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Fresh flavours of the valley
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The Kashmiri Food Festival at the Taj Gateway offers a wide range of dishes, the highlights of which are the various yakkhn gravies
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RICH FLAVOURS The food on offer at the festival is made special by ingredients that are available only in the Kashmir region PHOTO: MURALI KUMAR K.
For most Indians, especially those of the South, Kashmir has always had a certain romantic air about it — the snow-clad mountains, the lovely people and most importantly, the unique cuisine. While all of us are now familiar with that wondrous spice, saffron, there is a whole range of flavours and tastes that many are still unaware of.
Traditional fare
If you are one among that majority or even of the minority that knows its wonders, the Kashmiri Food Festival at the Gateway Hotel on Residency Road is definitely worth a try. The festival features dishes that are traditionally served as part of a Wazwaan — a Kashmiri feast usually meant for weddings or large celebrations — and has been prepared by Wazas or Kashmiri chefs flown down for the festival. While a traditional Wazwaan would feature dishes that were primarily non-vegetarian, Chef Khan Mohammed Rafiq Waza explains that in recent times the menu has been adapted to include more vegetarian dishes. There are certain key ingredients grown only in the region that make the cuisine on offer special. Almost all the dishes are made with a thick paste of a special kind of onion called praan, which serves as a substitute for tomatoes. Lotus stems are also used in a number of dishes such as palak nadur, nadur gadh and nadur yakkhn. Also to be looked out for are the dishes that feature spinach or curd derivates that are normally called yakkhn.
Those with more conventional tastes should try out the rogan josh or the waza kukkar. The rogan josh is offered in every second restaurant nowadays, but the difference in spices is clearly palpable. Both the josh and the kukkar are light on spice, and offer a tantalising alternative to the normal meat masalas one is apt to taste in the south.
Among the vegetarian dishes, we tried the rajmah, the haakh and the phool gobhi yakkhn. While the rajmah wasn't spectacularly different from what is otherwise available, the other two dishes were another matter altogether. The haakh, Kashmiri spinach cooked in its own juices, is full-bodied and well salted to balance the bitterness of the leaf. The phool gobi yakkhn, on the other hand, cauliflower cooked in curd with Himalayan herbs, is warm, creamy and uniquely sour.
Non-vegetarians who are looking for unusual tastes should try the palak rista and the ghushtaba, which is traditionally the last dish of the Wazwaan. Both of these are made of pounded mutton balls. The meat here is pounded for hours in order to release its juices and tenderise it. The result is meat that is fluffy, tender and melts like warm butter on your tongue. Both dishes are perfect with kosher palow, rich rice that abounds in dry fruits.
The desserts are, as expected, all flavoured with saffron, and include kong firin or saffron flavoured rice pudding, halwa and sookhi sinwai or roasted vermicelli cooked in sugar and ghee. The halwa, which we tried, is a potent sweetmeat and the first bite is almost explosive.
Wholesome tea
But the highlight for me was the kahwa or green Kashmiri tea served at the end. Flavoured with green cardamom, cinnamon and saffron, it hints at sweetness and a whole range of flavours without hitting you full on like most other teas. The elusiveness of it makes you want to keep drinking it until you can finally capture the taste completely.
The Kashmiri Food Festival is on till December 31 at the Gateway Hotel on Residency Road. The festival is open only for a-la-carte dinners, except on New Year's Eve, when there will be a grand buffet.
Ambience: All things Kashmiri
Service: Excellent
Wallet factor: Rs. 900 for a meal for two
Specialty: Ghushtaba
RAKESH MEHAR
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