FEAST FROM THE PAST

The old-world Mughlai flavours, found in Lashkari, Moplah, Awadhi and Salar Jung cuisine, rest in the hands of a chosen few. We get a taste of their secret recipes.

The old-world Mughlainbsp;flavours, found innbsp;Lashkari, Moplah, Awadhi and Salar Jung cuisine, rest in the hands of a chosen few.nbsp;We get a taste of their secret recipes.
In a charmingly dilapidated bungalow at Parel, Mumbai, the kitchen is suffused with the aroma of exotic spices. It is noon and Kunwar Rani Begum Kulsum, 52, is busy slicing meat into tiny pieces while slivers of onion and chillies sweat in a deep-bottomed pan. She is cooking Tala Ghosht, a 100-year-old recipe of the Salar Jungs, the noble family which served the Nizams of Hyderabad. Begum Kulsum is a descendant of this family and this dish was a favourite of her grandmother, who used to cook it in the 1950s. 8220;Tala Ghosht is safri khana travel food and we add no water to the dish so it can be preserved,8221; explains Kulsum, who now recreates these dishes at the ITC Grand Central in Mumbai. It was a custom with the Salar Jungs to be secretive about these recipes. So the daughters of the family weren8217;t allowed access to the kitchen and the secrets of the kitchen were shared only with daughters-in-law. 8220;My grandmother was born in an aristocratic Iranian family and came to Raza-Yar Jung haveli at Darushafa, Hyderabad, after her wedding,8221; says Kulsum. 8220;Nawab Yusuf Ali Khan Salar Jung III even had a separate bawarchi khana for experimenting with ingredients,8221; she says.

The Mughals and Arabs had brought with them a rich culinary tradition which perfectly garnished the existing cuisine of India. The vegetarian pulaos were cooked with meat to create the biryani, and the curries were flavoured with almonds and cashews. The cooking style was larger-than-life and extravagant, reflective of the time itself. In the era of McDonald8217;s and home delivery, and despite the entry of world cuisine like sushi and Thai food, traditional Indian cuisine, with its subtle and varied flavours, has hung on and survived, and old recipes from India8217;s past are routinely recreated, tweaked to suit today8217;s palate. In Hyderabad at the ITC Kakatiya, the executive chef, Chalapathi Rao has rediscovered forgotten recipes and recreated the magic of old Mughal cuisine. Rao says ancient recipes are thankfully making a comeback to the mainstream through food festivals.
8220;People are interested in their own cuisine,8221; says Rao, referring to the huge turnout the hotel got for their Mughal Food Festival held recently. 8220;The cuisine is now a celebration and cooking it requires talent and patience,8221; he emphasises.

Kulsum Begum, meanwhile, is working as a food consultant with the ITC in Mumbai. Her job is to put together a sumptuous feast from the past. Begum makes Hapshi Biryani, Kairi Dal and Pyaaz ki Kheer, painstakingly stirred and simmered over a slow fire. 8220;My favourite is Shabgeer, made of mutton and wheat, and cooked through the night. Nobody knows the recipe of this dish besides me,8221; claims Kulsum Begum, who, like true nobility, is planning to pass it on to her kids.
For 52-year-old food consultant Masihuddin Tucy based in Hyderabad, documenting the Mughal kitchens is an attempt to bring back the glory his family lost a century ago. A fifth-generation, direct descendant of emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, Tucy8217;s home in Hyderabad is full of books and translated manuscripts that speak of cooking styles from centuries ago. 8220;Books like the Akbar Namah and Al Mamoon mention an elaborate dinner hosted by Mamoon Rashid 1,300 years ago, where 300 dishes were served, with a note on the ingredients. Also, Bahadur Shah Zafar had a collection of recipes handed down through generations,8221; he says. Tucy talks about the Sarhadi Naan, a four-and-a-half-feet-long naan made with 10 layers of ghee. He makes Lashkari food army food that originated in Amir Taimur8217;s reign 700 years ago and was popular during the rule of Akbar and Jehangir. 8220;There are recipes like Kashghar Kebab, where mutton is cooked on aromatic wood, and Mamoon Rashid8217;s favourite shorba cooked with coriander roots for 16 hours. These recipes are slowly becoming extinct,8221; he says. nbsp;

The Arab influence penetrated southern India through the Moplah cuisine when the Arabs came to India to trade in spices. Abida Rashid, 45, a chef, has a rambling bungalow on the outskirts of Kozhikode where she cooks north Kerala8217;s Malabari Muslim food for tourists. 8220;I8217;ve tried reviving Moplah recipes but some are way too difficult,8221; she says, referring to Enthu Pudi which is made with cycas plant, a shorter and thorny version of the date palm. 8220;It gives fruit after 10 years of planting.8221; Cooking it is an elaborate procedure. Rashid, whose cooking is highly sought-after by five-star hotels, is sceptical of how well this recipe will endure in the future. The fruit was wrapped in bundles and hung on top of chimneys for a year. 8220;When I was young, the whole family would sit together and make small dumplings from the crumbled fruit. It was then steamed and cooked with coconut milk, fish and rice flour. It was a rare treat,8221; she recalls.

Chef Rasool, an Awadhi cuisine expert, currently working with the Jaypee Siddharth hotel in Delhi, feels the essence of Frontier cuisine has changed dramatically. It8217;s more like fast food now. To understand Mushq-e-Tanjan, a sweet biryani, a visit to the kitchen of Chef Rasool is a must. He trains cooks in Awadhi cuisine and participates in food festivals in India and abroad. Mushq-e-Tanjan translates to fragrance of paradise mushq and treasure trove of riches tanjan, and for his unusual recipe, Chef Rasool cooks meat as a qorma and rice as zarda sweet rice, before combining them in layers. 8220;Mushq-e-Tanjan was a favourite of Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh,8221; says the 70-something chef, who is best known for the sumptuous Awadhi dastarkhwan he spreads out. A student of Ustad Haaji Ishq, a biryani maestro, it was tough grasping the nuances of cooking even for Chef Rasool. 8220;Chefs those days snobbishly maintained secret recipes. They made us work as a masalchi spice mixer and never allowed us to touch the preparations,8221; he recalls. 8220;But now I cannot do that, I cannot hide recipes from cooks. Otherwise, the cuisine might die with me.8221; Like chef Rasool8217;s master preparation Lahsun ki Kheer in which garlic miraculously turns sweet and tastes almost like almonds. 8220;It8217;s Ratan Tata8217;s favourite but it8217;s not documented in Awadhi cuisine,8221; he laughs, and adds, 8220;You have to be innovative and move with changing trends.8221;

CHUTNEY MUTTON
Begum Kulsum8217;s recipe can be preserved for days, like a pickle
Ingredients
1 kg boneless mutton
1/2 cup garlic paste
10 curry leaves with stems
1/2 teaspoon each of cumin seeds, onion seeds
1/2 cup each of tomato puree and tamarind extract
2 tablespoons each of sesame seeds,
coriander powder, cumin powder
6-8 cloves of garlic
4 whole red chillies
Salt to taste

Method
Pressure cook 1kg boneless mutton with 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon garlic paste, 2 curry leaves with stems and 2 cups of water until meat is tender. Heat 1 cup oil and add 1/2 teaspoons of cumin seeds, onion seeds, 6-8 cloves of garlic, four red chillies and six curry leaves. Add 1/2 cup garlic paste, two tablespoons of sesame paste, coriander powder, cumin powder, one tablespoon chilli powder, one cup tomato puree, one cup tamarind extract and salt to taste. Shred mutton and add to the pan and stir fry with the paste for 2-3 mins.