Take care not to burn the cumin powder.

Stir and cook till spinach puree starts bubbling.

Add the other ingredients and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Serve right away.

This recipe is a fasting recipe that we used to eat during navratri a lot. You can have it with plain boiled buckwheat groats or sama ke chawal too.

spicy palak paneer recipe

This recipe takes about 15 minutes if you have the chopped and steamed spinach ready. This is more close to the restaurant style palak paneer but way more healthier homely version of it.

ingredients (2-3 servings)

2 cups steamed spinach
150 gm or more paneer cubed
2 tbsp finely chopped onion
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste (or minced)
1/2 cup fresh raw tomato paste (freshly chopped tomatoes liquidised in mixie)
1 tbsp everyday curry powder (or curry powder of your choice)
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp chilli powder or to taste
dash of garam masala powder (optional, depends on what curry powder you are using)
2-3 tejpatta
1.5 tbsp mustard oil
salt to taste

procedure

Grease a griddle ( I use my cast iron dosa tawa mostly) with ghee or oil and grill the paneer cubes both sides till lightly browned. This step is optional but enhances the flavour, you can deep fry the paneer if you are making large quantity. Dip all the fried paneer cubes in a cup of hot water, cover and let it rest till required.

Puree the spinach and keep aside.

Heat mustard oil and tip in the finely chopped onion and fry till golden brown. Add the ginger garlic paste and salt, fry till oil releases.

Add the powder spices with a tbsp of water and bhuno on medium flame till it looks glazed.

Add the tomato paste and bhuno again till it dries up. Add the spinach puree and let it bubble once.

Add the fried paneer cubes along with the soaking water, simmer for a couple of minutes. Serve hot.

This version of palak paneer lends well to palak paneer wali tahiri. I usually make some extra rice and refrigerate the leftover. This way we can make a quick meal with leftover things. For a cup of cooked rice you can use up 1.5-2 cups of leftover palak paneer, just mix both the rice and palak paneer well and let it cook covered on very low flame for 10 minutes or so. In our case it is usually half the quantity and I cook it till it start looking like this.

I usually make a quick stir fry with this kind of meal too. Here it is a radish stir fry we love a lot. Will share the radish stir fry recipe soon.

Another palak paneer version is my way of making creamed spinach mostly. It is a practical way to eat greens and make it workable for a roti subzi kind of Indian meal too.

Creamed spinach with paneer recipe (creamed palak paneer) ...

ingredients
(2-3 servings)

2 cups of chopped steamed spinach (or raw chopped)
1/4 cup cream (heavy or light as you wish, I use whatever I have or add 2 tbsp of malai)
100-120 gm paneer cubed in small pieces
salt to taste
black pepper powder to taste
pinch of nutmeg powder (optional)
pinch of garlic powder

procedure

Basically everything can be put in a pan and cooked till the spinach wilts and the cream get a greenish hue if you go by what I do. But wilting the spinach forst with added salt and then adding everything else and cooking it all covered for a few minutes does the trick. That's all.

The 'curry' style creamed spinach and paneer is so convenient for me sometimes it saves me on hectic mornings. We have had it with plain boiled rice, roti, paratha and even with plain boiled pasta. Try it once and you would know what I am talking about.

Hoping that making palak paneer will not be difficult any more,e if you have palak paneer in restaurants all your life. Try making these versions and tell me which one you liked more. Each one has a different flavour and you would plan these with different kind of meals once you start making them in your own kitchen.

The home made paneer could be of great help if you wish to keep the fat content of paneer in check.

Our Diwali has always been quite and this time was no exception. Yes we try and do the mandatory spring cleaning on the pretext of welcoming the Goddess Laxmi, get some earthen diyas and some tealight candles to light them on Diwali eve, and make some mithai for the prasad offering to Laxmi Ganesh puja. And that prasad offering is always a simple besan ka laddu and shakkarparey that my mother in law used to make.

Arvind loves these sweet treats that are made so rarely now, not that I don't like these but someone else's choices are greater excuse. Over the years I have realised that our traditional sweets are way more healthy than the industrially made desserts and pastries, even though the calorific value may not be less.

Here is all my effort that took the shape of some sweets and savouries. The white coloured trail mix is a popped rice and peanuts trail mix with a tempering of chillies, curry leaves, cumin and hint of turmeric just like my mother used to make. We get popped rice (called Kheel or dhaan ka lava) only during Diwali season and I try and make the most of this opportunity. This kheel ki namkeen is quite an old favourite of mine. More about that later.

Today I am sharing the recipe of jaggery coated shakkarparey. This is a deep fried pastry (fried dough) coated with fennel infused jaggery. It can be called as jaggery glazed fried cookies too.

I normally make these sugar coated shakkarparey but this time my brother came home and we started talking of the things we liked as kids. We were reminded of the jaggery coated miniature khaja (a deep fried flaky layered pastry) and a jaggery coated sev (finger shaped sticks made of chickpea flour) and of course these gudparey. You know we had a collective obsession about all things jaggery.

I changed my shakkarparey plan to gudparey conveniently and all of us loved them. When I posted the picture on Instagram someone asked for the recipe. The recipe in fact is quite simple but someone who wants to make it for the first time would need instructions. So here it is.

I made a lot of it, packed some for my brother and gave some to the house help and still have some to enjoy over a month. A couple of these is good enough to bring a rich taste. It is not like overly sugary stuff that makes you keep craving for it the whole day.

ingredients
(make more than a kilo of gudparey)

500 gm maida (or atta)
80-100 gm ghee (for shortening)
cold (not chilled) water to knead the dough
300 gm jaggery (see *note)
3 tbsp or 50 ml water
1 tbsp fennel coarsely pounded
ghee for deep frying (about 500 gm total, about 200 gm gets used)

procedure

Rub the 100 gm ghee in the maida till it looks like breadcrumbs and binds together when you press a portion of the flour in your fist. Now add cold water slowly and knead in quick movements. You have to be careful not to overwork the dough, just let it get together in a ball. Overkneading doesn't allow the layers form in the shakkarparey.

Now divide the dough into 4-5 parts and roll out 1 cm thick sheet. Cut the sheet into bite sized diamond shapes. Repeat till you use up the whole dough.

Heat ghee and deep fry the diamond shaped shakkarparey in batches. It has to be fried on low flame so the layers of the shakkarparey open up while frying.

Once all the diamond shaped shakkaparey are fried start working with the jaggery.

Chop the jaggery and mix with water and fennel in a wide and deep kadhai. Cook till the jaggery melts and starts frothing. You have to make *teen taar ki chashni* which means a thick syrup that is ready to crystallise. There is a way to check this stage of the syrup.

In the beginning when you let the jaggery syrup drop from the stirring ladle it drips in one thick stream, later it forms 2 thinner streams and when you cook it further for a few more minutes it starts making three thin streams dripping off the ladle, *teen taar ki chashni*. This is when you have to work quickly.

Pour the syrup over the fried shakkarparey and start mixing them in soft but quick movements. In about a couple of minutes the syrup starts getting dry and each diamond shaped shakkarpara gets separated from each other. Let it cool and then pack in air tight container after the initial round of tasting.

We were four of us to do the tasting round this time. What pleasure when there are more people to enjoy the food being cooked. Festivals are just about cooking and eating together, praying together and welcome the changing season.

*Note : I have practice of making these and other jaggery or sugar coated snacks like this jaggery coated almonds, so I can handle an even and thin coating of jaggery over these. If you are making it for the first time it may not get evenly coated but there is nothing to worry about, just use more jaggery and keep stirring the shakkarparey or nuts being coated till they are all separated from the sticky drying jaggery syrup. The extra jeggery will remain in the pan that can be used to make some other dessert or simple maleeda.

Dev Diwali was recently celebrated in Banaras and Ganga Mahotsav has just concluded. The holy month of Kartik is the season of festivities and the rituals of connecting with the Almighty in one way or the other. I have memories of Banaras being choked with the influx of religious tourists from far corners of India and curious tourists from all corners of the world during these festivals, I rarely gave any importance to the festivals other than the traffic that got deadlocked during these times.

What was it that attracted flocks of tourists and travelers from far away places to Banaras? I am finding the answers slowly and believing more in the theory of the world being a global village.

We were invited to the Loi Krathong festival being celebrated at Radisson Blu Plaza a few days ago. The celebration was organised jointly by Thailand authority of Tourism and Radisson Blu Plaza and we witnessed a few dance performances and Thai Boxing (Muay Thai), the artists and boxers were flown in from Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand).

Loi Krathong is a festival of lights in Thailand and it is celebrated on the full moon day in November, coinciding with the Poornima of Kartik month, the day when we celebrate Dev Diwali in Banaras, Guru Purab in Punjab and Karthikayi in Tamilnadu. I got to know recently that a harvest festival in Coorg called Puthari is also celebrated on the same day. There has to be a deeper connection to this simultaneous celebration in different regions with their roots in Hinduism. Hinduism being the oldest surviving (pardon me and enlighten if I am wrong about the chronology) religion and having branched into a few more religions, Hindu rituals have a deeper connect with the elements of nature, seasons, harvests and rivers I believe. The rituals are a form of living history.

After the cultural program we saw a palanquin carried Miss Loi Krathong to the pool area where she invited the guests to float the Krathongs (boats) in the pool. I was not carrying my camera so a few cell phone pictures are being shared.

It was quite a ceremonious floating of decorated lotus shaped floral boats in the sparkling pool of the hotel. The lotus shaped Krathongs were made of paper, on a base of Styrofoam that helps the Krathong float in the water. I wish the Krathongs were made of real leaves and flowers, we need to take care of the 'environmental sanctity' of the water bodies too.

A candle and few incense sticks are lit in each Krathong before floating it in the water body after making a wish. In Thailand couples do this ritual together and this festival has taken a romantic hue.

The lighting and floating of the Krathongs reminded me of many such rituals followed by Hindu pilgrims in cities like Banaras, Haridwar, Ayodhya, Nashik and many other places. The fire over water symbolism has a deeper meaning, I have been reading about it. Will definitely share sometime.

I must tell you that Banaras celebrates Dev Diwali in a very interesting way. All the ghats are lined up with very high Bamboo poles, a Bamboo wicker basket is ascended to the top of each of these poles with a burning lamp (Diya) every evening and the sky gets lit at the ghats with thousands of these lamps hanging from Bamboo poles. These are called Akashdeep, meaning skylights, and are meant to please the Gods. Hence the name Dev Diwali or Dev Deepawali. Both Loi Krathong and Dev Diwali are celebrated on exactly the same date every year. People float lamps (ghee ke diye) in leaf boats shaped either round or conical, there are a few marigold, rose or lotus flowers in these floating leaf boats as an offering to Ganga ji (the Mother Ganges), such beautiful rituals have survived thousands of years of civilization.

After the ceremonial floating of the candles, the dinner was served buffet style by Neung Roi, the best Thai restaurant in the city and we stuffed ourselves with our favourite salads (Som tam, Thai pomelo salad and raw mango salad) and then the fruits and desserts.

Most of the salads were served in individual serving bowls at the salad counter of the beautifully laid out buffet by Neung Roi, but the Som tam (Raw papaya salad) was being made at a live counter with all it's usual trimmings. Chef Suthiwaja herself hand pounded the salad in a huge wooden mortar and pestle.

Picture courtesy Mudita Chauhan Mubayi

At Neung Roi you will be spoilt rotten if you love salads and want several helping of different salads. The Thai fruits of the buffet were too good to resist so we skipped mains very conveniently and enjoyed what we love the most without feeling stuffed.

While trying to find out more about the possible links between all these festivals being celebrated on the same day in different regions of India and Thailand, I realised religious festivals serve many functions, some more central that others to the dominant religious tradition within a given culture.

Loi Krathong in Thiland (a Buddhist country) has little to do Buddhism as a doctrinal system (source). Although this festival appears to be animistic or Bramhanical in origin, it has become at least partially assimilated into the Theravada Buddhist cultural traditions of countries of southeast Asia. According to The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia by Donald K. Swearer, Loi Krathong is a festival related to harvest cycle, celebrated after the back breaking work done in the fields to plant the paddy crop. A way to relax and enjoy.

The origin of the Loi Krathong in Thailand (see source) according to the earliest evidence, it was started by the second queen of king Phra Rueang (ca 1300 C.E.) who was the daughter of a Bramhin family attached to the court, in order to please the king. There are a few more theories in other parts of Thailand but interestingly one of the theory says that the Krathongs are offered to Mae Khongkha (mother Ganges), the mother of all waters.

Isn't it interesting to find the mention of Maa Ganga in the tales of origin of this festival?

All the festivals in every religion and every region is linked to seasons and harvest cycles, or the mountains or water bodies. One way or the other. The symbolism may or may not be relevant in the modern world but the religious connect to nature is evident.

Thanks to Thailand authority of Tourism and Radisson Blu Plaza for the hospitality and a grand show. I hope to visit Thailand soon and explore more about the cultural similarities we share.

New Delhi became the capital of British Raj in 1911 when the King George V and Queen Mary coronated the new capital after being shifted from Calcutta to Delhi, henceforth called New Delhi. The Coronation Park still exists as a memorial of the coronation ceremony, one of the many historical monuments of Delhi that we keep visiting to know about this city that has lived many lives, has seen many kings come and go.

Rashtrapati Bhawan (formerly known as Viceroy's House), Rajpath leading to India Gate, Janpath and Connaught place and Parliament House etc are the buildings that were built by Edwin Lutyens after New Delhi became the capital. That part of Delhi is still called as Lutyen's Delhi and is surrounded by a thick swathe of green including acres of Presidential estate, Nehru Park, Lodhi Gardens, the National Zoological park, Humayun's Tomb etc.

The Imperial is one of the oldest and grandest hotels in Delhi located at Janpath road. It is almost like a gem hidden into the chaos of Japath market. But once you step into the lobby and walk past the corridor, you see precious memorabilia from the past and get lost in the serenity.

Chef Prem Kumar Pogakula (Executive Sous Chef,The Imperial) along with his team has curated the 'Delhi Durbar ki Daawat' to revive the flavours of coronation ceremony of Delhi Durbar. Hotel's GM and senior executive VP Vijay Wanchoo has also contributed in this curated experience of Delhi Durbar ki Daawat. At the media preview he kept talking about old recipes, ingredients the old banquets, the art the hotel owns and how the hotel has preserved it's original structure.

The dawat was set up in a plush white canopy, the table resplendent with the finest wine goblets and champagne flutes, salads and irresistible bread rolls. Welcome drink was brought in as soon as we took our seats.

Reading the curated menu placed on our table, it was evident a lot of work has been done to recreate the banquets of the bygone era.

Scotch eggs and broth came to the table first with chunks of lamb, vegetables and pearl barley, half a scotch egg sitting pretty in the bowl. Delicious flavours and textures enriched by barley that I love in my soups. Vegetarians had a Mulligatawny soup, Mr Vijay Wanchoo who became vegetarian later in life told how this soup has Srilankan origin but became so popular with British.

Shepherd's Pie came reminding of how simplicity is the best virtue. The pie was made in individual portions and was melt in the mouth creamy, the mince below was delicious, succulent and rightly spiced. The potato crust browned beautifully, it was a stunner.

The vegetarians had Vol-au-vents, the French stuffed puff pastry that became the favourite of the British. It was served the old fashioned way, a delicious brown lentil sauce poured over them while serving. I had a small bite and loved it. The brown lentil sauce is worth mentioning as it was just so creamy and delicious I took second helping of the sauce.

Vegetable polonaise, a classic vegetable main course dish of 1900s came next. Made of Asparagus spears, cauliflower floret, breadcrumbs and herbs it was an interesting baked dish that I liked a lot. Baked vegetables retained their crunch yet baked enough to get cooked and get delicious.

Pannequets, vegetable stuffed thin pancakes smeared with tomato and deep fried spinach leaves was delicious as well. It was wonderful to witness old classics being recreated.

Bubble and Squeak was an old recipe where the cooks used up the leftover vegetables to make potato cakes that was served as a starchy main course dish with meats. It looked like alu tikkis and I would like it with some grilled meat for sure.

Creamed spinach charmed everyone I guess. Well made and so very creamy. Interestingly, while I was researching about culinary heritage of Banaras last year I got to know that the family of the King of Vijayanagar, who have a palace in Banaras too, loved creamed spinach a lot and it was a regular on their family table.

I loved the Plum and Cherry roasted free range chicken. The roasted fat plums along with root vegetables and onions was a masterpiece in itself, chicken was incidental although well roasted and succulent. I just loved the use of roasted plum, the flavours mingling so well with root vegetables.

The desserts included Rhubarb Pie, old fashioned Trifle and Crepes Suzette.

The Rhubarb Pie was beautifully done, the Trifle really good and some of us polished it off even though it came in a really large serving. What I loved the most was the Crepe Suzette, a very thin crepe folded and doused with orange sauce and flambeed. It was supposedly the favourite dessert of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, for the right reasons I believe. Very delicate and very flavourful.

It is interesting to see how British took influences from all the countries they colonized. The French and Scottish influence is quite obvious but how they took elements from India, Burma and Srilanka during the colonial times and even later, is a story that I would like to dig in more.

Thanks to Mr. Vijay Wanchoo, Chef Prem Kumar Pogakula, Ruchi Jain and Aparupa Ray Ganguli for giving us a peek into the culinary history. Most of these dishes are still made in their classic form too, but the small variations and even some fusions have occurred in the past century that gives us an idea how the availability of ingredients due to globalization influences the cuisines.

Durbar Ki Dawat is on till December 17th so hurry up and go have a glimpse of a table 100 years old.

We have a lot of nimona recipes on Banaras ka Khana and if you have been following this blog for some time you would have come across this spicy matar ka nimona, the tender peas nimona, mungodi wala matar ka nimona, alu gobhi wala matar ka nimona, harey chane ka nimona and even masoor dal ka nimona. To cut the long story short, nimona is a curry where the gravy is made with a liquidized ingredient and there are some vegetables of mungodi or vadi added to the gravy.

All these variants of nimona used to be a winter specialty owing to the ready availability of a lot of vegetables and greens. Liquidizing the vegetables makes sense if one wants to consume them in larger amounts. Clever ways to use up fresh produce.

Here is the next nimona recipe and this is palak ka nimona. This palak ka nimona is a curried spinach gravy with mungodis or fried mung fritters or masoor daal vadis. Sometimes a little besan (chickpea flour) or lentil paste was added to the palak ka nimona to give it body.

This masoor daal bhapouri (steamed lentil cakes) was also a common addition to palak ka nimona and I remember some street food stalls had adapted this curry into a chaat specialty. Larger masoor daal steamed dumplings soaked in spinach gravy, served almost like a dahi vada sprinkled with fine sev, some dry cooked kala chana and bit of onion and green chillies. Back in my maternal grandmother's place, this chaat was also called as Bhapouri or baphouri.

ingredients
(serves 2-3)

500 gm spinach steamed
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 tbsp light everyday curry powder
turmeric powder 1/2 tsp
2 tsp mustard oil
pinch of hing (asafoetida)
tomato paste (fresh) 1/2 cup or whisked yogurt 1/3 cup

For the fritters/dumplings
200 gm red lentils (masoor daal) soaked for 2 hours, the volume increases when soaked
1 tsp cumin seeds
little ginger and green chili to taste
salt to taste
Oil for deep frying is doing so. Else follow the bhapouri recipe

Minced ginger and chopped coriander greens for garnish

procedure

Make a paste of the lentil fritter ingredients without adding any water.

In the same blender puree the spinach too. The remains of the lentils paste will thicken the gravy and make it more robust in taste.

Deep fry the fritters if doing so. Else follow the bhapouri recipe to steam them.

Heat 2 tsp mustard oil for the gravy. Add hing, ginger garlic paste and fry till oil released. Add the curry powder and turmeric, fry a little and then add the spinach puree and tomato paste or yogurt.

Mix well, simmer for 3-4 minutes.

Add the steamed fritters (lightly shallow fried if you wish) or deep fried ones. Add a little water to adjust consistency and simmer the curry till the fritters have soaked the essence of gravy.

Serve hot garnished with some ghee and coriander greens.

Note that this palak ka nimona can be made without the fritters too. Some people like it with shallow fried florets of cauliflowers and green peas, may be some boiled potatoes too.

This palak ka nimona pairs well with plain boiled rice as well as multi grain roti, millet rotis or phulkas.

I did not realise I have so many winter recipes of beans and greens cooked together in my drafts. I was reminded when someone asked me how do I eat so much spinach and beet greens when I was buying my truckload. I do buy greens by the truckload, well almost.

I blurted out a few recipes then and there at the farmer's market, assured the lady that the recipes are there on the blogs. When I checked after coming home I found I have forgot posting them and the palak wala rajma, palak chane ka shorba and even palak ka nimona were still waiting in the drafts. Trying to bring them up one after the other.

All these recipes were shot last year. Anyway, better late than never.

This palak chane ka shorba is a one step pressure cooker recipe that I love cooking during winters. Thankfully it is loved by everyone who happens to taste it. Served with a little ghee on top and some plain boiled rice it makes a comforting warm winter meal. I survive on such soupy winter meals in fact.

Note that this recipe somehow works to treat any mild coughing or sneezing as well, thanks to the garam masala, turmeric and generous use of ginger in it.

The winter shorbas are in fact made keeping in mind the cold and cough season and to bring warmth to the body. I cook it in a large pressure cooker whenever I do and keep serving it for a week or so, every alternate day if not every day.

A shorba can be a stew or a soup, this is a black gram stew with spinach. Sometimes I add Beet greens as well.

ingredients
(for 5-7 servings)

250 gm kala chana (black gram)
1 kilo cleaned and chopped spinach (1.5 kilo spinach before cleaning)
80-100 gm ginger, half made into a paste and half of it cut in julienne or as you wish
50-60 gm garlic cloves whole
whole dry red chillies to taste (make it hot I say)
1 tsp pepper powder
2 tsp garam masala powder of your choice
1.5 tsp turmeric powder
1 cup of fresh tomato puree (preferably desi tomatoes)
2 tbsp mustard oil or ghee
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 pinch of hing

2-3 tbsp of deep fried browned onions crushed, if you have in your pantry or if you want to spend some time.

procedure

I have made this shorba in one step pressure cooking, like just dunking everything in the pressure cooker with 2 cups of water and pressure cooking for about 25 minutes after the first whistle and this shorba cooks so well and tastes so delicious no one believes it is such a simple recipe.

But if you want to spend some time you can heat mustard oil, add the hing, cumin seeds and then the turmeric powder and garam masala, the tomato puree and then everything else together. Top with 2 cups of water and cover the lid and let the pressure build till the first whistle.

Lower the heat and let it cook on its own for 25-30 minutes.Take off the heat, let it cool and open the lid. Garnish with some ghee and some coriander greens if you like.

Serve hot, without or without accompaniments I say. Boiled rice tastes great with it but try having very little rice in this shorba.

I love rajma and make it in so many different ways that whenever I soak some rajma to cook I have to plan the way I will be cooking it the next morning as I rarely depend on one specific way to cook my rajma.

It doesn't mean I don't like the traditional rajma but I love experimenting more. I keep buying so many varieties of rajma it will be criminal to use them all in a singular way.

The badarwahi rajma from Jammu is usually cooked the traditional way or with beets puree added to the bhuna masala mix. The Jammu badarwahi rajma also tastes great with a simpler buttery gravy, the Kashmiri rajma.

The Uttarakhand rajma is cooked usually with a very light curry which is onion based as that was the way I loved it when I tasted in Uttarakhand. The big sized Uttarakhand rajma is very soft and creamy though it takes some time to get cooked in pressure cooker. I love the Uttarakhand variety with spinach puree added to bhuna masala mix.

The rajma cooked the Himachali way with spinach is also one of my favourites.

I make a variation of rajma that is called Gogji Rajma and is made with either Turnips or Knol khol. These Kashmiri recipes are so simple to cook and so delicious that one finds comfort in them even though one is not grown up eating them. Such is the case with me at least.

The recipe of Gogji Rajma will be shared soon but the pureed beets and beet greens and spinach rajma is not much from the recipes used all over north India, hence sharing them together to give you an idea of how a single dish can be nourishing and yet easy way to accommodate vegetables and beans in one.

ingredients
(serves 3-4, depending on side dishes or the lack of it)

200 gm raw kidney beans (rajma), soaked overnight
1 tsp salt, add more later to adjust
1/4 tsp soda bi carb
1 liter water
500 gm cleaned spinach leaves or beet leaves
60 gm or 1 large sized red onion roughly chopped
15 cloves of garlic
2 inch piece of ginger chopped roughly
2 large ripe tomatoes chopped roughly (or 1/3 cup thick yogurt)
2-3 red dry chillies or to taste
2 tbsp everyday curry powder
garam masala powder to taste
1 tsp turmeric powder
2 tbsp mustard oil
pinch of hing (asafoetida)

procedure
Drain the rajma, transfer to pressure cooker pan, add salt and soda bi carb and water and pressure cook for 20-25 minutes. Cool down before opening the cooker. Rajma should be well cooked and cracked.

In the meanwhile, prepare the greens and the spice mix.

Chop, steam, cool and puree the spinach or beet leaves. You can use a mix of both or just boiled beets puree instead of the leaves. I use boiled beets puree when making rajma with badarwahi (jammu) rajma.

Make a paste of onions, ginger, garlic and red chillies and keep aside. In the same blender puree the chopped tomatoes too. Or blend the yogurt if using. Keep aside.

Heat the oil, add hing and wait till it gets aromatic. Pour the onion paste and bhuno till the mixture looks glazed or oil separates.

Add the powder spices and bhuno again for a few minutes or till the mix becomes aromatic.

Now add the tomato puree or whipped yogurt and bhuno once again till the mix becomes glazed. Add garam masala powder and let it incorporate. Do not bhuno much after adding garam masala.

Add the spinach or beet greens puree (or boiled beets puree if using) and simmer the mix for 5 minutes or so. Add the cooked rajma with all the cooking liquid and simmer for 10-20 minutes. The rajma soaks all the flavours and the curry gets delicious.

Sometimes I add half puree and half chopped greens to get a nice texture. See this spinach rajma cooked with yogurt.

I need very little rice with my rajma and here is how my mug meals look like. This mug is 700 ml capacity and most of my soupy meals are enjoyed like this. Hot and comforting.

Always adjust seasoning too, because some mature leafy greens are a little alkaline in taste and you may want to have lesser salt in them and balance the alkalin etaste with some added yogurt or lime juice.

Serve with some butter on top of plain old ghee, or without any topping as the rajma itself is so flavourful.

This kind of rajma is best served with plain boiled rice but it tastes great with thin delicate chapatis or thick millet rotis too. Try this kind of rajma with some crisp hot parathas to break the monotony.

Some days you must try these rajma recipes enriched with the goodness of greens. It does take some time to cook but you can always cook in a large batch and serve 2-3 times over a week. Or just keep some bhuna masala for convenience and make any rajma recipe quick. We always find a way to eat what we like.

No tourist or traveler visiting Banaras thinks of going to Dalmandi. Most of them have never heard about this bustling place but I am always a little curious about this old world market located in the heart of the city, quite hidden from the general visitor.

Dalmandi is a long winding gully that has a few tributary gullies interlinked with other old markets but the two main ends of dalmandi are located such that you would easily miss locating them while passing by.

May be Dalmandi was well camouflaged and hidden because of the Tawayafs or nautch girls it was known for about a century ago. If you look up the old buildings you will still see highly adorned low set windows, often painted in different bright colours. These low set windows were the show windows for the nautch girls and the Dalmandi bazar below must have been as bustling as ever.

One end of dalmandi is at the main Chowk market and the other end is in the mid of Nai Sarak. You would not be able to gauge what is awaiting you inside this gully called dalmandi. The hustle bustle of the shoppers and the shopkeepers, small shop doing big business and of course a deluge of bling all over. You would easily know that more women come to this market than men. But may be that's not true.

Dalmandi is known for the bling, the garish display of women's trinkets and loads of dresses and surplus fabric or leftover fabric from factories etc. These kind of stuff is available throughout the year but during a few festivals Dalmandi is adorned by different colours.

Dalmandi is also known as a market for kites, firecrackers and cheap glass utensils. On my last visit during Makar Sankranti I saw a deluge of Kites if all colours and sizes, patang and manjha or guddi-latayi as it is called in local parlance.

During Diwali you would find rows and rows of firecrackers being sold. Now probably the firecrackers will be lesser in numbers because the licensing for selling firecrackers has become strict.

Dalmandi is also famous for the thinnest possible Sewaiyyan and Feni. I always wonder what kind of machinery they use for making these.

These thin sewaiyyan are available in roasted version that can be mixed directly in sugar syrup, milk solids and nuts etc. to make sookhi sewaiyyan or sewaiyyon ka muzaffar.

And the white raw version that is valued by the home cooks who want precision in their recipes and prefer roasting the sewaiyyan slowly with ghee to get the best possible aroma in their sewaiyyon ka muzaffar.

The Feni available here in Dalmandi comes on many versions. Sweetened, unsweetened, white or saffron coloured, all the versions selling like hot cakes.

The other eatables which you find in Dalmandi and nowhere else in Banaras apart from Madanpura during Ramzan, are a few maida based deep fried pastry.

These super crisp biscuits called as khaste are just too rich for anyone like me but a great favourite of some. I saw people buying them in kilos.

This version of shakkarparey is huge and lightly coated with sugar syrup. You wouldn't find these anywhere else in the city.

The sohan halwa, made with loads of ghee, maida and sugar with nuts is a Muslim specialty and can be seen only in Dalmandi.

These mithai shops in Dalmandi sell other popular mithais too, such as Rasgullas, Gulabjamuns, Boondi, Son Papdi and Imartis but the quality of the specialty of this place is the Muslim food.

There used to be a few shops selling classic kabab paratha and gosht ki tikia, Biryani, keema paratha etc. But now you see the shops have changed a bit and have started selling the usual gajar ka halwa, Mung ka halwa, chiwda matar and chaat etc which was not so common to find in Dalmandi.

The gajar ka halwa in one of the places looked like this.

They had rich Mewe ka halwa too which is basically a mixed nuts halwa made rich with some dehydrated milk as well.

We found a very interesting Lassi shop that had thick and heavy Shahi tukdas loaded with malai (clotted cream).

The amount of clotted cream on the shahi tukda can make you feel sick if you don't like cream or malai, but if you like it you will be in a blissful state.

Look at the size of this platter. Bigger than a regular sized coffee table in fact.

This shop had sakoras (earthen bowls) of clotted cream as well, served with or without sugar.

The kabab paratha and keema paratha shops have now adapted themselves to serve chicken tikka and seekh kabab, the restaurant style 'Mughlai food' which was never found in these traditional Awadhi style Muslim eateries.

This shop owner said they still make bade ke gosht ki tikia (buffalo meat kababs) in the evenings but the chicken tikka and seekh kabab sells more now.

Thankfully rumali roti is made the same way.

I am not sure what all had changed in Dalmandi since the last 30 years or so I have known this place. It looks similar and even smells and sounds similar when you trudge along, but the trends have definitely started creeping in. We could feel it in the food being sold and the kites being made out of plastic and not paper like older days.

Dalmandi is still a well preserved slice of old world.

I have made tamatar chaat earlier and have been wanting to make it again and again. Tamatar chaat or tamatari is a delicious chaat from Banaras that is said to be a secret recipe. The reality is that all the chaat walas of the city have their own versions and most of them taste great, although all of them are slightly different from each other. Isn't that interesting?

I had been planning to make my own version of tamatari for ages, it is after the tamatari trail in Banaras that I came back and made it at home too.

I have also been dreaming of a chaat party as we used to have in Banaras. A chaat party is an apt alternative to high tea in Banaras. Almost all chaat walas are into catering and most people have their own favourites too.

The chaat parties of Banaras would mean a couple of chaat walas doing the catering, cooking live chaats and serving gol gappas street style. There would be counters of tamatari, chiwda matar, dahi bade, tikki chaat and gol gappas and a few unique chaats the hosts would arrange for. Tokri chaat, chhole bhatoorey, samosa chaat, kachori subzi etc used to be the usual add ons. Mung ka halwa, gajar halwa, hot gulab jamuns and jalebis would be the standard 'live' desserts being churned out.

Oh now I am seriously craving for a chaat party.

The best alternative to a chaat party is to go on a chaat trail in banaras. And if you are like me you would go trailing one type of chaat in a day, cover as many destinations as possible, take notes and conclude the one you like the best. This is what we did last time we were in Banaras.

The first Tamatari joint we raided was the Banarasi Chat Bhandar at Sankatmochan turning. Incidentally this was the place where I had first tasted the Tamatari 2 decades ago. I know how he used to make the Tamatari in those days but he has adapted the recipe now to make it quicker to serve to the waiting customers.

Earlier he use to crush some ready alu tikkis with some red tomatoes lined up around the periphery of the huge tawa and mix a few more chutneys and spices to churn out a tangy hot and sweet tamatari. Now he brings a ready mix of tomatoes and potatoes with some peas and even cubes of paneer which he pours on the griddle and bhunoes it till the tomato mixture gets nicely caramelised.

Then he adds a rich rassa to the reduced tomato mix which has makhanas and nuts, a sprinkling of chopped onions, coriander leaves etc and it is ready to be relished. But mind you, this earthen kulhad of tangy sweet and hot concoction comes to you after a good deal of waiting as by the time he makes tamatari there is a sizable crowd around his cart.

This would be my favourite tamatar chaat for 2 reasons. One the tamatar chaat has a dominant taste of tomatoes and the tomatoes are so well caramelised. There are other places where the tamatari is tasty but the tomato drowns among the other ingredients used. The second reason for liking this tamatari is that you get to stand in open air and eat the chaat, the cart is in an open space and they have a shop just behind the cart where you can sit and eat too.

Waiting for tables and sitting in claustrophobic chaat shops can be tolerated ONLY when the chaat is superlative. The good thing is that there are superlative chaats in those chaat bhandars of Banaras of course.

The next Tamatari we tasted was at Kashi Chat Bhandar and it was a bit more spicy though quite delicious. A father and son sharing table with us had two serving of tamatari there along with a variety of other chaats. The chiwda matar and alu tikki at Kashi Chaat Bhandar is great but the tamatari needs a little more balance of flavours and a little more tomatoes in it.

We found Deena Chaat Bhandar's Tamatari quite nice. It was more tangy, the kind of tangy that comes from using desi tomatoes and the flavours were really well balanced. I am told Deena used to make better Tamatari a decade ago. I can understand that as even the Banarasi at Sankatmochan turning also used to make much better tamatari when I had eaten from his cart. Deena's tamatari is still one of the best.

All these places used to crush a few alu tikkis, then caramalise a few ripe tomatoes and mix a few more things on the go to make tamatari back then. Now they have just made it more convenient for themselves as a ready mix is easy and quick to serve.

Most of them have started adding small cubes of paneer, peas, more nuts and even dry yellow peas to the tamatari to make it more attractive. All of them have their signature versions of the tamatari chaat.

I miss the version we used to get earlier and guess what? I had a leisurely chat with the original owner of the Banarasi Chaat Bhandar at Sankatmochan turning and he told he can make the original version on order. You just tell him a day in advance and the next day he will make it for you. Now that is something I am going to do next time.

But then, after having all these tamatari versions I had to make it at home too. The recipe of tamatari has been shared earlier but here it is once again. Use desi tomatoes for best taste I recommend. Or mix a few varieties of tomatoes to get the best of of them.

Ingredients, recipe and instructions of tamatari or tamatar chaat can be seen here.

The final outcome is always delicious. At home I make it less oily but the taste is great anyways.

Have it hot.

And have it for a meal. All the nuts, ghee and khoya in the tamatari chaat makes it quite heavy and when you are cooking it at home you must enjoy a large portion. So keep the Tamatar chaat for dinner menus or smaller portions for chaat parties where you serve more chaats.

Kamal gatta is the lotus seed or lotus nut that comes out of the conical fruit of lotus species (Nelumbo nucifera). Many people call Makhana as lotus seeds but that is wrong. Makhana or Foxnut belongs to a different species of water lilies called Euryale ferox. Since both are related species growing in aquatic habitat, people confuse with the identity.

Both Fox nuts (or Gorgon nuts) and Lotus nuts are edible but the usage is different. Foxnuts are popped at high heat to make makhanas and the nuts that don't pop are powdered and made into makhane ka sattu which is available in Banaras during Navratri season as it is a fasting food. Kamal gatta or Lotus nut is never popped as much as I know, please let me know if you have seen popped lotus seeds. Not makhana please.

Lotus seeds are eaten in tender fresh form when the fruit is still green and the seeds are tender like green peas. Once the seeds start maturing the inner green coloured germ starts getting bitter and one needs to remove that green germ to eat the seeds.

Alternately, Lotus seeds are also dried when mature, the seed coat turns black (dark purple) and hard and the seeds need to be cracked open to release the hard cotyledons which are edible. The green germ is still there and tastes bitter, so one needs to remove that to prepare lotus seeds for eating.

Kamal gatte ka halwa is one of those forgotten recipes that I always wanted to cook. The only problem was that the Kamal gatta was not easily available. Last time when I went to Banaras we did a walk through the spice market and I found a few spice shops had kamal gatta on the display. I bought some promptly and stuffed it into my handbag.

Kamal gatta was placed over a sack of makhanas interestingly, as if to prove the relationship they share.

The spice market of Banaras is called Gola Deenanath. It is a lane that starts diagonally opposite to the main gate of Kabirchaura hospital. Apart from spices and nuts, dry fruits etc you would find a lot of herbs and Ayurvedic medicines being sold in the shops and on the pavements. The shopkeepers are quite helpful and help you identify things.

My best find obviously was Kamal gatta from this market. Luckily I was there in the season. I realised it later as when I soaked the kamal gattas in water overnight I noticed the green germ (embryo) inside was nice and plump and was ready to sprout. That will happen when the kamal gatta is from the fresh crop, or so I guess.

No prizes for guessing that I actually set them apart for making some lotus seedlings. Dreaming of having lotus in my garden now. I have to arrange a deep pot for growing lotus of course.

Lotus seeds or kamal gatta was always a rare food because only a very few people cooked it. Separating the seeds from the fruit is quite difficult so even the tender kamal gatta is eaten as a fun snack rather than a staple like lotus stem. Once dry the seed coat is quite hard so breaking it, separating the edible part from the green embryo was so much work that only a few people actually cooked it.

But once the seeds are processed they make really good daal with minimal spices or even a nimona that uses very little lotus seeds to make a curry. Halwa was quite common in my childhood as my grandmother used to make it whenever she would get some kamal gatta. I never saw it being made once I grew up enough to understand recipes but I kept hearing about the kamal gatte ka halwa so much that it became a much desirable food in my mind.

The lotus seeds are known as nerve and cardiac tonic and is also supposed to be anti ageing in it's effect. The medicinal properties are recorded well in Thai texts as well as Indian Ayurveda texts. The book The Yoga of Herbs claims that the lotus seeds are aphrodisiac, rejuvenative and homostatic apart from being calming and sedative in nature. In my family kamal gatte ka halwa was known as the supplement that was fed to anyone recovering from a prolonged illness.

Luckily kamal gatta is available in split form else one would need to break every seed that actually slips many times when you hit it with a hammer. At least in the markets of Uttar Pradesh kamal gatta is available in split form I am sure.

Cooking the dry kamal gatta is quite a task even when you get them split. Once it is soaked overnight the seed coat needs to be removed from every individual seed, it is tougher than peeling water chestnuts because the seeds are small and the green embryo needs to be removed from each seed. .

Once cleaned, you just rinse the peeled seeds and grind them all in a blender. Some people like the mixture coarse and some like it smooth. Earlier this grinding was done on a stone mortar and pestle called silbatta.

I made a smooth paste because I wanted a set halwa that can be cut into neat squares. Kamlagatta has a tendency to set once cooked and cooled. Once the paste is made it is a matter of 15 minutes to make halwa for about 4-6 servings.

Note that some people make this halwa with kamal gatta along with other nuts as even my mother used to make it. But I think my mother was smitten with her normal mewe ka halwa so much that she would add loads of soaked and blended nuts to all the halwas she made. I wanted to make halwa with 100% kamal gatta so I can get the unadulterated taste of the lotus seeds.

ingredients

150 gm kamal gatta soaked overnight
50 gm ghee (3 tbsp)
50-70 gm sugar ( I used jaggery granules)
chopped nuts to garnish

preparation

Peel the seeds and rinse them once. Make a paste, preferably without adding any water.

Heat the ghee in a kadhai ( I used iron kadhai) and pour the kamal gatta paste in it. The paste starts getting sticky once it heats up.

Keep scraping the bottom and stir for about 10 minutes to get a smooth and thick consistency. If using an iron kadhai you would see the paste become dark but that is worth it. Use a steel kadhai if you want a lighter colour.

Add the sugar or jaggery once the mixture comes together in a smooth lump. Stir and mix, cook for a couple of minutes.

Now empty the contents of the kadhai into a greased tray of suitable size and smoothen the surface using a butter knife or spatula. Sprinkle chopped nuts and press them to stick on the surface.

Let the halwa get cold before you cut squares or serve hot like a sticky pudding.

The texture is quite similar to the fresh water chestnut halwa that I make but the taste is very distinctly different. Nutty, earthy and smooth, the flavour of the lotus nut is so mild and yet potent that the jaggery gets camouflaged.

Once the halwa is cold and cut into squares, you can refrigerate it for 3-4 days.

Kamal gatte ka halwa was one of the best things I cooked in the last month. It tasted great and it was one of those things I had been wanting to get my hands for so many years. I ahve some more kamala gatta with me, will be using it to make some daal next.

Of course the seeds are germinating well and will grow into healthy plants I am sure.

Wish me luck.

The potter’s wheel has always brought a sense of mystic bewilderment. The way those deft hands shape delicate smooth wet earth over the spinning wheel and then how the dried earthen pots are fired at high temperature to become tough to handle whatever comes their way. Some of those pots end up storing water and some overflow with billowing froth of lentils being cooked over wood fired chulhas. Some of the decorative pots are used to set yogurt and some others are filled with syrupy rasgullas to be taken as gifts to friends and relatives.

I was talking to a potter from Azamgarh who had come to showcase his wares at Constitution Hall in Delhi, and realized that the potters also have ‘seasons’ for the kind of pots they make. During the wedding season in India they are busy making Kalash and various shapes of Handis and Sakoras (shallow bowls) being used for wedding rituals, the Matkas for holding water, pots for growing plants, Chai Kulhads and Dahi Handis are made all thorough the year at a slow rate as these have a lukewarm but assured market demand. The urban markets have now started demanding for teacups, kettles, Kadhais and casserole dishes and the potters have started experimenting with new finish, smooth glaze and decorative patterns. I am glad the earthen pots are coming back to our kitchens with a new fervor.

The conversation with this potter from Azamgargh started when I voiced my doubt about the shiny black colour his terra cotta teacups. I asked what glaze or paint he uses for ‘coloring’ the teacups black and whether the color is safe for kitchen utensils. That is when he introduced me with the technique he uses. After the terracotta teacups are fired till they become fully baked and strong, the potters smoke the furnace by adding dried leaves, the smoke and soot coats the pots and gets baked once again, making the pots look sooty black. Mustrad oil is smeared on the pots after firing and smoking, a second round of firing fixes the black colour and become shiny. Nevertheless, the potter charmed me with his beautifully made black teacups. He assured me that every cup of tea will taste like you are having kulhad wali chai and you can keep washing the cup like any other ceramic or glass cups.

Later I got to know that Azamgarh black pottery is little known but a technique to preserve and to be encouraged. They make beautiful decorative vases and filigree like patterns on pots.

It feels good to see the potters innovating with the type of utensils they make. The tea sets, decorative platters, bowls and dishes have now become style statements and the potters are catching up the trend slowly as they get demand of such stylish utensils even from some fancy restaurants.

We are privileged to see the potters still around, spinning life into wet clay. But some of the potters I meet thanks to my passion to collect terra cotta pots, are really poor and are looking for other options to earn their livelihood. I met another potter in Tijara (Alwar, Rajasthan) who embroiders dresses along with making pots to meet ends, he kept requesting me to find a job in Delhi all the while, pottery on its own is insufficient to meet ends for him. Tejaswini Foundation helps these potters from Tijara by taking their utensils to urban markets and getting them some profit but more such efforts are required.

Thankfully there are some potters who are making enough money to keep going. The Longpi pottery from Manipur is beautiful. This black pottery is known to be made with a mix of a black stone powder and clay, the pots are shaped and fired the same way as terra cotta pots and is breakable too. It doesn’t mean these utensils are delicate. One can use them over gas stoves, microwaves and conventional ovens just like Borosilicate and Corning glass utensils, taking same precautions to protect them. Longpi pottery is interesting in the way the potters from Manipur have devised new shapes and sizes from this pottery.

They make baking trays, beautiful kettles, tea cups and beer mugs, bowls and plates, salad bowls and serving platters apart from their traditional pots and even decorate the edges or handles using cane weaving. Such beautiful and cook, bake and serve type of utensils are becoming more and more popular with urban consumers and finding a place of pride on the dining table.

The educated potters of Manipur have already made a place in the trendy kitchenware section and Longpi pottery is available even on some e-commerce websites. I am hopeful for the potters from other parts of the country as well, they have at least not discontinued making earthen pots.

Another interesting place to find exquisite pottery is Gundiyali, a potters’ village in Kutch region of Gujrat. The potters of this village have been making the same designs of pottery since 5000 years apparently as the same designs of pots were excavated from Hadappa and Mohenjodaro too. Interestingly the potters not only use the spinning wheel to make perfectly shaped pots, but they also use a technique called Ghadayi where they gently beat the half made Matka (Ghada or round pot for water storage) from outside using a flat wooden disc with a handle.

The potters are so adept that they make perfect round Matka using this Ghadayi technique with their hands.

I have witnessed this Ghadayi technique in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujrat to make large Matkas, while the smaller utensils are made on the potters’ wheel completely.

The potters from some more areas of Kutch have found a way to make pots and pans suited for modern kitchens too and they are marketing their wares almost all over India. Mitticool website is from Kutch potters and sells various types of kitchen and dining utensils made of Terra cotta. Some unorganized potters from Kutch region make beautiful water bottles with lid, water jugs, insulated casseroles and dinner sets too. Even a Tawa (griddle) with handle and a metal base has started making waves among those who love using Terra cotta pots. Kutch potters are also known for the beautiful intricate painting they do on the pots, much like the Kutchi embroidery.

Kerala is also known for the earthenware Chattis (pans) they use for cooking everyday fish and prawn curries. Kerala remains one of those places where common people did not stop cooking in earthenware pots although it became less frequent in the modern kitchens.

Thanks to our festivals and religious rituals that have helped survive the profession of a potter in the country. Potters all over the country make diyas for Diwali every year and bring them to markets to sell. I remember the Kuldevta pooja in our ancestral home where there was a mandatory practice to cook the Prasad in earthen pots over wood fired chulhas. The village kumhar would be summoned to make specific sizes and shapes of the pots to fill water, milk and ghee and one kadhai in which the Prasad was deep fried in cow ghee.

I am sure other families and communities had similar pooja rituals and the Kumhar’s art survived due to this constant demand of earthen pots throughout the year apart from the surge in the demand during wedding season of the calendar. Of course there was Durga pooja, Ganesh puja and several other festivals when the Kumhars would make idols of Gods and Goddesses for worship. Interestingly these idols would be immersed in the nearest water bodies after the festival is over. Imagine the fine sedimentary soil is collected from dried up ponds to make such idols which are immersed into another water body after the worship rituals are over. We have a theory of being born of panchtatva and getting merged with panchtatva after death in this country and these earthen idols follow the same path. A potter’s work is enchanting indeed.

The new age terra cotta pottery could help revive the potters better and bring better profits to them. The terracotta teapots and cups that we use for our everyday chai are a lot better than bone china and ceramic or even glass tumblers. The sedimentary soil that is used for making terra cotta pots is a renewable resource and making of the pots doesn’t burden the environment with toxic chemicals and pollutants and if one is concerned about the cost of terra cotta utensils and their longevity, they are mostly similarly priced as mid level ceramic or glass tableware. Life span of a terra cotta tea cup or a handi can be as good as a glass utensil, the breakage and chipping as easy as any other breakable tableware. Just take care to buy well fired earthenware.

Terra cotta pots are great for dum cooking technique. One can bake everything In terra cotta trays and even curries can be cooked well. Once heated the terra cotta pots need lesser flame heat to keep cooking. In Kerala people line the chatty with banana leaf to slow cook food in minimal oil, in urban kitchens the terra cotta pans can be lined with aluminum foil if required. In earlier days each pot was filled with water for a few days so the pores are filled with some minerals found in drinking water, then the pot is used for cooking. This way the pots do not absorb the aroma of foods being cooked in it. Indian Daal, Kheer, Saag etc cook really well in Handis and people use to look forward to food cooked in them during picnics in earlier days.

To clean the earthen potsafter cooking or serving food, just rinse them with water first and then use a hard sponge with diluted liquid detergent or soap nut powder before rinsing them thoroughly with running water. Let them dry completely in sun before storing them away for next use. No need to sun the pots if they are being used every day. In modern kitchens one can heat the cleaned pots in the oven till the water dries up.

So when you plan to make some rustic Daal or Saag next time try and get a Handi and spend a couple of hours cooking for the family. The Mitti ka Tawa makes the best tasting millet Rotis you have tasted and that too in the comfort of your own modern kitchen.

Recipe of Rajasthani khatta saag cooked in earthen Matka

(recipe by Sneh Yadav)

ingredients

1 kilo mixed greens of Spinach, Mustard, Bathua (Chenopodium) and some Beet leaves etc

60 gm green garlic leaves or chives (or use chopped garlic)

100 gm sour curds

Salt to taste

Finely chopped ginger and green chillies to taste

procedure

Wash, clean and drain all the leafy greens and chop them roughly.

Chop the garlic greens finely.

Add all the greens to the cooking Matka along with 500 ml water and cook covered for 10 minutes on high flame. Then lower the heat and simmer for about 40 minutes.

Whisk the yogurt and add to the cooking saag. Now mash the cooking saag using a wooden mathani (churner). Cook more till the saag becomes mushy but not too smooth.

Add the minced ginger and green chillies. Mix well and cover. Switch the gas stove off and let the pot sit for another 10 minutes before serving.

Serve hot with miller rotis, some raw onions and some fresh white butter over the saag.

A truncated version of this article was published in Down to Earth magazine.

Paneer, eggs and boiled chickpeas in the fridge are the best ingredients to make a nourishing meal in a jiffy. Of course I stock my greens in many ways too so I can cook our meals quickly. Having someone to chop and clean is a great help but then one can always plan a weekend time when all the vegetables can be stocked for the week's use.

I stock my leafy green vegetables in many ways. Some are kept unwashed wrapped in brown paper or cloth bags and they last pretty much the whole week this way. I rinse the greens stored this way and chop before cooking but it does take some time. When I plan ahead and involve my house help I get the greens cleaned, well rinsed and chopped and freeze them in ziplock bags or steam and keep them in airtight containers for a week or so.

Luckily Amaranth leaves of both types, red and greens ones are quite dry in nature and last really well in the fridge even after chopping. I make optimal use of this property of amaranth greens whenever I get a huge bunch from our weekly market.

This time I found a ziplock bag of red amaranth in the freezer that I had froze 3 months ago when I had bought a huge bunch of them.

Now to tell you the truth, amaranth greens were never cooked with paneer in my home but this became a short cut way to make one subzi that includes greens and proteins and cooks in just about 10 minutes. In the mornings when I have to cook lunch box this way of cooking just one subzi suits well. I just pack some rotis and dahi with it and the lunch box meal is complete.

ingredients
(2-3 servings)

400 gm chopped red amaranth leaves (or green if you don't get the red ones)
100 gm red onions sliced thinly
2-3 broken dry red chillies
1 tbsp mustard oil
salt to taste
120 gm paneer cubed

procedure
Heat mustard oil and tip in the broken red chillies. Let the chillies get aromatic, you can let them burn lightly if you want a smoky flavour. I do the smoking of the chillies for this recipe.

Now add the sliced onions. Fry them till they turn translucent.

Add salt and the chopped amaranth greens. Mix well, cover and cook till the leaves get wilted.

Stir fry for a few minutes, add the cubed paneer and cook covered for a couple of minutes.

Serve hot or at room temperature with roti, paratha or millet rotis.

This paneer saag works really well as a sandwich stuffing too.

You can cook this recipe of saag paneer with spinach too.

There are very few places in Uttar Pradesh where you still get kali gajar ka halwa. One of those places is the Moti Mahal (restaurant and chaat place) in Hazrat Ganj Lucknow where you get kali gajar ka halwa during winters along with decent malaiyyo, kesar pista doodh and an assortment of other halwas. You can get about a dozen variants of halwa at Moti Mahal, made of lentils, nuts, seeds and carrots of different types. Unfortunately I haven't come across kali gajar ka halwa in Banaras yet.

But I will tell you about Ghazipur, a small town some 75 Km from Banaras which is my maternal grandparents home town. It has been about 2 decades since I went there but we used to go to Ghazipur every summer vacation for at least 2 weeks (back in late 70s and 80s) and I have some great food memories from those days. We visited Ghazipur a few times in winters too when my maternal grandfather was terminally ill and that is the time my memory of kali gajar ka halwa dates back to.

There was this halwai family who used to make all types of murabbas and halwas apart from the regular dry mithais which used to be sent to other parts of the state as much I remember. This was a wealthy halwai family who was in this trade for a few generations, we knew in detail because one of the daughters was my mother's classmate.

So someone was sent to buy kali gajar ka halwa to their workshop and the person came back empty handed saying they haven't made kali gajar ka halwa this season. Everyone in the family was crestfallen and unanimously blamed the family for this act of 'cheating' their customers. The disappointment was grave.

The imminent expectation of the kali gajar ka halwa treat and then the disappointment somehow got imprinted in my mind and every time I would taste a well made kali gajar ka halwa later this incident will replay in my head.

Note that black carrots are quite distinct in their flavour and the halwa recipe needs a little fine tuning if you have been making red carrot halwa all your life.

I tried making it myself a few times, failed a few times and finally learnt how to keep this halwa sweet and pleasant, not causing the milk to get the flavour of the black carrots that makes the halwa weird tasting in my opinion.

While I like the milk to be cooked slowly along with grated red carrots to make my kind of great gajar ka halwa, where the milk gets all the colour and flavours of the red carrots making it sweeter and pleasant. Red carrots are sweet in taste while black carrots, owing to the rich flavonoids and dark coloured pigments, are a little astringent in taste.

So when grated black carrot is cooked with milk slowly for long duration it (the pigments) masks the sweetness of reduced milk and also make it a wee bit astringent which is not a pleasant attribute of a halwa.

So what to do when making kali gajar ka halwa?

Not to worry much, the recipe is still simple you just change the timings of the addition of different ingredients. Also, note that keeping the kali gajar ka halwa a bit rich on ghee helps in absorption of all the pigment goodness (read fat soluble vitamins) so go make this halwa rich and delicious.

ingredients

1 kilo cleaned peeled and grated black carrots
1 Liter whole milk reduced to make about 200 gm thick evaporated milk (almost like thick rabdi)
300 gm sugar (I use 200 gm)
50-60 gm (2 tbsp) ghee or a little more
chopped nuts for garnish as per choice

almond meal about 100 gm per kilo carrots if you want to make it a tonic breakfast dish

procedure

Take a thick base kadhai or pan wide enough to accommodate all the grated carrots and still be convenient enough to stir easily. Heat it over gas stove and smear it generously with the ghee.

Now add all the grated black carrots, keeping the heat high and stir vigorousely for 5 minutes or till the grated carrots wilt a little. Now switch the heat to be medium low and start stirring it every couple of minutes. This will enable the carrots to get a little seared and that somehow locks the flavours in.

You can reduce the milk on the other side simultaneously.

Once the grated black carrot reduces in volume and becomes soft enough to get mashed easily it is time to add the sugar. You can mash the carrots if you want a smooth halwa before adding the sugar or keep the shreds undisturbed like I do. The mixture gets a little watery after adding sugar so cook some more while stirring almost continuously till it becomes glazed and shiny.

Now add the reduced milk, mix well and cook some more to let everything mix together. The reduced milk will get the colour of the cooked black carrots but wont become astringent.

If you intend to add almond meal you can add it along with the reduced milk and cook for 5 more minutes.

All well cooked gajar ka halwa variants stay well for 3-4 days at room temperature (in winter months, north India) and the halwa was always spread in a parat or large thali in my home, nuts were sprinkled over it and the thali was covered and kept either on the dining table or on kitchen platform or in the milk cupboard. Well, it was hidden from our sight most of the times. No one can resist stealing some halwa if it is kept in a visible place.

Now I refrigerate. Now we have lost that habit of stealing such foods and I miss that.

Kali gajar ka halwa is definitely tastier than red carrot halwa if made well. And now you know how to make the kali gajar ka halwa in the right way. It is indeed a tonic food and can be supplemented with a little warming spices if one wants some warmth in harsh winter months.

Kali gajar ka halwa was considered an aphrodisiac too but I am sure the recipe would include some cardamom and nutmeg too for that effect.

Now I know the reason my family felt cheated when kali gajar ka halwa was denied to them one season about 4 decades ago. Food memories are best preserved in our minds I feel, the reason being that food is perceived by our senses so well. More reasons to make the food better for all of us, enjoy food with loved ones and create memories of togetherness.

We get very few opportunities to learn from maestros. Learning about a cuisine considered as awe inspiring as Kashmiri is an opportunity I can't miss.

Kashmiri cuisine has been awe inspiring for me always. I love the Khatte Baingan, Haakh, Gogji Nadur, Chaman Kaliya and the likes, have been cooking these home style Kashmiri recipes for long but had never experienced a Wazawan.

Wazawan is the Kashmiri wedding feast that is supposed to be the ultimate gluttony of the highest order. The Kashmiri Waza is the professional chef who cooks for such Wazawan and he is considered an artist in his own right. The fine art of choosing the meat cuts, giving it the right treatment before cooking and shaping the perfect Moche, Rista and Goshtaba, slow cooking the Tabak maaz perfectly after poaching them in stock is the art that brings accolades to a professional Waza in Kashmir or even outside Kashmir.

So when the much acclaimed food critique Marryam Reshii hosted us for a Kashmiri dinner at Le Meridien Gurgaon, it was a blissful experience to taste and learn from her and Waza Rashid who had been flown in from Srinagar to prepare the feast. It is worth mentioning that Marryam is married to a Kashmiri Muslim and Kashmir is her second home for the last 25 years, possibly more than that as she had been working on Kashmir issues much before that.

This hand crafted authentic Kashmiri dinner at Latest Recipe, the all day dining restaurant at Le Meridien Gurgaon, was indeed a great learning experience when Waza Rashid cooked food and Marryam Reshii gave her inputs in every possible way. Both of them answered our queries patiently and I found myself getting educated about the finer nuances. Imagine someone who couldn’t differentiate between a Rista and Goshtaba till recently, learning about Butt Haaq and Waza Haaq at the Kashmiri cuisine showcase. Butt Haaq by the way is the Kashmiri haaq greens cooked the Hindu way and Waza Haaq is the same greens cooked the Muslim way, often with mutton liver.

The dinner started with a few exquisite chutneys. Pumpkin, Zereshk, Walnut and Radish chutneys were delicious and one could keep on licking them by spoonfuls if the starters did not arrive. The starters were served in quick succession and we found our plates loaded with Tabak Maaz, Seekh Kabab, Nadru ki Tikki, Haaq ki tikki and Waza Chicken. I liked Haaq ki Tikki more than Nadru Tikki, Waza Chicken was good too but the show stopper for me was the Tabak Maaz.

The slow cooked Tabak maaz was crisp like a cracker on the outside and glutinous soft inside, subtly flavored and perfectly meaty. Waza Rashid informed later when I asked that the Tabak Maaz is made with larger chunks of side ribs when made for traditional Tarami platters and stays moister inside.

Tarami is a huge copper platter that serves four people together during Wazawan. To make the experience more realistic we were served the Tarami platter, a ceramic platter in this case, to be shared between the two of us and how we loved it.

The Tarami platter came with plain rice and a pulao served on two sides. The rice was topped with Rista, Gushtaba, Aab Gosht, Alubukhara Korma, Murgh Dhaniya Korma, Kishmish Korma and the Moche kabab. I shall talk about my favorites from this Tarami platter and there were too many of them.

The subtle and light Aab Gosht, that is a meat dish cooked with milk was a fine example of how a dish need not be rich to taste great. The Goshtaba which is a very smooth meatball cooked in a milky gravy was perfectly done and oh so juicy and flavourful. Aromatic Kashmiri spice mixes exude a very subtle but potent aroma of fennel, green cardamom, Cloves, Caraway and saffron in such curries.

The Alu Bukhara korma was pleasantly tart and delicious. Kishmish Korma made me crave for it but I had to stop myself from taking second helpings else I wouldn’t have been able to taste the other delicious offerings on this menu. Moche Kabab was a fist shaped kabab sprinkled with almond flakes, very flavourful, moist and slightly spongy.

The way the meat is pounded for these kababs and meatballs, the way the fat is added while pounding and the portions of the animal used makes a difference in taste and texture in these fine specimens of different cooking techniques. This is where a Waza proves his skills.

The dessert was a Phirni with nuts and saffron, with generous lashings of coconut to my surprise. Nicely made and delicious but Kashmir is not known for the desserts as much I know. The Qahva arrived to sum up the wonderful meal and wrapped us with its warmth and the aroma of saffron.

Waza Rashid kept telling us how he has introduced some vegetarian kababs and some innovative vegetarian dishes to suit the taste buds of people outside Kashmir but there used to be a fixed menu for the traditional Wazawan earlier. He told us about the different types of Dum Alu that is made during Wazawan and how interesting pickles are made with almost everything in Kashmir.

I reserved my stupid questions about the Ver masala, sun dried vegetables and how they are cooked for Marryam as she is a patient listener and a sweet soul who never gets tired of talking about food, that too her favorite cuisine that is cooked everyday at her home. I told you I came back with some value addition to my food knowledge.

This special hand crafted authentic Kashmiri cuisine prepared by Waza Rashid is available at latest Recipe, the all day dining restaurant at Le Meridien Gurgaon till February 29th. Please go if you want great tasting food and some enlightenment on Kashmiri cuisine.

Please forgive me for the lack of pictures, the ones shared here are the cellphone pictures I clicked that day. There are a few technical issues with my desktop and I can’t edit and upload pictures for a while. I will rectify it as soon as possible and will update this post with all the pictures I have clicked with my camera. Stay tuned.

The thought of Rajasthan brings a splash of colours in my mind, soulful music by Manganiars and Kalbelia dancers apart from the fiery food. All these powerful images in the background of almost monochrome deserts that can make one terribly sick in a summer noon. Rajasthan is the land of nature’s extremities and sheer human will to conquer that.

Jaisalmer is the western tip of this desert state and has a glorious past being a part of the silk route that connected this desert to other parts of the world, this desert welcomed many travelers from all over in return. We visited Jaisalmer last month and were smitten by the exotic charm. The landscape looks like another planet but the colourful splashes of the tribal dresses and artisans, glorious buildings and bazaars inside the city leaves one mesmerized.

We had the privilege to stay at Suryagarh Jaisalmer, nominated among top 10 luxury hotels of India and it turned out to be one of our best travel experiences. Suryagarh pampers the guests so much that I had started hearing stories about it even before we landed there.

We took a flight to Jodhpur and the hotel had sent a car to receive us. Seeing the driver with my name on placard at the arrival lounge gave me an idea what the hospitality is going to be like. The car had all the wet towels, chilled drinks and jars full of sweets and savories for the 5 hour drive that would take us to Suryagarh.

The drive through the desert was quite interesting as we saw hoards of camels and even got to drink freshly milked camel milk thanks to our affable driver Bhanvar Singh. Green Bee Eaters on the roadside wires and Chinkaras on both sides of the roads kept appearing every now and then while the car kept speeding up on the smooth roads. We stopped at a roadside dhaba for lunch and got to taste wonderful local meal of papad methi ki subzi, gatte ki subzi, sev tamatar ki subzi with bajre ki roti and buttermilk.

A guard of honour was given to us as soon as we entered the city and a jeep with guards and Suryagarh flags started driving ahead of us.

This brought a huge smile on our faces, the smile got brighter as we entered the gates and a pair of camels welcomed us and started walking ahead, leading us to the outer courtyard to drumbeats and Rajasthani welcome songs.

Atithi Devo Bhava taken to the next level. Nakul Hada greeted us with his team, tilak was applied by Pandit ji and a shower of rose petals next, we were led to our rooms that felt like a warm cocoon after a long drive.

An invitation for the evening musical programme was waiting for us on the table.

Our room, The Signature Suite was going to be our home for 4 days, it was one cozy comfortable room with fruit laden platters and fresh Mithai being replenished every day.

After freshening up and tea and snacks in the room, we went for a tour around the property before going to the plush backyard where they host the musical performance by the local Manganiyars every day.

Manganiars are traditional Muslim singers from this region and Suryagarh has employed a whole family with them, so member of the same family keep singing in different locations for different events and all of them are great singers. We spent a very good evening listening to their songs of longing and love, some dance and storytelling.

Suryagarh team has laid out charpoys, chairs and comfortable cushions for the guests under decorative canopies where one can enjoy the music. Diyas and lanterns are lit up beautifully to make the atmosphere surreal.

Later we went for the romantic dinner on the sand dunes where the group of Manganiyars were performing by the campfire. Suryagarh team arranges a luxurious dreamy dinner on the dunes with mattresses laid out on the sand, pillows and quilts for the cold winter evenings and numerous lamps dotted along the sand dunes.

A team of chefs keeps bringing game meats and several other types of traditional shikar style food in earthen plates, drinks keep flowing and music gets better and better as the moon rises in the sky. We even spotted a shooting star thanks to Nakul Hada who caught a glimpse first and alerted us.

The menu they have curated for the ‘dinner on sand dunes’ is very interesting as they serve only shikar style meats and some wild berries and legumes from the region, cooked the way locals do it. We tasted some game meats, some Kumutiya (a local legume) beans and some ker sangri cooked the way locals eat. Delicious food, wonderful service, very well balanced flavors but the ambiance is such that it takes away your breath. All you remember is the star lit sky and the sufi songs in rich soulful voices.

Next morning we took a tour of the garden in the front, watched a wonderful sunrise, went for a walk and took a round of the kitchen garden they have on one side. It is always a pleasure to see the fresh vegetables being grown for consumption and they even grow all the flowers they use for decorations and bouquets. I talked to the gardeners, asked them how do they grow all this in such a harsh desert climate. The gardeners are very friendly and introduced us to everything that was growing.

Later we enjoyed methi paratha made from methi leaves plucked after we ordered. Such luxury of farm to table meals, even though only the fresh produce comes from the garden it is so much better than importing exotic stuff. Although they have fewer options in the desert and they do get all the fruits and some vegetables brought from big cities.

The breakfast service in the central courtyard is spectacular, their Halwai breakfast is quite popular I heard. Could not try myself as I wanted light breakfast everyday.

Nosh, the all day dining restaurant offers breakfast buffet that is quite good and one gets great variety of traditional and contemporary options.

We always found ourselves on these tables in the veranda outside Nosh. Their fresh mint tea had become a favorite during my stay.

The second day Thar Desert trail was planned and that was an experience that I will remember for a very long time.

The Thar trail also treats you with a unique luxury of a meal (lunch) by the lake with beautifully laid out mattresses under colourful canopies, picnic style food and much more. I will write about my experience of the Thar Desert trail separately in detail, I want to do justice to this very well curated trail that piqued my interest in History.

Thar trail was quite exhausting too and I had a Thermal salttherapy waiting for myself at Rait the Spa. The Thermal Salt Treatment was very soothing for my system, Arvind took the Spice Scrub Treatment advised to him by Mr. Mahesh, the Spa Manager and he also came out beaming after the spa. We went for another small walk and it was time for dinner.

That day ended with a light meal at the Legends of Marwar, the royal themed restaurant where the food comes under a canopy. The thali at The Legends of Marwar is quite heavy with all the traditional fare, we opted for a vegetarian thali and it proved to be one of our best regional meals ever.

I strongly recommend the thali meal at The Legends of Marwar. The best thing is that they serve ‘royal heritage fennel liquor’ at the end of this meal which is supposed to be a digestif. It was very good, comparable to Absinthe both in taste as well as potency.

Next day we planned a tour of the city, the fort and the market. The city has so much to offer one needs a few days to discover things. Jaisalmer is known for the yellow sandstone utensils, sculptures and building material. The old Havelis and even the Jaisalmer Fort is made of yellow sandstone, the front gates and jharokhas are always carved intricately.

Suryagarh Jaisalmer has recreated the elements in it's arches and jharokhas and even the outer facade.

The landscaping around the main building can be seen only when you venture out for morning walks. I recommend that strongly.

The hotel is built like a fortress that stands tall in the desert landscape. This was the view from my room. Beyond the boundary walls of Suryagarh the desert spreads till the horizon.

Apart from the Khejri (Prosopis cineraria) and Rohida (Tecomella undulata) trees there are many shrub species that grow in this desert. Windmills are numerous and have become a part of the landscape.

The typical splash of colours is seen when Suryagarh is decorated for the weddings. Yes it is a popular venue for destination weddings. Imagine getting married in midst of the mystic desert, surrounded with royal luxury and tremendous pampering.

Suryagarh Jaisalmer team pampers you a lot. We suffered withdrawal symptoms when we came back home. And it doesn't happen easily with us.

More stories from Suryagarh and Jaisalmer soon. Stay tuned.

i:ba cafe and restaurant in Varanasi | a taste of Japan in the city of Gods

fish curry in a tomato gravy | tamatar wali machhli

doli ki roti | a deep fried flat bread from Multan that uses spiced sourdough | some traditions should live on ...

singhade ka achar | pickled water chestnuts in Indian spices

fresh water chestnuts curry for fasting | 2 ways with fresh water chestnuts (singhada or paniphal) | vrat ka khana

everyday subzi: palak paneer recipe | 3 ways to make palak paneer

gudpaarey, gud waley shakkarpaarey | fried pastry coated with jaggery

Dev Diwali in Banaras and Loi Krathong, the festival of floating lights in Thailand have an ancient connection between them

witnessing some old English classics at 1911 restaurant at The Imperial as a celebration of 104th year of Delhi Durbar : 'Durbar ki Daawat'

mungodi wala palak ka nimona | spinach curry with lentil dumplings

palak chane ka shorba | spinach and black chickpeas winter stew

chukandar ke patton wala rajma | palak wala rajma | kidney beans cooked in beet greens or spinach gravy

a virtual tour of dalmandi of Banaras | the lesser known places of Banaras

tamatar chaat trail in Banaras and recreating the recipe of tamatar chaat

Recipe of Kamal gatte ka halwa : Lotus seeds Indian pudding

Earthen pots in my kitchen | how to use earthen pots and recipe of handi wala khatta saag from Rajasthan

saag paneer | laal chaulai paneer ki bhurji | red amaranth and paneer stir fry

Kali gajar ka halwa | black carrot halwa

Flavours of Kashmir at Latest Recipe, Le Meridien, Gurgaon

my experiences at Suryagarh Jaisalmer, the royal luxury hotel in the midst of golden sands