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Magazine
Gourmet Files
Clutterbuckgunj
VASUNDHARA CHAUHAN
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When one is starting out in cooking, one tends to use all the spices available, thereby drowning the main ingredient in a cacophony of tastes.
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Discover simplicity: And savour the essence of dishes.
When I first started cooking, it was simply because I had to. But with a slight taste of success, ambitions grew. From being a scaredy-poo who booked trunk calls (remember them?) to ask her mother for the most basic recipes (“What’s the name of that yellow dal? How much water should I add to it?”) I started “experimenting”. I call that my Clutterbuckgunj Phase. If something tasted good, more could only taste better. So a curry, especially mutton or fish, was a delightful opportunity to start throwing in flavours. Saunf, methi, laung, elaichi, sarson — anything and everything went in. Sometimes it really worked, but if the children said, “Please make that fish you made last week — that red one we had when Uncle Kan came over”, it was impossible to replicate. But with hindsight, I think such successes were rare. The children, poor innocents, knew no better. Even Kan and Kavita, the Chief Guests/Victims of my Clutterbuckgunj years, were probably just being kind. Or maybe we all lacked exposure? And our palates were quite basic — fresh from hostels and institutional food, almost anything homemade was a culinary marvel.
More ghee and spices
My cooking in those days was reminiscent of the Men’s Cooking we used to hear of: friends spoke of how their fathers sometimes cooked, and how, on those rare and special occasions, everything else in the house came to a standstill. All hands were needed to cut, chop, grate and grind. The Chef, the pater familias, did the stirring and took the credit. Cupboards and larders were ransacked for ghee, ghee and more ghee, followed by spices, spices and more spices.
It’s only now, in the last few years, that simplicity has started to appeal. To be fair, in those days our menus were simple: just one dish on the table, with rice or roti the staple accompaniment. Now there are more things cooked for a meal, but within the meal each dish has a role; it need not contain every flavour from the spice rack.
Western food, even after the Spice Route was discovered, has always focused on ingredients — the quality of each is the star. As Nigel Slater says, “… Anybody who doubts me need only roast a dish of slightly tart, green-speckled tomatoes with a drizzle of olive oil, some salt, whole garlic and black pepper, then compare it with one to which they have added aubergines, peppers, onions, courgettes, tomato sauce and oregano. One taste of the pared-down, uncluttered flavour of a roast tomato, its sweet-sharp, thin juices clean and unadulterated, and you will wonder why anyone would ever even consider making ratatouille.”
Against clutter
I’m not making a case against curries and spices — a few ingredients, intelligently chosen, can be married and live in perfect harmony. But against a cluttered mélange that results in mere noise and the main ingredient is lost in cacophony. Many years ago a group of three-starred Michelin chefs were brought to India for a taste of the real thing, in anticipation of the opening of a fine Indian restaurant on the Seine. Accompanying them were the world’s top food writers. Craig Claiborne, then with the NYT, otherwise utterly gallant and courteous, had this comment about Indian food: He said everything tasted like everything else, there were no distinguishing flavours, and far too many warring notes for any clear impact. But there were two exceptions: tandoori food and the vegetarian cuisine of Tamil Nadu and Udupi.
I don’t entirely agree — traditional cooking even in Punjab, which I know well, relies on fresh ingredients and a minimum of spices. Now of course you can buy cauliflower in summer and bhindi in winter, with onions and ginger available the year round. But in homes like my parents’, who both had had very strong roots in the land (and therefore ate according to the seasons), ginger was used to temper only winter vegetables and onion summer produce. Mr. Claiborne ate only restaurant food in India and that must have influenced his perception. But his point has a lot of truth. All traditional Indian cuisine depended on fresh, local produce. But with modernity and cold chains we’re all falling into the trap of more is better and less is worser.
Notable exception
Now, in my home, vegetables are cooked really simply and we try valiantly to preserve colour and flavour. But when it comes to meat curries… by and large Clutterbuckgunj still prevails. A notable exception is Kashmiri Yakhni, which I was taught some years ago. My cousin Neetu says it’s a special family version called Irani Yakhni, not the conventional recipe. Its simplicity gives a starting principle that can be built on.
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