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What a breakfast!
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Muesli is a healthy breakfast option, says RAHUL VERMA, even as he betrays a weakness for Kedarnath Premchand Halwai’s nagori halwa
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A good breakfast, somebody said — or should have, anyway — is the guide to good health. So I have been, for the last few weeks, eating a bowl of muesli with milk and a banana. The first few days I felt really virtuous. But by the middle o
f last week, I had muesli coming out of my nostrils.
Being gobbled up
So, one fine morning when the sun was still cheerful, I went to Old Delhi. I was in search of nagori halwa, which was something that I used to eat with much relish during my salad days. I would land up at Chandni Chowk every Sunday morning, have a delicious breakfast of nagori halwa, bedmi aloo and doodh jalebi, and then slowly trundle back home. In these last few years I have eaten enough of bedmis and aloos, and chholey and puri for breakfast. But I have not been that fortunate with nagori halwa. That’s because nagori halwa makers are slowly being gobbled up by a fast-moving world.
People’s food habits are changing, and not too many people believe that a breakfast can consist of a puri eaten together with a sweet and a spicy vegetable. The shop I went to is 50 years old and in Maliwara. It’s called Kedarnath Premchand Halwai (shop number 4, Gali Paranthewali), though the local name for the shop is Haryanawalleh.
If you are in Gali Paranthewali, keep going straight till you reach a T-junction, and turn right. You will find an old shop in front of you, selling namkeens. This is where you will get your nagori halwa. The concept of a nagori halwa itself is intriguing. Nagori is a small crispy puri — a little bigger than a gol gappa — made with suji. This will be served hot and crisp to you in a dona. You lift your nagori, and find that there is a small heap of suji halwa on the dona. The spicy potato curry comes in another bowl. You break off a piece of the nagori, scoop some halwa into it, dip the nagori piece into the tart aloo sabzi and then eat it. It’s truly delicious. The halwa had been roasted so well that there was a wonderful aroma of ghee and suji in the air. The potato curry was hot and spicy, and went very well with the sweet and sublime taste of the halwa. The nagori is a perfect example of how different tastes can complement each other.
For Rs.10, you get four or five nagoris. But this is served only in the mornings, so make sure that you are there at Old Delhi before 10.30 or 11 a.m. You’ll see nothing but empty donas if you land up there even a little late. Kedarnath Premchand Halwai also sells bedmis – puris stuffed with ground dal – and aloo sabzi, all for Rs.10.
Sadly, I am back to eating muesli for breakfast now. Every time I have a mouthful, I think of those hot and crisp nagoris, and the aromatic suji halwa right under it. But I am going about it in a stoic manner. After you have had something like cornflakes in milk for a couple of weeks, the thought of eating nagori halwa on the roadside of Chandni Chowk would be more attractive than ever!
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