Fresh produce and fine meats, wedding feasts and home fires — discovering the flavours of Kashmiri food in Srinagar
The air was laden with bits of white fluff. They floated, opalescent, backlit by the spring sun. They made the shaggy street dogs sneeze, got tangled in uncovered hair, stuck to the gnarly trunks of the towering chinars, and eased weightlessly into the Jhelum. It was late spring in Srinagar and love filled the air. Literally. The Russian poplars were mating and had unleashed a blizzard. And it wasn’t just the trees; this was also wedding season in Srinagar. I was in town looking for food and found that in this season food finds you first.
Strolling along the Jhelum I ran into a wedding near Amira Kadal, into a hive of nearly 25 men preparing the wazwan — Kashmir’s storied wedding banquet.
Junaid Ali was marrying off his daughter and 600 guests would be fed a 12 course feast, all meat. This is an inner-city working-class neighbourhood. What does he do to foot this kind of bill? “I’m a driver.”
The scene, framed by the river, was pure theatre. The waza or head chef sat harvesting choice boneless chunks from lamb legs for korma, barking the occasional instruction to his underlings hacking ribs into shape for tabak maaz. Two men sat mincing lamb for waza sheekh. Then there was the gushtaba pounding pipeline: eight men, each with a stone mortar and a heavy wooden mallet. Starting with boneless chunks, each man pounded a spice into the meat before passing it on. T
he last man, breathing a metronomic “shhk shhk shhk”, pounded in lamb fat, turning the mash pink. The end result were glistening oval discs. Later, bubbling in a delicate yoghurt gravy, the melting fat would stretch these into enormous orbs.
Song of kong posh and badam
The sangeet was on in the next tent. The women drummed on the tumbaknari — the Kashmiri dumbek — but the songs, ranging from ‘Man dole re’ to ‘Chikni Chameli’, were all Bollywood. I requested a Kashmiri number and they belted out a song about kong posh (saffron) and badam (almond), both star players in the feast.
In the kitchen tent, a dozen men worked over a raging fire fed by whole logs arranged along a trench. On it simmered enormous brass vats bearing aab gosht, rogan josh, rista, pulao. The only way to regulate the heat was to get the vats on or off the fire, which required careful and intimate choreography. It took two men, each with a free arm wrapped around the other’s shoulder, to hoist a vat onto the fire, where it landed with a crunch and a shower of embers. They had been at it since 8 am; it was now 6.30 pm! The kitchen was a frenzied blur because the baraat was arriving in an hour. Junaid invited me to stay. I could barely tear myself away, but I had a dinner invitation at The Lalit
On my way over to the hotel, I got reacquainted with Srinagar. I was visiting after four years and the city showed evidence of someone with imagination: no concertina wires, very few bunkers, no febrile signs screaming “CRPF Ajay! Bharat Mata ki Jai!”, nor the flex hoardings where a jawan pours water into the cupped hands of an old Kashmiri man. This Srinagar was sharp and functional. The streets bore not a speck of trash, making me want to declare my city, Calcutta, a disturbed area. As I got off my efficient radio cab at The Lalit, the evening breeze rustled through the magnificent chinars and the air was perfumed with honeysuckle.
The Lalit Grand Palace is a marriage of beauty and gravitas. Spectacularly situated on the lap of the Zabarwan Hills facing the Dal Lake, it hoards a hefty past. Built in 1910 by the Dogra ruler Pratap Singh and passed on to his nephew Hari Singh, the Maharaja of Kashmir, in 1947, this palace has been through several avatars. In the mid-90s it had become a glorified guest house for senior security officials, parts of it rumoured to be interrogation chambers and incarceration cells.
At the palace’s Durbar Hall, now a restaurant, my chair sat on a 112- year-old carpet. A gift from the Emperor of Persia, this single 50’x30’ piece was hand-woven by Persian prisoners, on which diners blithely dropped naan crumbs. Under Pratap Singh’s stern gaze, I plodded through a terrifyingly ambitious wazwan spread, eating my weight in meat.
A 12 course spread
The rogan josh was buttery, the gushtaba velvety, the korma rich. But the standouts were less familiar: rista haaq — tiny meatballs, bright and toothsome, enmeshed in earthy cooked greens; gucchi yakhni — cottage cheese-stuffed Kashmiri morels in a creamy yoghurt sauce, the mushrooms aromatic and cartilaginous; the cashew garlic chutney — beyond sublime, alone or scooped up with sheermal, a dense spongy bread studded with saffron threads. By the twelfth course, I had wilted and reached for the phirni, a not-too-sweet milk pudding of coarse rice flour. This high-pitched and heavy meal had an exquisitely subtle finale in kahwa, a delicate brew of saffron and green tea poured on almond slivers. The perfect rinse for the grease.
The next morning my host introduced me to his 73-year-old Kashmiri Pandit neighbour. Dr Dhar was sitting in her garden effusive with irises, and the desolation in her limpid blue eyes was striking. I felt I had come to a still mountain lake with dark caves in its depths. She shared her memories of Pandit women lining up in Hari Parbat with trays of tahari or yellow rice and red meat curry as offerings to Sharika. She talked about the festival of gaad-bata or fish-rice in the dead of winter, when rice and gaad-nadur — a fiery fish dish prepared with lotus stems, a winter produce — would be placed in the garret for the deity of the house. Then, as if in explanation, she said, “We lived between the seven bridges; now we are scattered across the seven seas.”
We had chatted well into lunchtime. Did I want a taste of her lunch? But, of course. The ensuing meal of peeli paneer and haaq had quiet, confident flavours. The paneer was a delicate creamy rendition, with sweet aromatic notes of fennel and a subtle ginger heat. The haaq, lightly stewed greens with a bit of salt and one red chilli, had an exquisite residual crunch. As I ate, Dr Dhar, her eyes focussed in the middle distance, related the story of her husband’s kidnapping in 1992. Outside, the sky had turned an ominous grey. As I walked back in the drizzle, I noticed that the rain had cleared the air of the love fluff.
From the streets and lakes
It was still raining in the evening as I headed over to Khayyam Chowk for some tuje — marinated mutton cubes skewered and grilled over glowing coals. Standing around a grill on a cold wet evening was pleasure enough; the perfume of seared flesh rising from the half dozen grills in the narrow lane was a bonus. I had planted myself outside Imran’s. The man working the grill had jet-black eyebrows set against a very pale face. I asked him about Khayyam Cinema down the lane, which once served up three helpings of Bollywood a day. When did it close? In between flipping the skewers and releasing ember flakes into the night, he answered: “Jab se tareekh shuru hui tab se woh cinema bandh ho gaya.” It shut down the day history began.
Imran’s tuje hit all the high notes. The thing about tuje is that it’s juicy yet chewy, and that extra chew yields additional flavour, prolonging the pleasure. You tear off the sizzling meat from the skewers using a thin flatbread, dip it in an array of chutneys of yoghurt with grated radish, cucumber, or Kashmiri mirch, and pop it in. Then you are speechless for it is a large mouthful. But also because it is a symphony of textures and tastes — the juicy charred meat, the cool yoghurt, and the pungent crunch of radish.
At the crack of dawn I took a shikara to the floating vegetable market. Srinagar grows its vegetables right in its heart, on floating patches and along the shores of the Dal. Every morning at 5 am, sellers and buyers gather in their canoes in a nook on the lake and engage in brisk wholesale business. I saw about 25 canoes milling about, making and breaking patterns like waterfowl. This was clearly munje, or kohlrabi, season. I was surrounded by canoes piled high with the pale green orbs. There was also radish and various greens. And a bracing fragrance of garlic and mint. It was hard to tell the buyers from the sellers. There was a lot of jostling, most of it good-natured. A quick dump of a large bunch of greens into a canoe, a howl of protest, money changing hands, some grousing — a deal is done. Time for some tsot and noon chai perched on the grass mat at the canoe’s prow, your pheran sleeves hanging limp.
Noon chai or salt tea is less tea than a hearty broth. This pale pink concoction of milky tea, salt and bicarbonate of soda, paired with one of Kashmir’s many breads, is a surprisingly satisfying breakfast. Tsot, for instance — a 6” disc, mildly elastic and toothsome, with a handsome ribbed face. Or lavasa — a paper-thin blistered naan. These emerge at daybreak from the glowing wombs of the city’s innumerable kandurs or bakeries. If you want to find one, just ask the boy walking home toting the huge wad of tsot.
The kandurs serve up a different fare for afternoon tea: the flaky baqarkhani sprinkled with sesame seeds, or the Kashmiri kulcha, a savoury shortbread. Kashmir’s central Asian character is plain in her intimacy with her kandur. Outside the Hazratbal shrine one afternoon, I watched the baked goods fly off the shelves of a busy kandur. The baqarkhani that I managed to score had an exquisite golden glow, an almost brittle bite and a delectable buttery mouthful laced with toasted sesame.
A feast of vegetables
The morning market had made me want to taste some of these fresh veggies, home-cooked. When I tenuously presented this to Mushtaque, my shikarawallah, he was instantly certain that his Ammi would oblige. We paddled through some narrow channels in the Dal with improbably green canopies, past vegetable patches, and men netting small perch. By the time we had docked at his home we were in rural Kashmir, yet only minutes from Rainawari in the inner city.
Mushtaque’s Ammi was true to billing. A rotund woman with a kilowatt smile, she waddled over to her vast vegetable patch, harvested some crisp Kashmiri spinach, one plump kohlrabi with greens, some red radish, and proceeded to cook a meal as her large family swirled around her compact kitchen that would put a ship’s galley to shame. She pounded the radish with mint into a chutney, stewed the spinach with garlic and fennel, and made a chilli garlic kohlrabi with greens. Farm to table — rather dastarkhan cloth — within minutes. The chutney had a fragrant crunch, the spinach was soothing, the kohlrabi smooth and bright.
On my final night I hit the Food Street off Lal Chowk. This is the old Bata Gali or ‘rice’ lane next to the KMD Bus Depot that has recently been oomphed up by the JKTDC, complete with an arched brick entrance and curly cast-iron lamp posts. Within, a dozen vendors sit with vats of vegetables, rajma, meat, rista, gushtaba. People come here to eat quantities of fiery meat and rice for a song: villagers in Lal Chowk for business, local traders, day labourers, and the odd tourist. But tonight it was deserted; I had caught it in the middle of a hartal.
Lal Chowk was empty: an eerie, rain-slicked cityscape. The road swooping down Amira Kadal into Lal Chowk, ordinarily throbbing with traffic and commerce, was vacant. The lone CRPF armoured truck and its gunner huddled in the rain. But this was not a glowering quiet. Shops had downed shutters protesting a racket in spurious medicines. This was peace and quiet. My footsteps echoed as I cleared the puddles. Then I saw a truck trundle by. Its tailgate sign read: All Izz Well.
Kandur and kahwa
A fragrant link between Kashmir and parts of Central Asia, the kahwa or ‘Mughal chai’ is much more than ‘Kashmiri tea’. It uses green tea leaves, certainly, but then, using good old daal chini, elaichi, and crushed almonds — and if you’re lucky, saffron strands — it elevates the hot brew into something halfway between invigorating and intoxicating. More time is needed to get used to the noon chai, the salty tea with spices and soda bicarb is that much harder to find in restaurants. You are more likely to find it in homes, along with sheer chai, a pink hued salty tea made of green tea leaves boiled for half an hour with bicarbonate of soda, salt, milk and cream.
Also tracing roots to Central Asia, particularly Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, is Kashmir’s ample bread basket. You can’t throw a pea in Srinagar without hitting a kandur, or baker, and it’s soon clear why: the Kashmiris make magnificent tsot, or bread, an astonishingly varied and delicious subgenre of the cuisine. Ask a baker for tsot and you’ll get a flat round of patterned bread. Also called girda, it is the daily bread in Kashmir, along with modur kulchas and baands (buns), both sweet or salty. Try the sesame- and poppy-seeded tsochvoru — a delicious round bread. Telvoru is similar, and shaped like a bagel. And there are more: the layered baqarkhani, sheermal, which is like the breads of Afghanistan, lavas (unleavened bread) and Kashmiri naan (this is encrusted with nuts). All these breads are perfect dipped in a hot cup of noon chai.
A Kashmiri food glossary
Here’s a taste of dishes from Kashmiri home kitchens and banquets that you’ll encounter in these pages and while travelling in J&K
aab gosht — mutton in milk sauce
chaman — paneer, which is made in a variety of styles; chaman qaliya or lodur chaman is a dish of fried paneer cubes in a creamy turmeric gravy, methi chaman flavoured with fenugreek and the simplest everyday chaman dish, ruwangan chaman, with paneer cubes in a tomato gravy
daniwal korma — superbly tender meat on the bone, in a white gravy flavoured with coriander
dum-aloo — a Pandit dish of whole potatoes cooked in a spicy gravy
gaad — carp, farmed rainbow trout or wild brown trout from Kashmir’s streams are eaten fresh, smoked or dried with rice and fish dishes mark special occasions; look for gaad-nadru cooked with lotus stems, or gaad kuftas
guchhi or kanigich — mushrooms, fresh or dried, with morel mushrooms being particularly prized. In Kashmir, you’ll often find morels in a gucchi pulao
gushtaba — pounded meatballs cooked in a yoghurt gravy, the last and most prized serving of a wazawan
haaq — or collard greens, a large-leafed kale found in Kashmir; haaq is cooked in a variety of ways, most popularly as haaq-muji with radishes, nadru-haaq with lotus stems, or gogji-haaq with turnips
harissa — a meat stew cooked slowly through winter nights and eaten with naan as breakfast
kaanti — these are flavoured mutton boti kebabs (chicken botis are kokur kaanti), a favourite evening snack along with seekh kebabs, both served with munji chetin
lal chicken — fried, roasted and curried
marchwangan korma — mutton in a gravy red with Kashmiri chillies, flavoured with cardamom and coriander
munji chetin, or shufta — a sharply flavoured chutney of radish and walnuts in curd
munji haaq — Kashmir’s favoured kohlrabi or knolkhol (North India’s gaanth gobhi) is an everyday vegetable, curried or fried along with its leaves
nadru, or nadir — lotus stems from the lakes of Kashmir, cooked in a variety of styles; in a delicate yoghurt gravy to make nadru yakhni, with spinach to make nadru palak, or with chicken in a spicy gravy to make nadru kokur, to name a few. Deep fried in a spicy rice flour batter, nadru monje are Kashmir’s superior version of French fries and a popular street food
phirni — milk and rice boiled with saffron, almonds, pistachios and cardamom
qabargah — lightly cooked mutton ribs marinated in curd and barbecued
razma — cooked with every kind of vegetable in Kashmir, rajma is most popularly eaten with turnips as gogji razma
rista — balls of pounded mutton cooked in a spicy gravy; with some variations like paliki riste, or rista imbued with spinach
rogan josh — mutton slow cooked in ghee and its own juices, generously spiced with Kashmiri chillies and flavoured with ginger
tabaq maaz — unspiced rib cuts fried to a crisp; a sister dish of qabargah
trami — the platter in which a wazwan is served, heaped with steaming rice and topped in quarters with dishes such as tabaq maaz, seekh kabab, methi maaz, gushtaba. Typically, four diners eat from one trami
tsok wangan — every region of India must have it’s khatta baingan; this one is Kashmir’s, in which brinjal is deep fried and cooked in a deliciously tart tamarind gravy
wazwan — a splash of up to 36 courses, sometimes more, which serves as a celebration banquet. There is a minimum of seven dishes at a wazwan
yakhni, or yakhean — lamb shanks cooked in delicately-flavoured yoghurt; when made with chicken, it is kokur yakhni