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

Malai ma Kolmi (Prawns cooked in Clotted Cream)

Today I am writing about a dish which is perhaps one of my most favourite Parsi dishes of all time (second only to Dhan, Dar ne Tareli Machchhi). This dish is known as Malai ma Kolmi and once again is a dish from the small coastal farming villages of South Gujarat. It is a dish that had almost vanished from the Parsi repetoire. This recipe was one from my maternal great great grandmother's (Soonamai's) kitchen in Tadgam, a small village about 7km north of Nargol and 8-9km south of Daman. 

Tadgam was the village of my maternal grandmother's maternal grandmother. My mother, Katy, spent many a happy summer here in her school days as my granma, Piroja,  made her obligatory annual visit to see her maternal grandfather, Kanjibhai Patel.  

The Patel household was a farming household and numbered amongst its many denizens a few bullocks, a small herd of buffalos, a large numbers of chicken and random cows. Fresh milk and eggs were taken for granted as was the almost daily visit of the maachhan. The maachhan was the autochthonous fisher-folk lady belonging to the Maachhi community who carried her wares from farmstead to farmstead on a daily circuit. One rarely knew what she was bringing but one was assured that it would be incredibily fresh. Prawns, crab and lobster were invariably alive! 

The cows were milked by the household help and the male members of the family and skimming off fresh cream was a daily occurrence. The farm made its own butter, ghee and as a byproduct buttermilk. The food was simple but wholesome and Sooonamai was the Capo de tutti capi of the kitchen her weapons the ladle and spatula ably supported by various vicious looking knives. All food was cooked on wood and in earthenware or copper vessels.

Prawns were a regular staple and on days when there was an excess of fresh cream the table would be graced by one of her classic dishes, Malai ma Kolmi or Prawns cooked in clotted cream. Its a relatively simple dish. You peel and devein the prawns (approx 1kg) and set them aside to marinate in salt and pepper. In a thick bottomed pan you add two large finely chopped onions and fry them in ghee till brown, remove onions reserve ghee. Make a fine paste of the onions with 1/4 kg broken Cashews,  6 Kashmiri Chillies and 6 Green Chillies. Heat reserved ghee in same pan and fry 1/2 teaspoon of Shahjeera for two minutes on very low heat, add the paste, increase heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes stirring continuously.  Add prawns mix to coat well and cook on medium heat for not more than 5 minutes. Add half a cup of water and simmer for another 3-4 minutes or till prawns are cooked to desired consistency. Shut down the heat. Now add 200ml or 1/4 kg of clotted cream and fold it gently into the gravy till mixed well, close lid and let sit for 5 minutes, garnish with finely chopped corriander and serve with chapatis or rice.

Tips: Do not add cream when the heat is on it may split. In lieu of clotted cream one may substitute it with Amul or any other brand in a tetrapack. Best eaten with rice chapatis (not bhakris) but making them is an art I for one haven't mastered.

When my mother Katy first added this recipe to her bestseller Jamva Chaloji we were a bit sceptical about its reception. At the book release Manchi Cama couldnt stop talking about it whilst saying it was probably why Parsis had clogged arteries. But to our great surprise at Katy's Kitchen its a dish that has gone down very well with our clients and most of them come back for repeats. Its a simple dish and it gives me great pleasure to have been part of its revival. I think Soonamai will look down on me with favour.

P.S. This is a part of my posts on Gastronomic Heritage and is an Heirloom Recipe.

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.