Experience a Slice of Kashmir through Food

I love to cook. My love affair with cooking started after marriage, when I had access to a full-fledged kitchen, and strengthened when I realized that my son has a discerning palate. My wife and I consumed Kashmiri food in our families of origin, and we have partly continued the tradition in our family. In the process, I have come to appreciate Kashmiri cuisine. I want to share this appreciation with you by inviting you to explore the tastes and flavors of Kashmiri food in your kitchen.

Taking up cooking or diversifying your cooking repertoire is easier said than done. After all, we are creatures of habit. It is not easy to change our routines and start something as involved as cooking or even experiment with a new cuisine if we are already into cooking…, but it is doable!

During significant life events, our routines are in flux, and at these times, we are more likely to engage in new behaviors. Marriage and fatherhood set the stage for my foray into cooking. Are you on the verge of a significant event in your life—graduating from college, setting up your first home, starting a new job, marrying, expecting a child, divorcing, retiring, and the like? If you are, I urge you to consider cooking as you reconfigure your life and your routines. Cooking done with love is immensely satisfying and magically brings an indescribable extra something to the table.

Typically, people explore new ways to cook their favorite food, such as chicken or potatoes. I suggest you focus your culinary exploration by cuisine instead of by type of food. Select a cuisine and understand it—influences, ingredients, spices/seasonings. Then try some signature dishes to determine whether you would like to explore the cuisine in more depth. Always start with authentic recipes and gradually adapt them to suit your palate.

Why not begin your exploration of cuisines with the cuisine of Kashmir? In this two-part post, I will help you get started by giving you an overview of everyday Kashmiri food and sharing three recipes.

History and Geography

The cold climate of Kashmir has shaped the food habits of Kashmiris. During the long harsh winters, fresh local produce is unavailable. In earlier times, during winters, the Kashmir Valley would sometimes be inaccessible to vehicular traffic for weeks, affecting the delivery of food supplies from outside.

As is common in cold climes, meat, dairy, and cold-hardy vegetables are staples of Kashmir. Kashmiri families sun dry vegetables during the summer for winter consumption.

With the advent of Islam, Persian and Central Asian culture influenced Kashmir and its cuisine. Timur’s invasion of India is a significant event in the evolution of Kashmiri cuisine; during this invasion, many master chefs from Samarkand settled in Kashmir. These chefs are said to be the creators of wazwan, the crown jewel of the cuisine of Kashmir. Wazwan is a meat-laden multi-course feast served at Muslim weddings, special occasions, and restaurants for tourists. Be forewarned you could end up having a 5,000-calorie meal at a typical wazwan.

Hindu and Muslim Variants

Meat is the preferred food of both Muslims and Hindus, with the Muslim diet being much more meat intensive. Hindus do not use onions, garlic, and tomatoes to prepare the base for gravies. Muslims use onions, shallots, and garlic extensively but don’t use asafetida, which Hindus use. Asafetida on cooking produces flavors like those of onion and garlic. In Hindu cooking, a combination of a small amount of yogurt and Kashmiri red chili powder provides the redness that tomatoes impart to a dish.

Ingredients

Grain: Rice for lunch. Rice for dinner. Rice is life.

Cooking medium: The authentic taste of Kashmiri food comes only with mustard oil. To mellow the pungency of mustard oil, heat it until it smokes, let it cool a little, and then cook.

Vegetables: Kashmiris love several vegetables that are not widely consumed or not consumed at all in other parts of India. These include lotus root, kohlrabi (knol khol), collard greens, and cooking apples (Granny Smith apples are ideal, although Kashmiris use quince).

Legumes: The primary lentil consumed by Kashmiris is green moong, often cooked with lotus root; among dried beans, kidney and black beans are popular; these sometimes are cooked with turnips.

Meats: Sheep and goat meats (called mutton in India) are preferred, and pork does not feature in any Kashmiri preparations. For ages, beef was not sold in authorized butcher shops and was consumed mostly in the countryside. However, now beef is sold widely and eaten by Muslims as an affordable alternative to mutton. Meat is much more popular than poultry.

Dairy: Paneer is very popular among Hindus. Yogurt is a base for yakhni dishes, which feature mutton, lotus root, or bottle gourd. The yogurt base gives yakhni a whitish color; typically, turmeric powder and chili powder are not added to yakhni.

Beverages: Kashmiris love tea. Two teas are popular: kahwah (sweet green tea without milk) and sheer/noon chai (salted black tea with milk).

Ground spices: The main ground spices used are fennel powder, ginger powder, asafetida, Kashmiri red chili powder, and turmeric powder.

The combination of fennel and ginger powders gives Kashmiri food its distinctive flavor. Fennel powder imparts a fragrant sweetness and serves as a thickening agent. Fennel seed is part of the five-spice blend panch phoran, popular in eastern India, but fennel powder as a primary spice is used only in Kashmiri cooking.

Ginger powder produces a different flavor than fresh ginger and retains its flavor at high temperatures. Typically, ginger powder and fennel powder are used in the ratio 1:3. Again, Kashmiri cuisine is probably the only Indian cuisine in which ginger powder is one of the main spices.

Asafetida has a strong smell that is neutralized in hot oil. Accordingly, asafetida is the first spice added after cooking oil is heated. Many Kashmiris use asafetida in a water solution instead of the powdered form.

Kashmiri chilies impart a bright red color and are milder than most other varieties of chilies. Chili and turmeric powders are used to color gravies—red or yellow. Typically, chili and turmeric powders are used in inverse proportion and often not used in conjunction. However, a dash of turmeric aids in retaining the red color imparted by chili powder.

Whole spices: The primary whole spices used are cumin seed, bay leaf, dried red chilies, peppercorn, green and black cardamom, cinnamon, and clove. Whole spices are the lifeblood of fancier dishes. Cardamom, cinnamon, and clove produce mutually reinforcing flavors. These three spices can be overpowering, so they are used in moderate amounts. Because in many parts of India cardamom is used in sweets, many non-Kashmiris might find the intense flavor and aroma of green cardamon in some Kashmiri vegetarian dishes unappealing on the first try. Black cardamom has a smoky tinge and is less overpowering than green cardamom. Saffron, native to Kashmir, is used sparingly because of its high cost.

Vur: This is akin to garam masala, and it is added toward the end of cooking for extra flavor. This spice mix is hard to find outside Kashmir. However, it is an optional additive.

Signature dishes

Outside Kashmir, the best-known vegetarian Kashmiri dish is dum aloo, and the best-known meat preparation is rogan josh. The Kashmiri equivalent of dal chawal/roti is haakh bhatta (collard greens with rice).

Here are three popular meat preparations that you should try:
Tabakmaaz/Kabargah: mutton ribs simmered in spiced milk and shallow fried in ghee
Goshtaba: meatballs cooked in a yogurt sauce
Qualiya: yellow mutton curry sans chilies and red chili powder

Two-Tiered Cooking

In Kashmiri middle-income families, such as the one I grew up in, cooking is two-tiered. Simple everyday vegetarian dishes require limited time and effort. In many North Indian vegetable and meat dishes, the base is of onions, garlic, ginger, and tomatoes. Slice onions and fry them till they are golden, add ginger garlic, add tomatoes, and keep frying until the oil separates from the mixture. By the time the oil separates, you would have cooked an everyday Kashmiri dish and eaten it as well.

For more elaborate fare such as dum aloo and yakhni, Kashmiris use the most potent taste weapon of all time. Frying. Potatoes—fry them; eggplant—fry it; cauliflower—fry it; lotus root —fry it; bottle gourd—fry it. Deep or shallow but fry it well. The fried veggies are then gravied using a blend of ground and whole spices.

Recipes

In the second part of this post (see here), I will share three recipes for a sample Kashmiri meal.

There are a few restaurants in major Indian metros where you can savor authentic Kashmiri food. However, eating at restaurants and cooking at home are two different experiences. Cooking is a journey. A journey that is often as or more gratifying than the destination.

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