What can you say about a meal eaten against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains and lush green meadows? The simplest of food would taste like ambrosia when the back-ground is this picturesque. And when the food itself is of the most delectable kind, how can a meal in Kashmir not be special?
Cullinary experiences are one of the major motivations for travel to Kashmir. Kashmir holiday packages organized by Swan Tours ensure a close encounter with Kashmiri cuisine. The cuisine of Kashmir is so extensive that it can inspire a thick volume. And that’s not surprising, for the influences are as rich as they are varied. It is said that when Timur invaded India towards the end of the 14th century, he came with a retinue of skilled artisans. Among them were his cooks, who while passing through Kashmir, left behind a legacy of recipes that originated in central Asia. Succeeding Mughal emperors beginning with Akbar would make many contributions to the cuisine. Apart from the Mughal sway, other influences — from Hindu and Buddhist to Sikh — enriched the cauldron. The cuisine also has traces of the Persian and the Afghan in it, to say nothing of the British. And out of these myriad streams, a distinct Kashmiri cuisine has emerged. The state of Jammu & Kashmir has different kinds of cuisine to offer — Ladakh has it own characteristic food which can be sampled while on Leh Ladakh Tours, while the Dogra cuisine of the Jammu region is vastly different from that of the Valley. In Kashmir, food can be roughly divided into two kinds – Kashmiri Muslim and Kashmiri Pandit. There are many similarities and a few differences between the two cuisines. The dishes – from many of the meat dishes to vegetarian delights such as nadru (lotus stem), chaman (cottage cheese) and haakh (local greens) – are common, but the use or absence of a few ingredients marks the difference.
Traditionally, Hindu Pandits do not use onion and garlic in their food. They use hing (asafoetida) instead to temper their food. There was a time when the Muslims used more fat and ghee to cook their food, while the Hindus preferred to use mustard oil. But those lines have blurred over the years.
Kashmir’s meat dishes are legendary. Take the ghushtaba and the rista – in which the meat is pounded with salt and cardamom using a wooden mallet till it is almost white and smooth. The ghushtaba goes into a yoghurt-based gravy flavoured with fennel and dried ginger powder, while the rista gravy is red – coloured and flavoured with dried coxcomb and Kashmiri red chillies. Then, of course, there is the rogan josh (meat cooked with Kashmiri red chilli) and yakhni (thickened with curd and flavoured with spices). And how can one forget the various kinds of karma — marchwagan (chilli) dhaniwal (coriander) kishmish (raisen) korma and so on?
What’s not very well known outside Kashmir is the fact that the region has a very rich heritage of vegetarian dishes too. Whenever you say Kashmiri food, you think of rich meaty food such as tabak-maaz (grilled lamb ribs) or aab gosht (meat cooked in semi evaporated milk). But actually, no meal is complete without a variety of vegetarian dishes.
Among these much-loved dishes is haakh — a green leafy vegetable, Kashmiri spinach, usually eaten steamed or boiled. Equally popular is the palak chaman, cottage cheese with spinach, or nadir yakhni, lotus stems cooked in yoghurt curry.
Then there are dishes such as gongi, or turnip cooked with black cumin seeds, cardamoms, cinnamon and dried coxcomb, manjehaakh, gaathgobicooked with leaves, and a tangy curry of sour apples cooked with tamarind and ginger powder. Waangan, or brinjal, is another vegetable cooked in many ways.
One of the most delicious – and expensive – mushrooms, the morel, comes from Kashmir. The kan gucchi is a delicacy, and often cooked with yoghurt in Kashmiri homes for special occasions.
Speaking of special occasions, you cannot talk about Kashmiri food and not mention the wazwan, a feast of dishes. Waza is the word for cooks, and wan is a shop – literally, wazwan means a cook’s shop. But in fact, it’s a multicourse feast that, once eaten, cannot be forgotten. Seven dishes must be served in a wazwan, and these are tabakhmaaz, rogan josh, daniwal korma, aabgosht, marchwangan korma, rista and ghushtaba.
A royal wazwan can include 36 courses – all carefully prepared by the master chef, or the vastwaza. Guests sit in groups, huddled around a huge metal plate called trami, from which they eat in a spirit of harmony.
What makes Kashmir food special is not just the taste but the delicate fragrances of some of the ingredients that are commonly used in the region. Because of its altitude and weather, almond and walnut trees are common, and the nutsare liberally used in cooking. Its peculiar red chilli – bright red but not very hot – adds colour and aroma to food, as do dried plums. Saffron, which grows in the Valley, is added to food -and many dishes call for fennel (stump, dry coxcomb (mawal) and dried ginger powder (saunth).
Information about Kashmiri Bread
Kashmir has a wide variety of breads, many of which are had for breakfast. Bakeries open early enough for residents to pick up their loaves and buns. The most ubiquitous Kashmiri bread is the baquerkhani: small, circular and available everywhere – from the relatively grand Ahdoo’s bakery in the heart of Srinagar, to small bakeries in the city’s bylanes. The baquerkhani is baked in tandoors and has a crisp, almost biscuit-like texture. Made of flour and usually decorated with a liberal sprinkling of sesame seeds, it is made in the mornings and afternoons, in time for breakfast and tea. Smaller and even more biscuit-like than the baquerkhani is the salty ‘kulchat. Crisp and quite like a rusk, it’s best had dunked in hot tea. Then there is the telvaru, a bun sprinkled with roasted sesame seeds, which also goes well with Kashmiri tea. The Kashmiri naan, meanwhile, is eaten with main meals, and is a lavish affair, thanks to the generous layer of dry fruits that coats (or fills) the regular naan. Tsot – the Kashmiri word for breads – and tsochvoru are small round breads, the crust topped with poppy and sesame seeds, while the lavasa is a piece of flat bread often baked with nuts.
A Kashmir meal ends with some delicious phirni or zafranipulao. A rich and sumptuous repast also needs a bit of kainva tea – green tea flavoured with nuts and saffron – to help you digest the many dishes that a meal usually consists of. Once you have eaten and had your kahwa, you know that paradise is not just about conic beauty – it could be gastronomic too.
For more information on Best of Kashmir Tour contact Swan Tours, one of the leading travel agents in India.
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