Umrao Jaan cuisine

Gastro gnome

Javed Gaya

With the scent of iftar in the air and Umrao Jaan at the box office, let us now contemplate one of the great centres of fine North India cooking, Awadh.

It is a cuisine redolent with history, it oozes sophistication, and is one of the few which attempts to entice all the senses — easy on the eye, the olfactory senses, in texture and taste. In this respect, it is reminiscent of high-quality French cooking, perhaps not the robust bourgeois cooking of the bistros but the delicate haute cuisine of the Court.

It offers a marvellous range, from innovative chaats, breads such as the sheermal, kormas, nihari and raan to desserts such as the creamy nimish (the Indian soufflé) and balai. Other than the Dum Pukht in Mumbai (at the Grand Maratha) and at the occasional food festivals, there is little opportunity for us to sample this great cuisine.

The Oberoi’s Kandhar is currently having a festival and it appears to showcase some of the great classics — the kakori kebab, the badam nalli ghost (made from almond milk and not ground almonds), and the chandan kalia. They also offer the famous Lucknowi kulcha, a bread so rich in ghee that offering it in your average Mumbai party could be seen as a hostile act.

For those who visit Lucknow, depending on the season, there is a gastronomic treat in store. It is remarkable that the street food approximates to courtly food; it is possible to eat sophisticated cuisine from the footpath. There are two remarkable restaurants in the chowk which require patronage whenever you’re on a visit to this great city. Unfortunately they are both for carnivores.

The first is the famous Kebabchi Tundemia. There is a branch of the Tundemia which has opened in the Sahara mall which is horribly sanitised and each plate of kebabs is at least four times the prices that prevail in the chowk. But no self-respecting denizen of Lucknow would go to such a place; the chowk restaurant is the original and, in my view, the best. The kebabs are small, round and are made in the gilavat style.

They have a unique masala and texture. They are made from beef and are served with a special bread, called a paratha but is actually a roti smeared with oil and toasted so that it is crisp outside and moist inside. My companion remarked that the chow eatery had become a little gentrified and that there was now the luxury of marble table tops, whilst in the 80s it was one very large black hole. The restaurant is extraordinary — it is open all hours and through all holidays.

Superstition has it that if the restaurant closes, it will close permanently. The present owner is a great-grandson of the original Tundemia who had lost an arm in the rising of 1857 but was able to fashion these great kebabs with one hand.

Across the Tundemia is another great Lucknow institution, Rehamanias — famous for its kulcha and Nihari. When I saw the kulcha I thought it was Sheermal but was disabused for this and told that almost 50 per cent more ghee was used for these kulcha than the Sheermal! I must say it was a most nutritious and economic breakfast with the kulcha and Nihari coming for a princely sum of Rs13. If I really wanted to go overboard I could have ordered the Paya Nihari at Rs12 for half plate. Highly recommended.