Gaad’e Baat’e/ Fish and Rice
Hakh Batta
Empty Stomach. Hakh and (phuhur) Batta. This is bliss.
Hakh
A bowl of Hakh.
Na’dir’katrav’win
Cutting Nadru
Shakti Sweets
Residency Road, Srinagar
June 2008
Visiting Ahdoos
She stands in front of the wall, looks at the door, stopped, a little confused. She call the waiter over.
‘There used to be toilet here! Where did it go?’
‘Madam the toilet is now down stairs. This is the…’
She looks around. At the ceiling, at the walls. I look away, miss the last word. I believe the word was ‘lift’. Her old legs slowly lead her downstairs.
The little woman must have been in her early Sixties. When we took a table, she was sitting at a nearby table with two men who looked like her sons. They were having a full table, a full meal. Dinner.
‘They are Kashmiris too. Must be Punjabis.You know the business class. Stayed here for generations.’
I know.
She did the ordering. This was her place. The place. She must have been here a lot -“We must try this, the place served best of this.’
Tea arrived at our table in a metal kettle. Milk. Sugar.We prepare cups of tea.
‘They will bring a fresh hot kettle when this one runs cold. Great service! They have the best tea. Try it.’
This is embarrassing but true. As I take the first sip, the taste on my tongue makes me feel like I have never had tea before in my life. ‘What leaves do they use? This is almost a new taste.’
‘After four in the evening, this place used to be alive with people. They would crawl out of various government offices, in groups, alone and head for Ahdoos. The place would be filled with cigarette smoke. On one table a group would loudly be pro-government. At a nearby table a group would be loudly subversive. Tea kettles would turn cold and be duly replaced with a hot bellied one. Discussions went on.’
My father remembers. This was Ahdoos.
It’s late evening. The table to the left is occupied by two men, in early thirties. Kashmiris. Almost done about to leave. Newspapers on the table. The two are still talking, but both in friendly conceding tone. I don’t notice them leaving.
Waiter arrives with Chicken patties.
‘ Ah! Chicken patties! Try them’
Chicken is soft, unlike leather and strangely has a taste. It has been minced to butter.
‘The size has become smaller. They used to be bigger.’
Waiter smiles a little. Almost detached from his environment, the man was an old fashioned waiter, in his forties, a pencil moustache, he could have been a government employee. ‘Would you like to order anything else?’
‘Yes, a serving of Gushtaba.’
‘Anything to go with it. Rice. Roti.’
‘Nothing.’
Waiter comes to life. ‘Nothing. Okay. If you had told me earlier that you were going to have Gushtaba I would have kept tea and patties for after.’
‘It’s okay. And you are right. But who knew?’
‘Anything else?’
‘No. That’s it’
‘Soon.’
Father looks at me and say, ‘We will be having dinner with the rest at the hotel. They won’t be pleased to know that we came here without them. Hotel owner has been specially asked to prepare a non-veg dinner tonight. So we can’t have anything heavy. But Gushtaba will do’
Will more than do.
We were soon digging into those soft meatballs called Gushtab. Dense and Delightful. Stupendous. Before leaving we ordered another serving, around twelve balls, for the folks back at the hotel. To return empty handed from Ahdoos would have been unforgivable.
Tchir Tchot
Made from rice flour. Get its name because of the Tchir or sizzling sound that it makes on the tava (or Taaw, in Kashmir) while being prepared. I like to have it in the morning with a cup of Kahwa.
Kagazi Doon/ Paper Walnut
This variety are called Kagazi because its shell is supposed to be thin as paper and hence easy to break.
Makes a great chutney with green chilly and curd.
According to Kashmiri pandits, the four kernels of Walnut represent the four vedas.
Buzz Batta
Buzz Batta – basically Kashmiri form of fired rice, has lots of Kashmiri chilli powder and some kala zeera (Black Cumin Seeds). Simple to make. Most of the time, rice used in this preparation is previous night’s leftover.
‘Khandar Saal’
meenu kya ows?
A,B,C ti X,Y,Zed
Conversation goes something like this. Conversation went like this for a couple of years. I would hear my father and uncle talk in these codes after each time one of them would return for a marriage ‘reception’ lunch. They wouldn’t tell me what ABC and XYZed stood for. It was some sort of code for the’ standard’ dishes served at these functions. My guess: ABC stood for three vegetarian dishes – Rajma, Chaman (Paneer), and Dum Aloo; XYZ stood for Rogan Josh, Mutsch (how the hell does one write Kashmiri words in Angreez script! It’s the mince meant dish.) and Yakhani. Even if the dishes on the menu were different or more in number, the ABCXYZed code would remain unchanged. I infer it actually means – the feast was a standard belly and artery fulfilling affair. And I guess they would add LMNOPQ…nah A to Z and 0-9 to the code if someday they talk about thirty-six dish Wazwan.
Anyway, here are the photographs of some of these dishes.
Tabakmaaz – fried lamb ribs. I digg these. Best when hot.
Yakhni – Yogurt and saffron based mutton broth
Blurry. Stop pushing, people! I am trying to take a picture here. No use. It’s Mutsch – mince meatballs (often not balls actually. Great if they they got almond inside them)
Roganjosh – Red Hot devil. Lamb curry. Very oily. I felt blurry. Rogan means oil in Persian and josh means hot.
More oil. Dizzy. The famous Dum Aloo. People get served all kinds of things even boiled sweet potatoes when they at some restaurant they ask for Kashmiri Dum Aloo. I laugh when I see my friends eat that stuff. In this picture you can see the authentic Dum Aloo. I actually bought these potatoes from the Sabzi Madi and now I know what a good Dum Aloo potato should be like – it has to be real Pahadi, not sweet, not too big and not too small. It can be small but never big. When buying in bulk, never go by weight, always by number. We bout around 700 of these fine potatoes that day. They turned out to be perfect. For no particular reason, I actually like my Dum Aloo cold and best eaten with a lavasa Kashmiri morning bread.
Nadur Yakhni – Lotus Stem in Yogurt Gravy – veg version of Yakhni. Yeh! we are the real Lotus Eaters.
Platter. Putting it all together.
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Yes, it was all Boofay. Had ABC and XYZed. And yes there was Macaroni and some other dishes too. Would that be Alpha, Beta, Gamma?
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For Kashmiri recipes check out koshursaal.com
