Moghlai Food, Food of Mughals Options

[chetnajain]

Royal repast



It’s the fusion of Persian and Indian culinary styles. It has rich sauces, butter based curries, ginger flavoured roast meats and sweets that are fit for the king! Sumptuous shorbas and creamy kulfis….Moghlai food offers a rich fare that is irresistible. And, no surprise then, that it has caught the fancy of food lovers all over the world!


Moghlai food brings in visions of dishes that are aromatically marinated in masalas of ginger and onion, tinged with nutmeg, mace, cloves and cinnamon; dishes of rich sauces combining a perfect balance of a range of spices, yogurt and cream, almonds and pistachios, the base to receive morsels of chicken of meat cooked in ghee; vegetable dishes with the nutty flavour of poppy seeds and sweetened with honey; extravagant rice dishes, biryanis and pilaus, each grain separate and full of flavour, garnished with cardamom and strands of saffron; silky-smooth, ice-cold desserts flavoured with essence of roses, decked with tissue-thin sheets of real gold or silver and decorated with a scattering of rose petals; drinks squeezed from fresh fruits. All prepared to please the eye as well as the palate!

The lajawab Lucknowi pilaus
Akbar’s son Jahangir was also very fond of his food and wine. The now renowned dishes cooked in the tandoor oven were a favourite of his and his cooks were instructed to carry the tandoor whenever the emperor travelled. The clay tandoor oven came to India from Central Asia and today dishes like Tandoori Murgh are favourites wherever there are Indian restaurants.
Persian culture introduced richness to the rice dishes in the forms of the pulao or pilau, a Persian word meaning rice boiled with meats and spices. As Lucknow became the centre of high society, expert cooks were brought in and the preparation of food became more and more elaborate as the cooks competed for supremacy. New dishes were created. And any that came from the kitchens of Lucknow were of the greatest interest to the nobility elsewhere in the subcontinent. Cooks were paid high salaries. One nawab, Salar Jang, paid his cook the unprecedented sum of one thousand two hundred rupees per month (a princely sum in those days) to prepare pilaus. His dishes became so renowned that other nawabs tried to bribe the cook into their service. At this time Lucknow specialised in several types of pilaus with exotic-sounding names: gulzar, meaning garden, nur (light), koko (cuckoo), moti (pearl) and chameli (jasmine).

One Lucknow cook is said to have prepared a khichri of pistachios and almonds cut and shaped to resemble and replace the usual rice and pulses.
There is another anecdote about one pilau in which the rice was made to resemble pomegranate seeds, each grain being painted half red and half white so that it looked as if a dish of rubies had been set before the king.

For moti pilau, the rice was made to look like pearls. Tissue-thin sheets of pure gold and silver leaf were beaten into the yolk of an egg. This was mixed into the rice, which was then stuffed into the gullet of a chicken. The chicken was tied up with string and heated slightly, and the skin then cut to release the rice, which looked like pearls. The rice was then cooked with the meat of the pilau.

One renowned Lucknow chef used to make a bird pilau in which the rice formed a type of pie from which small birds flew out when it was opened.


A touch of sweetness
Today India specialises in confectioneries like Halwa. This is a typical Moghal sweetmeat that came to India via Central Asia. Hindus might call it Tar Halwa or Mohan Bhog, but any variation uses large quantities of ghee! Today’s Jalebi is often thought of as a typical indigenous sweetmeat, but records say that the name is a corruption of the Arabic Zalibya introduced to India by Arab traders in the eighth century. The Barfi is derived from the Persian word baraf meaning snow. Shahi Tukra is a dessert of the Nawabs and is without any semblance of a doubt India’s most exotic and famous sweet dish. Garnished with dry fruits and covered with sheets of silver varq, Shahi Tukra is worth its weight in gold! Gulab Jamun, a khoya delicacy stuffed with pistachios and green cardamom seeds takes on a different note as Kalajam which is an over fried version of Gulab Jamun. The balls are deep-fried till dark brown, immersed in syrup and removed. One combination of marble sized gulab jamuns with creamy rabri called Zauq E Shahi is a contemporary presentation with a Moghlai flavour