Tadi No Batervo ... Mutton cooked in Palm Toddy

Every year on Khordad Sal (the birthday of the prophet Zarathushtra) we try to make something a bit left of centre for our clients be they traditional Parsi recipes from rural Gujarat, Continental favourites or long lost classics. This year Rhea decided she was tired of Continental and she wanted us at Katy's Kitchen to give the Parsis (and food lovers) of Mumbai a chance to take a journey deep into the Parsi kitchens of rural Gujarat 50 or more years ago. So with serious determination writ on our faces we went to the cupboard and yanked out the two volumes of Katy Dalal's  Jamva Chaloji. I chose the Tadi no Batervo and she chose the Murghi no Khurmo (more on this in some other post). 

I was completely enamoured by the prospect of cooking mutton in a reducing base of Palm Toddy  and we decided to bring this heirloom recipe to our patrons and friends. I remember my mum speaking about this dish and how it was made in her great-granpa Kanjibhai's house in Tadgam (near Nargol in Gujarat). He would ensure that one of his Warli boys got down a pot of sweet morning toddy at 5 or 6 am before the sun got to accelerating the fermentation process. He would also chose a tree that had been recently tapped as this would make a difference she said. There is a huge history to this dish Katy in Jamva Chaloji 2 tells us that Valsara Fooa made this (at Mamakwara) for Lady Navajbai Tata when she visited Nargol to review the Tata-Wadia School and even many years later she said it was the best meal she ever had.

It's a very simple dish, mutton is marinated in a green masala made with chillies, corriander, mint, ginger, garlic, pepper and cloves. It is braised in hot oil and then submerged in sweet toddy and brought to a boil.It is cooked on a low flame and toddy is topped up as and when required till the mutton is finally cooked. It takes at least an hour and a half to cook, the slower the tastier...if you can cook on a wood fire in a terracotta chattie it will taste even better. The gravy should be sticky and have a mildly caramelised feel to it. 

Tadi no Batervo is best eaten with hot white rice or rice rotlis. It is a very simple dish but with complex flavours. There is a mild sourness coupled with sweetness yet both sour and sweet are unlike the usual such tastes and the green masala adds a subtle underlying note of spice. 

 

The Mutton and the Marinade

 

The Marinated mutton and the Sweet Toddy

 

Braising

 

Adding the Sweet Toddy

 

The finished Tadi no Batervo

Masoor ma Jheebh (Goat's tongue in Lentils)

As part of my new found zeal to blog and my newly distilled direction i.e. Gastronomic Heritage, one of the things I am going to write about are little known traditional Parsi recipes most of which are staring oblivion in the eye.

The Parsis of India are the descendants of a group of religious refugees who left Persia somewhere between the 8th and 9th centuries AD and landed on the western coast of India at Sanjan. They came seeking asylum and according to their legends promised to blend in with the local populace in speech, dress, food and other habits as long as they got to practice their religion as they pleased. They prospered in India and their food is a very interesting marriage of Indian flavours with the meat heavy and dry fruit rich traditions of Persia. With the advent of the Portuguese and British they soon adapted various European recipes and assimilated European origin produce in their food.

This post is a Recipe Post and deals with an old favourite which has lost its lustre in modern India. I remember this becoming infrequent at the table even when I was a little boy. Today it has almost totally disappeared from the Parsi dining table. This dish goes by the simple name Masoor ma Jheebh which translates into English as Tongue in Lentils. This was classically a a winter favourite and held pride of place with its close cousin Chora ma Paya (more on that in a later post). The Parsis love their meat and their legumes and bringing the two together is a common thing in Parsi cuisine.

Masoor ma Jheebh is traditionally made using goat or sheep tongue though I am sure it could also be made with beef or buffalo tongue. We still get orders for this at Katy's Kitchen though almost exclusively from expats back in India on short holidays after 20-30-40 years. It was almost a year since my last order when Joana Lobo asked me to cook some for an article she did for the Mumbai Mirror on tongue recipes. I realised that it was something right up our street and the resultant was a photo shoot from which I have put the pictures in this post.

The tongue is traditionally cooked in the lentils but I have found its better to cook both separately. The tongue is kept intact. It is cleaned (you may or may not skin it), marinated in salt, pepper, turmeric and ginger garlic paste. Then it is steamed till soft and put aside, the resultant soup/stock is also reserved. The lentils are best cooked in a pressure cooker with salt and turmeric. They are washed and water, salt and turmeric is added to the cooker. Once cooked (15 mins on simmer after steam is fully built up) Parsis traditionally add a vaghaar. This consists of finely chopped onions, garlic, green chillies & tomatoes, curry leaves and spices fried in vegetable oil. The onions are first fried till pink, the tomatoes, garlic next. once cooked the green chillies are added with some red chillie powder and garam masala powder. The vaghaar is allowed to cook well at a moderate heat with constant stirring. When done (i.e. when the oil separates from the spice mix) the vagaar is poured hot into the lentils, the reserved soup is added and the whole mix brought to a boil. It is then simmered and a small amount of jaggery is scraped in (you can use sugar if you don't have jaggery) and finally a dash of red, sugarcane vinegar is added as you switch off the heat and let the masoor sit for a bit. The rested tongue is sliced into cubes and added to the masoor after 10-15 mins, mixed in and topped with corriander. Served with hot rotlis (Parsi unleavened bread), Brun Pau (Hard Bread buns) or Sukki Khichri (dry yellow rice).

I personally love tongue and find it one of the softest, tastiest cuts of meat in an animal. It isn't very strong a flavour and chopped into small cubes is often mixed with mutton in villages where no part of the animal is wasted. Masoor ma Jheebh is a beautiful union of the sweetish lentils cooked in a traditionally Parsi Khatti-Miththi-Tikhkh (Sour-Sweeet-Spricy) way and then gently married to the meaty soup and soft cubes of tongue.