Spring Table: Kashmir

A Picnic in the Garden

It’s Spring all around. There is a burst of colour in the garden – nasturtiums and poppies (oh, the gorgeous poppies) return every year in striking new shades like little miracles. Soon, it will be the turn of the street trees to shimmer – the Semal in March, and the Gulmohur in April. While the gold of mustard flowers is tuning into pungent seed, the breeze carries the heady fragrance of limes about me.

It is also Spring in Kashmir. Where it snows, where winter stretches for endless months, the season eponymous with rebirth, surely holds a special joy and renewed hope as the delicate Nargis (Daffodils) emerges out of the frozen ground, through the cover of fresh fallen snow. The almonds trees bud out and bloom, and a cheer spreads through the valley. My mother talks of annuals spring picnics to badamwari (almond orchards). If Japan has cherry blossoms, Kashmir has her badams.

In my father’s garden are two mango trees. When the almonds blooms in Kashmir, the mango does the same in Delhi – covering itself in panicles of thousands of sweet smelling flowers – aam ki bohr. So with everything screaming Spring! I bring to you a Kashmir-edition of the Spring Table – a Picnic in the Garden.

Read more: Spring Table: Kashmir

Every time I announce a workshop, I feel nervous – what if no one signs up? Then I push the nagging thoughts to the side and focus instead on planning what I want to cook and share. It is always exciting to plan a new menu, a new dish, or a new class. I enjoy the interactions and it is humbling when the same people show up again and again. It seems like a community of sorts – we get together, we share – ideas and thoughts, and enjoy the wholesome food we cook together. The stimulating conversations are a bonus.

Spring Table: Kashmir

Join me in my Mum’s kitchen to cook Mutsch, one of Kashmir’s iconic dishes. In true Pandit-style we will not be using any onions. And only a couple of pods of garlic (completely optional, btw). Let’s slow down to enjoy Delhi’s fleeting Spring, brew some kahwa, bring out a basket of breads, watch the flowers grow, spread the dastatkhan, and have ourselves a Picnic Brunch in the Garden.

If you are not into cooking that much, you may hang about in the garden, kick off your shoes, lie down under the mango tree, read a book, and simply enjoy a picnic. There will be plenty to eat for vegetarians too. Come, join us for a laidback brunch. Bring your friends, young and old. Children may accompany parents as long as parents are in control 🙂 .

Koshur Saal, 2018

Kohlrabi Pickle

I can’t have enough pickles it seems; the previous post too was on pickling. Pickling is cool (again) and you are likely to see a lot of talk about them. Lacto-fermentation is trending. Me, I’ve always loved a good pickle and the process of making a perishable vegetable last longer. Pickles are a great way to use the abundance from your garden where the entire crop of any one kind tends to ripen all at the same time.

Monjji anchaar, (L) Feb 2016, (R) 2018. Oh, how the monkeys have ruined my once-lush palms!

There is so much nostalgia associated with many seasonal pickles that the mere act of making one brings all those childhood memories flooding back. Kohlrabi, monjji to Kashmiris, is much more than just any vegetable to them. I am not exaggerating when I say that it is a reminder of our homeland, our homes with the kitchen gardens, our community, our market streets, especially now when we have all been removed from it. As for all people who have known exile, the longing for things that represent that homeland only gets deeper. Monjji anchar (kohlrabi pickle) might once have been that pickle found in every kitchen cupboard in Kashmir, but today, for many of us, it is a lot more.

As in desserts, the Kashmiri Pandit cuisine is pretty limited in its repertoire of pickles. We have just one recipe for pickling, only the vegetables get swapped. You may use kohlrabi or cauliflower. If you are feeling very rebellious you could go all out and use onions.

Tchoek Vangun hachi – cooking with sun dried brinjals

Tchoek-wangun, Kashmiri khatte baingan, cooked with sun-dried eggplant

Drying is one of the oldest and easiest way to preserve food.  In a country with plentiful sun it is only natural that we should have a tradition of using the sun’s energy to process food. You will find wadi varieties from all over the country. Bengalis put their bodi into many dishes including shukto, Southen India gives us vadams and appalams in addition to celebrating dried vegetables in, the most delicious of all ‘curries’, the vatahkuzhanmbu. In Uttarakhand mountain cucumbers are combined with urad-dal to make wadi. Punjab’s famous wadis which come in various flavours (with plums, with tomatoes, and regular – all spiced up with generous amounts of black pepper) can be combined with the blandest of vegetables to lift them out of the ordinary. From the state of UP we have mangodi, small wadis made with mung dal. Kashmiris make sun-dried spice-cakes and call them veri. Pickles that have been cooked in the sun for a while are found all over the country.

Sundrying turmeric to make kumkum, in Chennai

homedried sundakkai

Mountain-cucumber wadis from Pithoragarh

wadi and mangodi, UP and Punjab

True-blue Kashmiri Dum Olu

dum olu and dal

I am breaking the journey through the Kashmir Himalayas to share with you a family favourite from the region.  ‘Kashmiri’ dum aloo appears on the menu of Indian restaurants more often than it ought to.  I don’t imply that it is not worth offering, but that what is offered is not the real McCoy, but an outright imposter.  The only thing they have in common is the main ingredient, my favourite vegetable, the potato.  You may well say, “What’s the big deal?” If Saveur (their tagline – Savor a World of Authentic Cuisine!) can invent their inauthentic versions why not Indian restaurants!  Of course, one is free to try restaurant dum aloo, even like it, but there is nothing Kashmiri about it.  All I want is for you, my readers, to make an informed choice.

I used to cook it only occasionally as it involves a bit of frying and uses more fat than my average everyday cooking.  That meant cooking a larger batch since “who knows when I will cook it again,” which, consequently, involved consuming even larger quantities of oil.  I decided to change that.  Now I cook it at least once a month, enough just for two meals.  I get my treat and there is no need to binge.

Dum Olu