The special trait of Indian Chef
October 31st, 2006THERE is this admirable trait in the Indian cook. You introduce him to a strange cuisine. Tell him how it’s made. And next time you meet him, he has not only mastered the cuisine, but is claiming it as his own. Furthermore, he’s also giving lessons on how to cook the cuisine! I think it is that way with our kababiyas we well.
Kababiyas are cooks who are masters at making kababs. They tenderise and marinate meats, spice and aromatise them, and learn to cook the kababs at controlled temperatures of 275 to 325 degrees C. If you knew how many good kababiyas there are in India, you would know how difficult it is to make the perfect kabab!
“Kabab” is a Turkish word which means “a spicy morsel of meat roasted on a skewer”. True, it is, but while the kabab still remains rustic fare to the rest of the world, our kababiyas have made its creation a sublime art. For them, it is not raw meat sprinkled with salt, barbecued raw or burnt on a spit, and gobbled.
Our kababiyas have learnt to baste kababs with desi ghee and roast them over charcoal grills, in tandoors and on sigris. They shallow-fry kababs in tawas, on thick, iron griddles, or on the mahi tawa — a special walled griddle. There are kababs that are dried and seasoned and cooked with milk and butter in a handi. And kababs that are steamed or dum-cooked in pots, and even grilled on stones.
The kabab is said to have come to India with Turko-Afghans during Ghenghis Khan’s time, as the great Mongol warlord swept through Central Asia carving out an empire for himself. It was refined by Mughal kings and their royal bawarchis. The earliest kababs were game meat hunted in shikars and roasted over spit-fires. The variations came in later with different marinations and meats.
Ancient Ayurvedic texts tell of kababs being marinated and basted in a manner to enhance their taste and therapeutic properties, because they were considered tonic and invigorating. And modern cookery books such as the late Ranjit Rai’s Tandoor and others tell of Indian kababs coming from Lucknow, Hyderabad, Delhi, Agra, the Kashmir Valley and even Amritsar.
The ITC-Welcomgroup Hotels, through its chain of Bukhara and Dum Pukht restaurants all over India, and with master kababiyas like J. P. Singh and Mohammed Raees, has given the kabab pride of place on regional Indian cuisine menus. In fact, kababs became popular in India only after the Bukhara in New Delhi put them on its menu in 1977-78.
What are the principal tenderisers used in making kababs? Yoghurt, pomegranate and lemon juices, raw papaya and raw mango, garlic, ginger, cucumber, and desi ghee, mustard and sesame oil. The main spices used are pepper, cumin, ajwain, mustard, saffron, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, green cardamom and black cardamom, and rock and sea salt.
A good kababiya will know that the quality of meat, the raw product, its marination, the tenderiser used to cure its toughness and temperature control can make or literally “break” a kabab. The marination and spicing would come to naught if the kabab was overcooked or undercooked. Like a chicken tandoori needs high temperature because a lot of moisture drains out. And prawns need a lot of care.
And if you use chilli, tamarind, kokum and mango for a Hyderabadi kabab, you use saffron, ittar, rosewater and kewra for Lucknowi kababs. Kashmiris use fennel-flavoured full milk cream and Punjabis desi ghee, fried onions, tomatoes, fried garlic and fresh coriander. There are countless regional variations to the kabab, so many house specialities and even individual kababiyas’ fancies. And what does Delhi use? Delhi uses nothing, it goes to the Bukhara and Dum Pukht for its kababs!
THE BLOODLINE is impeccable. Appearance nearly identical, suave with heavily jelled hair and tufts on chins `a la Dil Chahta Hai Amir Khan’. Talk with conviction about their art. That’s the Qureshi brothers, Mohammed Ashfaque Qureshi and Mohammed Irfan Qureshi, in a nutshell.
Their father, Imtiaz Qureshi, needs no introduction to gourmets all over India. Hailing from a family of royal cooks, he brought forth the dum pukht cuisine from the confines of the narrow bylanes of Lucknow.
The Qureshis are in the city for an Awadhi fest at the Radisson GRT Hotel. It was Ashfaque who held forth that afternoon with his younger brother, Irfan chipping in every now and then. He started off explaining why Awadhi food is so much fussed over. Awadh had cordial ties with the Mughal emperors and later, with the British, for a long time. Art and architecture flourished in the peaceful environment and the nawabs promoted culinary art also by taking a personal interest in it. The result was a highly refined court food.
When you compare it with other cuisines, for example, Bihari food, which is simple and good, the difference is stark, pointed out the chef. Ironically, the representatives of a cuisine noted for its overwhelming richness are votaries of a lean cuisine. Even more ironic is that these die-hard non-vegetarians are working on a line of purely vegetarian kebabs for the Haldirams of Nagpur.
Personally I feel it is a misconception that Awadhi or any other food has to swim in oil. Dum pukht is steam cooking without extra oil or water, said Ashfaque. When a man avows passionately that food is something that goes beyond eating, a detailed background check is called for.
As little boys the siblings used to spend their summer vacation playing in and around the kitchen at the ITC’s Maurya Sheraton where the big Q worked. Those were the most beautiful vacations we had, they smiled nostalgically. Being a big family the juniors had to pitch in often. Cooking came naturally to them as music to the koel. The call was so strong that all the five brothers are chefs, the eldest one even giving up medicine for it. One of the two sisters is married to a chef and the youngest, the only exception to the rule, is a fashion designer.
Early Indians were canny about food. Much attention went into classifying food into various types, suitable for consumption by different strata of society, and its preparation. Another interesting clue to the status chefs enjoyed in olden days is the term of address, maharaj. The king and the chef were the only two who were referred to by this title. Now this art form is left in the cold in our country, complained Ashfaque.
Later, savouring an Ulta tawa paratha and a few melt-in-the-mouth Galouti kebabs you can’t help agreeing that it takes an artist to bring out such beauty. After the exquisite Kubani ka meetha or stewed apricots garnished with malai and topped with apricot nuts I too was convinced that pedigree matters.