Desi News Corp - Index

Desi News Corp - Desi News - March 2009 - Index

Imagine sitting in a Mughal
palace on a richly embroidered
carpet, surrounded
by exquisite tapestries and
priceless paintings and carvings.
A mouth-watering aroma of
something spicy and so flavourful
wafts towards you that
you could happily dine on the
fragrance alone! Behold the
finest rice sautéed in the purest
ghee and cooked with a secret
blend of spices with juicy
chunks of meat.
Rice and vegetables or meat
make sumptuous one-dish
meals in themselves and are
popular in various world
cuisines; however, the biryani is
a class apart. The biryani has
devoted fans around the globe.
According to biryani chronicler
and entrepreneur Vishy
Shenoy, biryani existed in
myriad forms not just in Indian
but Arabic, Malayasian, Sri
Lankan, Indonesian, Thai, Kuwaiti
and Turkish cuisine. India
alone boasts 26 varities of the
dish!
Shenoy says that though he
has always loved biryani, his
interest peaked at a Bohri
A rich taste of history
wedding a few years ago. The
wide variety of biryanis he got
to enjoy spurred him to start the
Biryani Merchant restaurant in
Bangalore, serving at least 40
varieties of the dish.
The word biryani comes
from the Farsi word birian,
which means ‘fried before
cooking’. Coming from a family
of Middle Eastern and
South Asian dishes cooked
with rice (almost always Basmati),
a mixture of spices, and
THE ART OF BIRYANI
Behold the finest rice
sautéed in the purest
ghee and cooked with
a secret blend of
spices with juicy
chunks of meat!
meat, chicken, seafood or vegetables
and yoghurt, biryanis are
of many kinds, and each one
is a gourmet delicacy in itself.
Biryani experts believe that
it is the special combination of
spices that gives it its unique
taste. In addition to the ghee in
which sliced onions and gingergarlic
paste are sautéed, cinnamon,
cloves, bay leaves, cardamom,
coriander and mint
leaves are essential flavour
enhancers. The finest biryanis
also use the fragrant saffron for
extra oomph.
The biryani story gets spicier
with legends, writes traveller
and foodie Shantanu Ghosh.
According to one legend,
Tamerlane the Terrible, who
invaded India in 1398, brought
a bir yani recipe down from
Kazakhstan into north India.
Another fable says Mumtaz
Mahal (she of the Taj Mahal
fame) created this dish as a
wholesome meal to feed the
Mughal emperor’s army. From
the Mughals, the biryani spread
to the Nizam’s kitchens in
Hyderabad, as it did to Awadh
(now Lucknow) and Calcutta.
Others believe that the
biryani was brought to Indian
shores by Arab traders.
Today it rules in all parts of
India. Even the usually vegetarian
South has its own special
biryanis. Fish and prawn biryanis
are unique to Kerala.
“In Tamil Nadu, you have the
Ranipet biryani and the Dindigul
curry biryani, which was prepared
for Bill Clinton when he visited
India,” says Shenoy.
“On the western coast, you
have the Calicut biryani with its
distinct flavour coming from
the coconut shells fire over
which it is cooked, and the
Bhatkali biryani which has a
Yemini/Irani flavour.”
The Sindhi biryani and the
Kutchi biryani – also called the
Memoni biryani – offer extremely
spicy versions of the dish.
Only Kashmiris use asafoetida
in biryani and marinate all ingredients
overnight.
Bohri biryanis are flavoured
with tomatoes.
And there is one biryani
in Arcot that uses iddiappams
(string hoppers).
But biryani lovers
maintain that the authentic
biryani is the dum pukht
biryani.
Dum pukht is a Persian
technique and the
Ain-i-Akbari, written by
Abul Fazl, a courtier of emperor
Akbar, praises it as one of the
ten types served in the Mughal
courts.
Dum means steam, and dum
pukht literally means to choke
off the steam, explains expert
chef Abdul Yunus of Akbar
Restaurant at the Ramada
Palace Hotel. In this special
kind of biryani, the food is placed
in a pot, usually made of clay,
and dough is used to create a
tight seal to prevent steam from
escaping. The food is slowly
cooked in its own juices and
steam, allowing herbs and spices
to fully infuse the meat and rice,
preserving the nutritional
elements at the same time.
desiLICIOUS!
– CHANDRACHUD PAREKH
March 2009 Desi News 37