Curry
Page 11
Just as Mughlai cuisine had incorporated peasant cookery into the courtly repertoire, the Lucknavi court kitchens adopted the dishes of the ordinary Oudh people. Different types of pancakes and rissoles made from chickpea or lentil flour, cooked in rich gravies, were adapted from the peasant cooking of the region.42 One of Lucknow’s most famous cooking techniques was perfected as a result of the need to provide food for the poor. In 1784, Oudh was struck by famine and Nawab Asaf-ud-Daulah responded by paying the hungry to work on the building of the Great Imambara (the Shia form of a mosque). Thus, he was able to prevent his subjects from dying on the streets while he continued to beautify the city to his own glory. Nanbais (bazaar cooks) were charged with the difficult task of supplying the workers with warm food at any time of day or night. They used the Mughal technique of dum pukht (meaning to breathe and to cook), a recipe for which can be found in the Ain-i-Akbari. The Indian cook also served a ‘dum poked’ chicken when John Ovington dined with the English merchants in the factory at Surat. In Lucknow, the nanbais set up enormous cooking pots filled with meat and vegetables which were sealed with lids of dough and placed on hot coals. In this way the food cooked slowly and hungry labourers could be fed at a moment’s notice with tender pieces of meat which fell from the bone. When he went to inspect the work, the nawab is said to have found the smells rising from the steaming pots so inviting that he ordered the palace cooks to learn the recipe from the nanbais. Dum pukht was also applied to good effect to a dish of mutton and turnips which was brought to Lucknow by Kashmiris, looking for alternative sources of employment now that the Mughal court was in decline. The Lucknavi cooks made mutton meatballs which were put in a pot known as a deg with the turnips. The pot was sealed with a pastry lid and cooked on a slow fire through the night (shub). Lucknavis still eat shub deg for breakfast, tender after a long night of slow cooking.
Nawab Asaf-ud-Daulah’s love of food is also said to have led to the invention of the shammi kebab. This is one of Lucknow’s many contributions to kebab cookery. In contrast to the Mughal emperors, most of whom ate sparingly, the nawabs of Oudh were gluttons. Indeed, Asaf-ud-Daulah became so fat that he could no longer ride a horse.43 He managed to gain vast amounts of weight despite the fact that his ability to chew was compromised by the loss of his teeth. Shammi kebabs are supposed to have been created in order to accommodate this problem. They were made out of finely minced and pounded meat, known as qima.
While Westerners tend to mince meat as a way of using inferior grades, the Mughals would often mince the best cuts. Qima is frequently referred to in the recipes given by Akbar’s courtier, Abu’l Fazl, as an ingredient for pilaus.44 The Mughals liked minced beef but in Lucknow the cooks preferred lamb which produced a softer mince. They would grind the meat into a fine paste and then add ginger and garlic, poppy seeds and various combinations of spices, roll it into balls or lozenges, spear them on a skewer and roast them over a fire. The resulting kebabs were crispy on the outside but so soft and silky within that even the toothless Asaf-ud-Daulah could eat them with pleasure.45
The best kebabs were made by the nanbais. Large Muslim families, where the parents, several sons, and their wives and children all lived in one house together, were too numerous to cater for in one kitchen. Instead, a few choice dishes were made at home and the rest were ordered from the trusty bazaar cooks. The food was sent to each house set out on a large tray with a dome-shaped cover, secured with a seal to ensure that the food could not be tampered with en route. Each nanbai specialised in a particular dish and the streets of Lucknow were lined with shops where the cooks could be seen ‘basting keebaubs over a charcoal fire on the ground with one hand, beating off the flies with a bunch of date leaves in the other; kneading dough for sheermaul or other bread, or superintending sundry kettles and cauldrons of currie, pillau . . . &c . . . preparing platters and trays, in order to forward the delicacies at the appointed hour to some great assembly’.46
Bread was an essential accompaniment to every meal and a nanbai named Mahumdu is said to have invented the Lucknavis’ favourite shir mal in the 1830s. This bread is a happy marriage of Indian and Persian bread-making techniques. Indians liked to add ghee to everything, and the Muslim cooks noticed that the Indian cooks would fry their chapattis which made them puff up (producing puris). Muslim cooks added the ghee to their bread dough before the baking stage. This created parathas, when the dough was cooked on a griddle, and baqar khani, when it was cooked in a tandoor oven. Mahumdu improved on the latter by adding milk and eggs, as well as ghee, to the dough, which he then rolled out into paper-thin sheets. Layered on top of each other and baked in a tandoor, these sheets of dough were transformed into rich but flaky and delicate bread. Lucknavis ate shir mal with everything from vegetable and meat dishes to sweet rice puddings, and they claimed that ‘when efforts are made to bake it anywhere else, it is not the same’.47 After the meal, the family might send out to one of the men who wandered the streets selling ice creams and sherbets delicately flavoured with pomegranate or rose water.48 Nanbais still preserve the traditions of Lucknow cuisine at their stalls and Lucknavis will often stop to savour their flaky shir mals and soft, silky shammi kebabs, even when they are on their way out to dinner.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the wife of a British army officer passing through Lucknow noticed that ‘three distinct dinners’ were served at the nawab’s table. ‘One at the upper end, by an English cook; at the lower end by a French cook; and in the centre (where he always sat,) by a Hindoostanee cook.’ This was a sign of things to come. Even though the merchants of the East India Company were not at first interested in empire building, their trading activities progressively enmeshed them in the economic fabric of India. As a result they were drawn into Indian politics. Initially, they were motivated by a desire to protect their commercial interests but they gradually began to see the benefit of acquiring territory. This would enable them to collect taxes which would replace the precious bullion which currently paid for Indian textiles.
By the beginning of the eighteenth century, Bengal had become a thriving commercial centre. In 1717, the Mughal Emperor Farrukhisyar had been persuaded to grant the company a firman which, in return for 3,000 rupees a year, gave the merchants the right to trade free of dues in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Bengali weavers were found to be as skilled as their counterparts in the south and west, and on their own behalfs the factors engaged in lucrative ‘country’ trade along the River Ganges. When Calcutta was captured by Siraj-ud-Daulah, the nawab of Bengal, in 1756, the city was too valuable to abandon and a few months later Robert Clive retook Calcutta and defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah at the Battle of Plassey. From then on the company became embroiled in intrigue, placing first one then another nawab on the throne in return for substantial payments. They also began to prepare for conflict by building up a permanent army, recruited from declining Brahman and Rajput landholding families, headed by a British officer corps. The machinations in Bengal culminated in the Battle of Buxar when the company defeated Mir Kasim, who they had in fact installed as Nawab of Bengal. In acknowledgement of the British victory, the emperor granted the diwan (governorship) of Bengal to the British.
The East India Company was now in an unusual position for a trading venture. It was a virtually autonomous ruling power in one of India’s richest provinces. The merchants were transformed into civil servants, in charge of collecting revenue, and administering the law. The East India Company’s private army expanded, to about 155,000 in the 1790s, making it one of the largest European-style armies in the world. Company influence spread beyond the borders of the regions it officially administered, and a network of British residents was installed at Indian courts. A resident arrived at Lucknow in 1774, and gradually, what was in effect a rival court was established under the noses of the nawabs. It was clear that a new power had arrived in India and the nawabs did their best to keep up by incorporating elements of British culture into court life. But in 1856 the British dep
osed Nawab Waji Ali Shah and annexed Oudh.
In the south matters were complicated by the fact that the British and the French played out their European rivalry on Indian soil. The French were latecomers to the East India trade. Their company was only founded in 1664. But from the 1740s onwards they struggled with the British for supremacy in southern India. The nizam of Hyderabad and the sultans of Mysore were drawn into the power struggle. Hyderabad eventually allied itself with the British, but Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan, of Mysore, held out against the East India Company with the aid of the French. But the arrival of Arthur Wellesley in India as Governor-General, in 1798 secured the foundations of the British Empire in India. He began his campaign by defeating Tipu Sultan in 1799. This blow eradicated the French challenge and put the East India Company in control of almost the entire tip of southern India. Not satisfied with this coup, Wellesley waged war on the Marathas in 1803–4 and brought Delhi, Agra and the surrounding provinces into the British sphere of control. Such naked and expensive warmongering was not to the taste of the company directors in London. Territorial control was supposed to bring in revenue rather than lead to costly battles. Nevertheless, by the time they had recalled Wellesley, in 1805, a large swathe of India was either directly under their control or under indirect British rule by means of a resident established at the court.
Lamb Korma
Persian cooks introduced to India the idea of marinating meat in yogurt. At the Mughal court spices were added to the marinade, and in Lucknow the chefs added dollops of cream. The Mughals would not originally have used chillies but by the eighteenth century chillies, spread by the Marathas, were becoming popular among northern Indians. They were eventually incorporated into Mughlai and Lucknavi dishes. Serves 4–5.
800g tender lamb, cut into pieces
Marinade
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2cm cinnamon stick
10 cardamom pods
10 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
1 large onion, finely chopped
50g ground almonds
6 tablespoons yogurt
Heat the oil in a pan and when it is hot add the cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, cloves and bay leaves. Stir in hot oil for 30 seconds. Turn down the heat and add the onions. Fry until browned and then add the almonds. Fry, stirring for 5–6 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Add to the yogurt in a bowl and mix in the lamb. Cover and put in the fridge overnight.
Sauce
4–6 tablespoons vegetable oil
2cm fresh ginger, finely grated
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2 green chillies, finely chopped
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
½ teaspoon garam masala
salt to taste
1 teaspoon sugar
250ml single cream
The next day remove the meat from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature. Heat the oil in a pan and add the ginger, garlic and chillies, and fry for about 10 minutes. Add the cumin, coriander and garam masala and fry for another 1–2 minutes, stirring.
Add the lamb and its marinade to the pan and fry vigorously for about a minute. Add the salt and sugar. Turn the heat low and simmer gently until the lamb is tender. You may need to add a few more tablespoons of yogurt or some water to prevent the mixture from burning.
Once the meat is tender, add the cream and simmer for another 10 minutes.
Shammi kebabs
These are a refined version of the central Asian and Afghani kebabs Babur ate. It is said that they were made with a soft fine mince (ideally like velvet) so that the Nawab Asaf-ud-Daulah of Lucknow could eat them despite the fact that he had lost all his teeth.
Serves 4–6.
500g finest minced meat (the Mughals preferred beef, the Lucknavis lamb)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 onions, sliced
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
4 cloves
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1cm cinnamon stick
4 cardamom pods
2 dried whole red chillies
50g red split lentils
2cm piece of fresh ginger, chopped
2 green chillies
a sprig of mint
a bunch of fresh coriander, chopped
3 tablespoons of yogurt
salt to taste
1 tablespoon raisins
1 tablespoon sliced almonds
Heat the oil in a frying pan and sauté the onions until they are transparent. Add the cumin seeds, cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, cardamom pods and red chillies. Fry for 3–4 minutes. Set aside.
Put the lentils in a pan with water and cook until soft (about 20 minutes).
Put the meat, the onion and spice mixture, the lentils, the ginger, green chillies, mint, fresh coriander in a food processor and purée.
Add the yogurt and salt. Process again.
Mix the raisins and almonds together.
Take the mixture and form it into balls. Press a few almonds and raisins into each ball.
Thread the balls on to skewers and grill or barbecue, turning occasionally, until the meat is cooked all the way through. They should be crispy on the outside and soft inside.
Besan laddu
This is an easy version of the temple sweets produced at the Tirupati temple for the pilgrims to take home. If you like, you can add raisins or nuts to the mixture. Makes 10–15.
250g ghee (or melted butter)
500g besan (chickpea flour)
500g powdered (icing) sugar
½ teaspoon cardamom powder
Heat the ghee or melt the butter. Add the besan and fry, stirring. Remove from heat and add the sugar and cardamom powder and mix. Form into balls and allow to cool and harden.
A gentleman’s khedmutgars, or table servants bringing in dinner
5
Madras Curry: the British invention of curry
IN 1824 FANNY PARKS and her husband, a civil servant in the service of the East India Company, invited some friends to dinner. Despite the fact that they were a ‘small party of eight . . . including ourselves . . . two-and-twenty servants were in attendance! Each gentleman,’ she wrote, ‘takes his own servant or servants, in number from one to six, each lady her attendant or attendants, as it pleases her fancy.’ Thomas Williamson’s handbook to Indian life, written as a Guide to Gentlemen Intended for the Civil, Military or Naval Service of the Honourable East India Company in 1810, informed the novice that the aub-dar (water cooler) would generally arrive at the house well before the party began, to ensure that the water, champagne, Madeira, claret or pale ale were all well chilled. In Calcutta, the host could be expected to possess sufficient china and silverware to set the table but Williamson noted that ‘at all military stations, each guest sends his servant’ with ‘two plates, a soup plate, a small bowl for bones &c., a tumbler, a glass for Madeira, [various cutlery] . . . and a napkin’. At the dinner, the servants, ‘delicately dressed all in white muslins and white or figured turbans and large gold earrings’ would stand behind the chairs of their masters attending to their needs. The khansaman (butler) would change the plates and hand round the dishes; another more menial servant might employ a small chowrie (fan) of peacock’s feathers to beat away the flies.
Underlying the noise of clinking dishes and conversation would be the hiss and bubble of the hookahs. Fanny Parks noted that ‘the Hooqû was very commonly smoked at that time in Calcutta: before dinner was finished, every man’s pipe was behind his chair’. Crouching beside each chair were the hookah burdars who attended to the tobacco and the functioning of the pipe. What with the hot Indian climate, ‘the steam of the dishes, the heat of the lamps, and the crowd of attendants’, the atmosphere could be oppressive. Matters were made worse by the disagreeable smell of coconut oil which the servants rubbed into their skin. If you had the misfortune of sitting next to a man from the Mofussil (remote countryside), then t
he fumes from the spices his ‘country’ servants used to prepare the tobacco for his hookah could also be unpleasant. Other, less happy reminders that the dinner party was being held in India were the insects and the dust. Fanny Parks was too genteel to refer to such things but Thomas Williamson jovially mentioned that ‘the alighting of cock-roaches on the face while at table’ was simply a matter of course which one had to put up with. He did acknowledge that ‘the number of flies at times found in the sauces will occasion a disposition to enquire how they got there, and whence they came!’ But flies could be picked out of the food. On the whole he seems to have found the ‘shoals of dust which skim during the middle of the day’ far more annoying as they were likely to ‘render the whole dinner unacceptable’. Efforts were made to relieve the heat with punkahs. Fanny described these as ‘monstrous’ fans made of ‘a wooden frame covered with cloth, some 10, 20 or 30 or more feet long, suspended from the ceiling of a room, and moved to and fro by a man outside by means of a rope and pulleys, and a hole in the wall through which the rope passes’. Despite the breeze they provided, there were frequent complaints that it was ‘scarcely . . . possible to sit out the melancholy ceremony of an Indian dinner’.1
Now that the East India Company was the de facto ruler of large tracts of India, the factories at Madras, Bombay and Calcutta expanded into proper towns, from which British power radiated out into the rest of India. By 1800, the company employed 681 civil servants who replaced the old Mughal administrators. They collected revenue and administered justice in the Indian courts. Fanny Parks was one of a tiny number of women who accompanied their husbands out to India. As the company conquered more territory they needed an ever larger army. Indian sepoys were supplemented by British troops directly recruited by the company, and by regiments from the British or Queen’s army which were sent on tours of duty in India. Thus, by the turn of the century there were 20–30,000 British soldiers in India. This meant that the presidency towns, as they were known, were now home to sizeable British communities.