How Chef AliAkbar Baldiwala brings Bohri home cooking, hospitality and shared domestic life together

The 31-year-old head chef at Slink & Bardot, the Worli restaurant known for its “cuisine without borders”, stands over a pot of dal but it has nothing to do with tasting menus or covers. He is making Bohri dal-chawal palidu dish, earning it the moniker, DCP. He first had the dish at a mosque in Devlali in Nashik, where he grew up.

“I was a religious boy who would go to mosques regularly. This meal meant community dining. That is where I found the passion for service, for hospitality,” he says, before tipping tur dal into a pot with salt and a little turmeric before boiling it. Some households cook the dal down to 70-80 per cent, layering it with rice like biryani and putting it on dum to make dal pulao. At home, he keeps it simpler.

The broth that comes off the dal becomes palidu — tempered with ghee, jeera, methi seeds, curry leaves and besan, which acts like a roux, thickening the stock into a silky sauce. Doodhi (bottle gourd) and drumstick carry the flavour; tomato adds acidity; onion is the base. “There are no strong spices,” he says. “Just simple broth. What I really like about DCP is its simplicity.” Alongside it, he makes baingan bharta that behaves more like a cold salad — smoked eggplant, folded through with dahi and spring onion, finished with garlic, salt and pepper.

DCP with baingan bharta salad and fryums (Sankhadeep Banerjee)

Food, for Baldiwala, has always been associated with place. His childhood home was an old British-era theatre building. His father had converted the ground floor into a Chinese-restaurant — Ali Baba’s Den. The family lived on the first.

He was a shy child who felt trapped in a schooling system built for rote study. It made sense when he got diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. When a friend mentioned hotel management, he enrolled. He had been cooking since Class VII, initially out of necessity after his mother left home when he was 13. “My father would give me instructions on the phone for meal prep. He would come home and do the final tadka,” he recalls.

Post college, he worked with the Taj group of hotels, before moving to the award-winning Masque and its catering wing, Sage and Saffron. The initial years were tough. He had two slip discs by 24. What followed was a series of resets: a sabbatical in Dubai to reconnect with his father who he hadn’t met for six years; return to India just as COVID hit. Two formative months at a permaculture guest house in Kamshet, a village in Maharashtra, where he rediscovered his appetite for cooking; some time off in Devlali, spent cooking for himself for the first time in his adult life. A now-shut food truck slinging banh mi and katsu sando out of Oshiwara (Mumbai). A pandemic-stalled restaurant job in south Goa, where he met his partner Damini. And finally, Slink & Bardot. He inherited it as a ‘French’ restaurant but made it his own — one that boasts ‘global flavours with Indian inspiration’.

Baldiwala’s relationship to religion has moved as much as his kitchens, but the community and service culture of the mosque remains close to his heart.

To that, he wants to give a fuller stage. He wants to bring Bohri food into an à la carte restaurant. He did it at a pop-up at a now-shuttered Versova café. For now, it is more passion than an existing plan — much like the palidu on the stove: unhurried and instinctive.

Dal Chawal Palidu Recipe

Ingredients

For the Dal Stock: 200 g toor dal, 5 g turmeric powder, 5 g salt, 1.2 litres water

For the palidu: 1.2 litres dal stock, 100 g besan, 200 g dudhi, cut into large chunks; 1 large drumstick, cut into 3-inch pieces; 1 small onion, sliced; 1 medium tomato, diced; 30 g ginger-garlic-green chilli paste (30/60/10); 2 sprigs curry leaves; 7 g turmeric powder; 3 g red chilli powder; 2 g fenugreek seeds; 7 g cumin seeds; 4-5 kokum pieces, soaked; 100 ml ghee or oil, divided; Salt, to taste

For rice: 400 g basmati rice

For the baingan bharta: 1 large bharta baingan; 100 g thick dahi/yoghurt; 1–2 garlic cloves, minced; 2 stalks spring onions, whites and greens chopped; Salt, to taste

Method

Prepare the dal stock
Combine the toor dal, turmeric, salt and water in a heavy-bottomed pot. Cook until the dal is tender but still holds its shape, it should be cooked through, not mushy. Strain and reserve the cooked dal and stock separately.

Make the palidu
In a large pot, simmer the dal stock with the dudhi, drumstick and tomato until the vegetables are tender but retain their shape.

Heat 60 ml ghee or oil in another heavy-bottomed pot. Add the cumin, fenugreek and curry leaves. Once fragrant, add the onion and sauté until lightly golden. Add the ginger-garlic-green chilli paste and cook until the oil separates. Then add the turmeric and red chilli powder, followed by the besan. Cook on low heat, stirring continuously, until the besan turns aromatic and loses its raw smell.

Gradually whisk in the hot dal stock, one ladle at a time, ensuring no lumps form. Add the cooked vegetables and bring to a gentle boil. The palidu should be smooth and pourable, thicker than a broth but lighter than a curry. Now add the soaked kokum and simmer for 15–20 minutes. Adjust the salt. Finish with the remaining 40 ml ghee or oil as a tadka.

Prepare the chawal
Cook the basmati rice using the absorption or steaming method.

Make the chilled baingan bharta
Roast the baingan directly over a flame until soft and smoky. Peel and roughly chop the flesh. Mix with the thick yoghurt, garlic, spring onion whites and greens, and salt. Refrigerate until chilled.

To serve

Gently layer the cooked toor dal over the rice and garnish with spring onion greens. Serve the hot palidu alongside the dal-topped rice. Place the chilled baingan bharta on the side. Garnish with coriander, if desired, and serve with roasted or fried papad.