Lucknow cuisine

OriginIt was 137 years ago that the last of the kings of Avadh walked on the sarzameen (land) of their beloved Lucknow. While these monarchs sat on the throne of Avadh, there was nothing that they left untouched, thankfully, for their touch was like the proverbial magic wand. It could raise the most mundane of activities into the realm of art and to unattained heights of excellence. Little wonder that even bawarchis became master creator of culinary delights. Powerful courts all over India vyed with each other to wean away a cook who had either worked or was trained in Lucknow. To belong to Lucknow was the highest qualification a cook could hold.

The ruler of Avadh engaged in peaceful pursuits since the battle of Buxar, and laid the foundation of a culture which dazzled the world. Under their patronage developed a cuisine which did not remain the prerogative of royalty alone. Recipes traveled from the royal kitchens of the nobilities and from there, to the kichens of ordinary people.

All the while, research and innovation proceeded unabated in the bawarchi khanas of the royalty and aristocracy where money was no constraint, neither was time. In the mid 18th century, in the personal bawarchi khana of Nawab Shuja-Ud-Daula, Rs. 60,000 was spent per month or Rs. 7.2 lakhs per year on the preparation of dishes. The dishes which adorned his dastarkhwan did not come from the kitchen alone but from five other bawarchikhanas, including that of his mother Nawab Begum and his wife Bahu Begum. These ladies separately spent Rs. 9,000 per every month on the preparation of food. The staggering salaries of the hierarchy of cooks and other kitchen staff came from a separate budget. 

However, high salaries were not the only reason for the excellent performance of the cooks. They were given total freedom to pursue their work their own way. Examples of cooks laying down conditions of employment before crowned heads, and the latter meekly accepting them, would only be found in Lucknow. And in Lucknow alone would you find cooks strutting off in a huff if the king did not sit down for a meal when told to do so by the cook because the food was hot. A tale is told of a cook employed only to prepare mash ki dal (arhar ki dal) on a monthly salary of Rs. 500. The dal was not cooked daily but once in a while, and the king was condition bound to sit down at the dastarkhwan when he cook announced that dal was ready. The king once delayed, so the cook left. Before leaving, he emptied the contents of the dish at a place where stood a stalk of a dead tree. In a few days, leaves started sprouting from the stalk and before long,

the tree turned a healthy green colour (source: Abdul Sharar’s The last phase of an Oriental Culture). The story may appear like an exaggeration but the fact remains that the ingredients that went into the preparation of the royal dishes were very nutritious.  

It was unwritten law that the master would sanction whatever quantity of ingredients the cook demanded. No questions were asked nor doubts expressed. Another popular story goes that king Ghazi-ud-din Haider slapped his vazir Agha Meer for reducing the quantity of ghee used by the cook in preparing parathas. The king was no fool. He said that even if the cook pilfered some ghee, so what? The parathas he made were excellent, while ”you rob the whole monarchy and think nothing of it.” 

It was not royalty alone who pampered their cooks. The nobility, aristocracy and people of lesser means too maintained well stocked and well staffed kitchens from where were turned out the most exotic of dishes. Begums and ordinary housewives too preserved in their kitchens and acquired an excellence that could match the skills of a professional bawarchi. 

Lazeez Lauki

Broadly, there are three categories of cooks in Lucknow. The bawarchis cook food in large quantities. The rakabdars cook in small gourmet quantities. Rakabdars also specialize in the garnishing and presentation of dishes. The nanfus make a variety of roti, chapattis, naans, sheermals, kulchas and taftans.

Normally, one cook does not prepare the entire meal. There are specialists for different dishes and also a variety of helpers like the degbos who wash the utensils, the masalchis who grind the masala and the mehris who carry the khwan (tray) to be spread on the dastarkhwan. The wealthy always had their kitchens supervised by an officer called daroga-e-bawarchi khana or mohtamim. It was this officer’s seal on the khwan that guaranteed quality control. 

The Lucknow dastarkhwan would not be complete unless it had the following dishes. Qorma (braised meat in thick gravy), salan (a gravy dish of meat or vegetable), qeema (minced meat), kababs (pounded meat fried or roasted over a charcoal fire), bhujia

(cooked vegetables), dal, pasinda (fried slivers of very tender meat, usually kid, in gravy) Rice is cooked with meat in the form in the form of a pulao, chulao (fried rice) or served plain. There would also be a variety of rotis. Deserts comprise gullati (rice pudding), kheer (milk sweetened and boiled with whole rice to a thick consistency), sheer brunj, (a rich, sweet rice dish boiled in milk), muzaffar (vermicelli fried in ghee and garnished with saffron).

The Lucknowi’s menu changes with the seasons and with the festival which mark the month. The severity of winters is fought with rich food. Paye (trotters) are cooked overnight over a slow fire and the shorba (thick gravy) eaten with naans. Turnips are also cooked overnight with meat koftas and kidneys and had for lunch. This dish is called shab degh and a very popular in Lucknow. The former Taluqdar of Jehangirabad would serve it to his friends on several occasions during winter. 

Zamin Doz Machchli

Birds like patridge and quail are had from the advent of winter since they are heat giving meats. Fish is relished from the advent of winter till spring. It is avoided in the rainy season. Lucknowis prefer river fish particularly rahu (carp), for fish bones are the last thing they would like to struggle with for this reason, fish kababs (cooked in mustard oil) are preferred. 

Peas are the most sought after vegetable in Lucknow. People never tire of eating peas. One can spot peas in salan, qeema, pulao or just fried plain. 

Sawan (spring) is celebrated with pakwan (crisp snacks), phulkis (besan pakoras in salan), puri-kababs and birahis (paratha stuffed with mashed dal) khandoi (steamed balls of dal in a salan), laute paute (gram flour pancakes, rolled and sliced and served in a salan) and colocasia-leaf cutlets served with salan add variety. Raw mangoes cooked in semolina and jaggery or sugar, makes a delicious dessert called curamba, in summer. These dishes come from the rural Hindu population of Lucknow. 

Activity in the kitchen increases with the approach of festivals. During Ramzan, the month of fasting, the cooks and the ladies of the house are busy throughout the day

preparing the iftari (the meal eaten at the end of the day’s fast), not only for the family but for the friends and the poor. 

Id is celebrated with varieties of siwaiyan (vermicelli) – Muzzaffar is a favouritein Lucknow. Shab-e-barat is looked forward to for its halwas particularly of semolina and gram flour. Khichra or haleem , a del;icious mixture of dals wheat and meat, cooked together, is had during Muharram, since it signifies a sad state of mind. 

There are dishes which appear and disappear from the Lucknow dastarkhwan with the season and there are those which are a permanent feature, like the qorma, the chapatti and the roomali roti. The test of a good chapatti is that you should be able to see the sky through it. The dough should be very loose and is left in a lagan (deep broad vessel) filled with water for half an hour before the chapattis are made. 

Sheermals were invented by mamdoo bawarchi more than one and a half century ago. They are saffron covered parathas made from a dough of flour mixed with milk and ghee and baked in iron tandoors. No other city produces sheermals like Lucknow does and the festive dastarkhwan is not complete without it. Saffron is used to flavour sweets too. 

Kakori kababs

Utensils are made either of iron or copper. Meat kababs are cooked in a mahi tawa (large, round shallow pan), using a kafgir which is a flat, long handled ladle for turning kababs and parathas. Bone china plates and dishes were used in Lucknow since the time of Nawabs. Water was normally sipped from copper or silver kato ras and not glasses. The seating arrangement, while eating was always on the floor where beautifully embroidered dastarkhwans were spread on dares and chandnis (white sheets). Sometimes this arrangement was made on a takht or low, wide wooden table. 

Culinary HistoryThe cuisine of UP is reminiscent of the Nawabi and the Mughal glory. Each city offers a different but equally inviting cuisine for the gourmet. Banaras is famous for it's bazaars full of 'jalebis', sweetmeats and a myriad variety of 'kachoris'. The 'pethas' from Agra are popular all over the country. And Lucknow offers the most exquisite mix of Nawabi food.

According to legend Dum Pukht cuisine was discovered when Nawab Asaf-ud-Daulah decreed that the builders of the Bara Imam Bara Mosque should have access to food day and night. Street cooks assembled giant pots, filled them with rice, meat, vegetables and spices and placed them on gently simmering fires. The lids were sealed with dough and topped with hot coals to slow-cook the food and keep it warm around the clock. When the Nawab tasted the food during an inspection, he was most impressed and ordered his chefs to refine the cooking technique in the royal kitchens. "Dum Pukht", means 'to breathe' and 'to cook'. The cuisine owes its excellence to the fact that the food, sealed in a dish and slow-cooked in its own juices, retains all its natural aromas and flavours.

The coarse camp fare of central Asian desert tribes, the kebab migrated with the nomads via Kabul, Peshawar and Lahore to Lucknow, where royal chefs worked their magic on it. They diced, minced and pounded the meat, enhancing it with herbs and spicesMoulded into various shapes, the kababs were grilled, fried, or skewered and baked in a charcoal oven. With the fall of the Mughal Empire, the secrets of Avadhi gastronomy were lost to all but a few direct descendants of the 200-year-old Avadhi clan of royal chefs. The Red Fort is proud to have secured the services of two of the guardians of this treasured legacy : Master Chefs Irshad Ahmed Quereshi and Mohammed Ashfaq Ansari, relatives of Imtiaz Quereshi, the high priest of Avadhi cuisine.

Lucknow's meat cuisine -- the kababs, the biryanis, the salans, the dal goshts -- cooked from the finest and most exotic of ingredients is mouth-watering. Lucknowi kitchens are all about huge, fragrant handis of rich food -- recipes nearly always call for heavy cream, raisins, saffron, almonds, cashewnuts -- toasting for hours on glowing coal fires and attended to by a battery of cooks. A traditonal Lucknow daavat takes three days to prepare. The first marination. The second marination. The third marination. The simmering overnight on gently, dying fires. The baking all day in clay ovens. Frying. Delicate roasting. Sauteing...

Most families in Uttar Pradesh eat vegetarian food, although meat delicacies of the Awadh style of cooking are world famous. Average cuisines in Uttar Pradesh revolve around the simple, vegetables curries of all kinds. But there is a predominance of fried foods like the tasty `kachori' and `puri', which are a must especially during festivities.A lot of emphasis is placed on savories and sweet meats in this state. From `mathris' to jalebis, the latter often consumed with milk, a whole variety of foods are offered whenever you venture out on a visit. The classic `tehzeeb' or courtesy that one must treat guests with make such savouries a must.

Lucknow is known world wide for its biryanis and different meat preparations. Nihari and naan, a mutton dish served for breakfast, is the only thing that can complete a holiday to the land of Mughals. The well-known and popular `dum pukht' way of cooking, when meat dishes are cooked slowly in their own juices, is also to be sampled. All in all, there is a lot that can be eaten in Uttar Pradesh, but it isn't half as much as what can be seen!

Like various other art forms. the culinary art of Lucknow was also raised to a fine art under royal patronage. A favourite past time of the nobility of Awadh was perfecting the

art of  cooking. The bawarchis and rakabdars of Awadh, by their expertise of blending spices, achieved a high degree of finesse in cooking and presentation of food that took culinary art to the highest realms. This gave birth to the Dum style of cooking or the art of cooking over a slow fire, which has become synonymous with Lucknow today. The bawarchisof Awadh transformed the traditional dastarkhwan with elaborate dishes like kababs, kormas, kaliya, nahari-kulchas, zarda, sheermal, roomali rotis and warqi parathas. The richness of Awadh cuisine lies not only in the variety of cuisine but also is the ingredients used in creating such a

variety. Nahari a hot favourite of Awadh is a meat preparation with thick spicy gravy. In 'Pai ki Nahari' leg and other bones are cooked and bone juice is mixed with a mouth watering gravy. Nahari was originally a beef preparation eaten with Kulchas . Now-a-days mutton is used instead of beef in houses. The best place where beef Nahari is still served in Lucknow is the Rahim's shop inside Akbarigate which has produced some of the best Nahari dishes for the past five generations. Lucknow is also proud of its Kababs. The Kakori Kababs. Galawat ke Kababs Shami Kababs. Boti Kababs, Patili-ke-Kababs, Ghutwa Kababs and Seekh Kababs are among the known varities. The 100 year old 'Tunde ke Kabab' in chowk is the most famous outlet for choicest Kababs even today. Karma a preparation ofmeat in gravy was an essential item of the Awadh dastarkhwan. 'Biryani' was yet another item cooked in Dum style. The method imparted a typical

Awadhi flavour to this rice preparation. The warqi paratha and sheermals are other sumptuous dishes of Lucknow that are simply a gourmet's delight.

Menu-1

Kakori Kebab

Tomato shorba

Chicken Reshmi kabab

Naan

Malpua

Kakori kabab

INGREDIENTS

2 cups minced mutton/lamb 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste2 tsp salt1/4 tsp powdered black pepper 2 tbsp chopped green corianderchopped green chillies to taste 2 tbsp chopped raw papaya 4 cloves 1 black cardamom – seeds1/8 tsp powdered cinnamon 1 tsp cumin seeds1 blade mace 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg 2 cups onions - sliced thin, and browned crisp in ½ cup ghee 1/4 cup bhuna chana - powdered1 egg

ghee for brushing some chaat masala - onion rings and lemon wedges for garnish

METHOD

Mix all ingredients except ghee and garnishes to marinate for about 4 hours, then grind to form a smooth, thick paste.

Knead this mixture well and mix in the roasted gram and the egg.

Cover and refrigerate for another hour.

About 25 minutes before serving, shape the meat around the skewers and place the kababs on to a grill over a drip tray, or in a pre-heated oven (also on a drip tray).

If cooking them over a charcoal grill, you will have to keep rotating them so that they brown and cook evenly. They should take 15-20 minutes to cook.

Brush with ghee and cook another 2 minutes. Serve garnished with chaat masala onions and the lemon and serve with green chutney.

Tomato shorbaIngredients:Tomatoes (medium size) 8no.Water 3-1/2 cupsButter1/2 tbspBlack pepper powder1/4 tsp.Red chilli powder1/4 tspBay leaf and cumin powder1/2 tspGinger-garlic paste1/4 tspSalt to tasteCream for garnishing2 tspMethod:Put the tomatoes in a saucepan with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook until tomatoes become tender. You can also pressure cook it (wait for 2 whistles and then switch off the gas).Make tomato puree in an electric blender. Add water and strain it to remove the seeds and tomato skin.

Heat butter in a panAdd black pepper powder, red chilli powder, bay leaf and cumin powder, ginger-garlic paste and salt.Add tomato puree, bring to boil and cook for 5 minutes on medium heatServe hot. Garnish it with cream separately in each bowl .

 

Chicken Reshmi kabab

INGREDIENTS

Grind together2 cups chicken keema 1 tbsp vinegar2 tbsp chopped fenugreek leaves or 2 tsp dried1/2 tsp garlic paste 1/2 tsp ginger paste 1 1/2 tsp salt1/4 tsp powdered black pepper1/4 tsp garam masala 2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves1 tsp finely chopped green chilliessome oil for brushing

METHOD

Cover and refrigerate the meat mixture to marinate for at least 2hours.

About 25 minutes before serving, shape the meat mixture into long ‘tubes’ around the skewers (seekhs) and place the kababs on to a grill over a drip tray, or into the pre-heated oven (also on a drip tray). If cooking them over a charcoal grill, you will have to keep rotating them so that they brown and cook evenly. They should take 10-15 minutes to cook.

Brush them with oil and cook another 2 minutes.

Garnish with chaat masala, onions and the lemon and serve with a green chutney.

Naan

INGREDIENTS4 cups refined flour1 ¼ cups yoghurt1 tsp baking sodasalt to tasteonion seeds for garnish

METHOD

Mix together the flour, salt and baking soda. Knead into a soft, smooth dough using as much yoghurt as required.

Cover with a damp cloth and leave to rise in a warm, draught-free place, till double in volume. If in a hurry, place the container in a larger container of hot water. The time taken for the dough to rise varies according to the weather - about 3 hours in summer and 7 hours in winter.

Punch the dough and leave to rise again. This time it will take much less time.

Break the dough into pieces of desirable size and smooth into rounds. Cover with a damp cloth and keep for at least 15 minutes.

Roll the balls into flat ovals or rounds. You can also flatten them by slapping them between your palm - as experts do, stretching and pulling with your hands when required.

Smear the surface with water and sprinkle with onion seeds. Grease a baking tray and bake the naans in a pre-heated oven for about 5 minutes. Better still is to grill them, if your grill has elements both above and below.

If you have a tandoor, wet one side of the naan with water and stick it to the walls of the tandoor. You can also stick it to a hot griddle and turn the griddle upside down over the flame. The naan will fall off when cooked.

Brush the hot naan with butter or ghee and serve

Malpua

INGREDIENTS

250 ml yoghurt 3 tbsp flour 1 tsp roasted fennel seeds 3-4 tbsp ghee/oil for frying

Syrup200 gm sugar 200 ml water rind of 1 sweet lime

METHOD

Combine yoghurt, flour and fennel seeds. Stir until a smooth batter is formed. Heat ghee/oil in a pan and make dumplings by frying a spoonful of the batter at a time over a gentle flame. Remove from the pan and drain.

Prepare the syrup with sugar, water and rind. Dip the malpuas into the syrup.

Garnish with sweet lime segments and cream. Decorate with silver leaf. Serve hot/cold.

Menu -2

Murg Malai TikkaSabzi ka rasRoomali RotiMurg do pyazaPhirni

INGREDIENTS

500 gm boneless chicken breasts - cut into cubes and pierced1 tsp garlic paste1 tsp ginger paste1 cup hung yogurt1 tbsp salt1 tsp garam masala2 tsp dhania powder1/4 tsp kali mirch - powdered 1 cup malai (clotted cream) or creammelted ghee - to brush the kababslemon wedges and onion rings - for garnish

MethodMarinate the chicken in the garlic, ginger, yogurt, salt, garam masala, dhania powder, black pepper and the cream for 2-3 hours or more.

Place a saucer in a dish and arrange the chicken over it in a circle. Cover and cook at Hi for 5 minutes, turning once.

Cover and cook on Hi for another 3 minutes. Uncover and cook at Hi for 2 minutes.

Let it stand for 5 minutes before serving with onion rings and lemon wedges on the side.

Murg do pyaza

INGREDIENTS

1 kg chicken-skinned and cut into 8 pieces¼ cup ghee1 tbsp cumin seeds1 bay leaf 4 whole peppercorns 4 cloves½ tsp fenugreek seeds-roasted and powdered1 tsp fennel seeds- roasted and powdered1 tsp ginger paste1 tsp garlic paste1 cup grated onions½ cup yogurt1 tsp garam masalasalt to taste½ tsp turmeric1 tbsp coriander powder1 tsp chilli powder2-3 green chillies-slit2 cups onions-sliced a little thick2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves-to garnish

METHOD

Heat the ghee in a heavy-based saucepan, and add the cumin seeds, bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves, powdered fenugreek and fennel seeds. When the seeds begin to splutter, add the garlic and ginger paste and the onions.

Sauté over high heat till brown. Add the yogurt, stir-frying vigorously so that it blends well and does not curdle. Cook till fat separates.

Add the garam masala, salt, turmeric, coriander and chilli powder.Keeping the heat high, add the chicken pieces and stir till they look a little opaque and are coated with the masala.

Lower the heat, uncover and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the green chillies and sliced onions.

Continue cooking over low heat, till the chicken is cooked through and fat separates. Takes 10-15 minutes. The onions should be crunchy.

Serve hot, garnished with chopped coriander leaves.