Comfort of 'salan'

I have just returned from snowbound London where I had some extraordinary meals including a visit to the revamped Savoy Grill. 

The Savoy Grill represents the epitome of fine dining and has had a loyal clientele for many decades. The Savoy has given the restaurant to the controversial Gordon Ramsey to refashion the menu.

For the beleaguered Gordon, fending off creditors and possible bankruptcy this could not have happened at a better time. It gives him an opportunity to redeem himself. The meal I had there shows a return to what one can call ‘good comfort food’ — well-sourced meats and fish and unfussily cooked — a bit of the old Gordon.

Comfort food is not quite ordinary food or what is called ‘ghar ka khanna’, but food which has a positive impact on the senses. It is good food to have when you are depressed or down or lonely as it has elixir like qualities in revving your system up.  What is the closest equivalent in India to comfort food?

I suppose it depends on where you come from.  To me the best comfort food is the salan. The term salan is used indiscriminately to cover any form of curry dish.  This is incorrect.  There are a huge range of subtleties in the form of curry dishes which the Moguls introduced.  You have the qurmas which are yoghurt-based.  There are the shorbas which are not soups but thin curries with dumplings and an extravagant use of tamarind.  There are also the khalias distinguished by a thick gravy which is sour and yellow by excessive use of turmeric. 

In fact the salan in the classical sense is a combination of meat and vegetables even fish spinach and different kinds of sabzis. The combination of vegetables and meat is quite magical.  You have the great Kashmiri dish known shabdeg, a combination of turnips with mutton, traditionally cooked all night over a slow fire. You can also have ghost arbi ka salan. 

The origin of the salan is from Hyderabad but it is widespread in cities with large Muslim populations largely on account of marriage. Hyderabadi women married non-Hyderabadis introduced salans such as bhindi ghost ka salan and aloo ghost ka salan wherever they settled making it a pan India phenomenon.  

How do you distinguish salan from other forms of curry?  The obvious factor is the use of vegetables — either vegetables by themselves or vegetables with meat. They tend to be non spicy and the gravies have a smooth velvet-like texture, the base being generally made from onions, tomatoes, coriander and yoghurt.

Some salans like the famous Hyderabi Mirch ka salan is exceedingly spicy.  In Aurangabad, there is the famous dish known as the Mande ghost. This salan is based on onions, coriander and some very spicy chillies.  The extraordinary feature of this dish is the Mande, a humungous roomali roti which is cooked on an inverted tava. It practically doubles up as an edible tablecloth!