Sitting in Delhi, Eating in Madurai and Talking Khushboo Idlis with Dakshin's Custodian, Praveen Anand

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

FEW INDIANS have worked as hard as Praveen Anand, Brand Custodian of ITC's Dakshin restaurants (six, and counting!) and Executive Chef, Sheraton Park Hotel & Towers, Chennai, to document our country's rich culinary heritage and gastronomical traditions.

I've avoided so far the temptation of carrying my
picture with the celebrities I interview, but on this
occasion, my admiration for Chef Praveen Anand
got the better of me. We had breakfast together
at Baywatch, Sheraton New Delhi, Saket.

In the last 25 years that he has spent giving birth to and mothering Dakshin restaurants across the country, Anand has collected an encyclopedia of recipes and cooking secrets of communities as different as the Shivali Brahmins of Udupi, the Rajus of Andhra Pradesh, the Chettiars and the Ravuthar Muslims of Tamil Nadu, and the Mappilas of Kerala. This intellectual diligence driven by a  hunger for greater knowledge has made Dakshin a constantly evolving brand, so there's always an excitement about it, as I have learnt through the many food festivals that the one at Sheraton New Delhi, Saket, keeps organising from time to time.

In my view, Dakshin is India's most vibrant restaurant brand, which is why whenever I get a chance to dip into Chef Anand's knowledge bank, I leave everything at hand to be able to do so. That is exactly what I did when I got a call from Chef Anand, saying he was in the city for an inspection of the local Dakshin and a recce of the competition, which, I was shocked to learn, included Swagath, which is without doubt the most faux 'Madrasi' restaurant in the city.

Over a breakfast consisting of the most heart-warming podi dosai I have had in a long time, Chef Anand revealed the most interesting fact of his life. Immediately after school, he had got admission into a 'Triple Maths' honours course (Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Operations Research), but it was his desire to grow up outside the comfort zone of his home that made him opt study hotel management at IHM-Chennai. He chose it over an aeronautical engineering course (also in Chennai) just because it got over in three years, compared with the five of the competing option! It may not have been the most rational career choice, but we should be thankful for such irrationality, for we wouldn't have had a Chef Anand had he opted for aeronautical engineering!

Our conversation started with the irony of the temple town of Madurai having a robust tradition of liquor shops opening at 6 a.m., which was celebrated event by the ancient Pathupattu epic poem, Mathuraikkanci (composed sometime between 100 BCE and 100 CE), and the hearty non-vegetarian dishes developed at the city's famous messes, shacks and homes of the local Chettiar families. "It's a town that never sleeps," Anand said, "and you get awesome food 24 hours a day."

He mentioned a popular shack outside Madurai University, run entirely by women, "which serves dishes made with every part of a goat, including goat's blood." It is also in Madurai that Anand saw a karandi omelette being made by breaking eggs on a large wooden or aluminum ladle and then exposing the contents directly to a wooden fire. "The omelette comes out like a poori!" he said, going on thereafter to describe the kari dosai of the Konar Mess (originally for the cowherd community), which is actually an uttapam with a layer of curried mutton and diced onions. Another of Anand's Madurai discoveries was the Khushboo Idli (named after the unconventional Tamil cinema star), which is spongy because of the use of castor seeds. "Nothing has changed about Madurai since the time of Mathuraikkanci, which describes its 'world-famous fried foods' and 'wine shops with colourful buntings'," Anand said.

The conversation moved on to the kebabs of Thanjavur, whose recipes were meticulously recorded by the last ruler of what was then a Maratha principality, the enlightened Serfoji II (Sarbhoji Raja), in a cookbook titled Sarbendra Pakashastra. The recipes, according to Anand, had been translated from the original Marathi into Tamil and "putrid English", so he had to get a Maharashtrian chef to read the manuscript and ensure nothing got lost in translation. An interesting facet of the king's life, Anand said, was revealed not long ago by the founder of Sankara Nethralaya, Dr S.S. Badrinath. Serfoji II, apparently, was a qualified eye surgeon and would conduct cataract operations around his principality, paying his patients a small sum to help them during the time it took them to recover.

Anand's life is studded with such delicious discoveries, like when he stumbled upon recipes for unusual payasams made with garlic and Cape gooseberries (amla) in Ramachandra Naidu's Paka Shastra, a cookbook written in the 1890s and re-published on the occasion of King George V's visit to Madras in 1911-12. Anand mentioned how Naidu wrote about women increasingly having less time to devote to house work because of their changing role in society, which must have been a revolutionary statement to make in his time.

If Ramachandra Naidu led Anand to dishes whose existence he could never have imagined, a recipe book by a Marie Kolandaisamy and her mother, published in 1927, which he secured with a lot of effort, introduced him to Pondicherry's Tamil-French cuisine, with showpiece dishes such as the peppery manthakali (night shadow spinach) soup and prawns cooked with ice apple (or sugar palm) being added to his already crowded repertoire of culinary secrets. Pondicherry is the only place in India where seafood is cooked with fruits (and more than one type of fish or seafood are used together in curries). It is also the only enclave in the south where curry leaves aren't used, nor is cardamom, at least not in quantities acceptable to the Indian palate, obviously in deference to the French aversion to the spice.

You can never have enough of Chef Anand, for it takes just one conversation for you to go on a magic carpet tour across little known kitchens of the country. He said it was his dream to travel down the course of the Tamarabharani river, which flows across Tamil Nadu, to see what people ate on either of its banks. That one journey would reveal facets of the state in a way that no one has ever done before.

DINING OUT: The Many Kitchens of Delhi Make For A Dehlavi Treat at the Sheraton in Saket

QUICK BYTES

WHAT: Dehlavi Buffet

WHERE: Baywatch, Sheraton New Delhi Hotel, Saket

WHEN: Up to March 30 (dinner only)

DIAL: 011-42661122

PER PERSON (MINUS ALCOHOL): Rs 1,750+++

The Sarai ki Biryani, one of the go-to items
 on the Dehlavi buffet at Baywatch, is inspired
 by the food served at the city's historic sarais
to pilgrims and traders bound for distant lands

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

WHEN PEOPLE express surprise over Delhi's rise as the country's foodie capital, I wonder why.

The Capital has been blessed by a constant stream of settlers from around the world who have had a salutary influence on our constantly evolving palate -- from the Afghans and Turks belonging to the era when Delhi existed in settlements that flowered and faded away with dynasties in the area that now sprawls from Mehrauli to Shahpur Jat, to the Mughals, who developed their own composite culture and cuisine, and left behind an indelible mark on our heritage, and the Kayasthas, Banias, Anglo-Indians, Bengalis and Punjabis, who came at different points of time to serve the empires that ruled India from this imperial city or refugees escaping the Partition Holocaust.

Post-Independence, the Bengali migrants who settled in the EPDP Colony (now famous as Chittaranjan Park) created an ecosystem of sweet shops and street-side kiosks hawking delicacies from back home; Tamil settlers have made the city fall in love with idli-dosai-vada and filter coffee; political refugees and medical tourists from Afghanistan have created a market for Afghani restaurants, which stand out in the anonymous lanes of Hauz Rani next door to Saket; Europeans working outside embassies or doing business in the city have been providing patronage to trend-setting restaurants such as Diva, Tres and Chez Nini; and West Asian students are finding gastronomical solace at places such as Kunafa, which has the best baklava this side of Damascus, and the Select Citywalk doner kebab restaurant, Al Turka.

It is difficult for any restaurant to offer this vast repertoire in one buffet experience, but the Sheraton New Delhi Hotel at Saket has achieved it to an extent in its Dehlavi promotion, which will be on at Baywatch (dinner only) till March 31. It draws on the menu the hotel has been laying out at banquets -- at one marriage, 40 Dehlavi main course specialities were on offer, the result of two years of research into the cuisine. And by limiting the Dehlavi promotion's geography to the Walled City, Vipul Gupta, the young chef behind it, restricts the menu to a manageable mix of Mughlai, Kayastha, Rajasthani and Punjabi Khatri specialities.

Still, I would've loved to see the inclusion of some Anglo-Indian dishes -- after all, the nautch parties of the colourful Maratha nobleman Bara Hindu Rao, the flamboyant White Mughal and Delhi's Commissioner William Fraser and the Anglo-Indian mercenary, Colonel James Skinner, were as famous for their food as for their entertainment. I would have also loved to see Bengali mishti among the desserts (though the soft and syrupy jalebas are a treat for the senses!) as a tribute to Annapurna Sweets, which was opened in 1929 opposite the Fountain in Chandni Chowk by a Bengali family from Lahore.

This minor quibble aside, I was happy to see that the Sheraton kitchen had moved away from the predictable bedmi-aloo-plus-nihari routine, though the flip side of it is that there's little in the Dehlavi line-up for the vegetarians, except for the Bhatiyaron ki Daal, which benefits greatly from the chhaunk (tempering) of browned garlic and red chilli paste, and Kathal ka Korma.

My favourites were the melt-in-the-mouth, juicy gilafi seekh; shrimp goolar kebabs, which were of the size of playing marbles and exploded in the mouth, releasing a flood of flavours (unusually, these goolars aren't the standard round shaami kebab equivalents with figs inside); the aromatic shabdegh with mutton nalli (shanks), pasanda (escalopes) and a delicately spicy kofta -- an innovative combination of flavours and textures; and mahi badami kofte, my personal high point of the evening, because the dumplings of rohu (the South Asian carp) had slivers of almonds -- a memorable interplay of textures -- and came in a mustard-flavoured light gravy. These are gentle expressions of the creative impulses that keep talented chefs much sought after. At the end of the day, it's all about balance. The more you have it, the better the food gets.

THE GOOD CHEF: Custodian of Delhi's Dakshin is an Encyclopedia of Southern Gastronomy

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

Dakshin's Chef Velumurugan
Paul Raj lets his cooking speak
more eloquently than his words,
but that doesn't stop him from
constantly digging deeper to
 know more about the south's
numerous kitchens

I HAVE been having food cooked by Velumurugan Paul Raj at my favourite Dakshin for many years, so when Anchal Ghosh, the EDM-loving PR of the Sheraton New Delhi, extended me an invitation to sample the Mudaliar spread laid out by the restaurant last week, I jumped at the opportunity because it meant meeting the soft-spoken chef with a childlike smile who lets his cooking speak more eloquently than his words.

In the past, I had written about Mudaliar cuisine -- a culinary tradition developed by an essentially vegetarian community that started out as pioneering agriculturists in the time of the early Cholas -- so I needed another angle to my story to get me interested in it. I chose to use the opportunity to reflect on the man who started out as the understudy of Master Chef C.B. Shankaran and then made Dakshin the go-to restaurant for a pan-South Indian fine-dining experience.

What I love about Dakshin is the consistency of the quality of its offerings -- from the Iyer's Trolley, which is famous for its banana-flavoured mini dosais and the addictive kuzhi paniyarams, to the metre coffee at the end -- and its many festivals, which take us into parts and communities of the south that we never knew existed. For the Mudaliar Samayal Pandiga, for instance, Velu's team produced a divine Chow Chow Curry that I almost licked off the serving bowl. Chow chow, also known as chayote, is a humble vegetable of South American origin that is quite a favourite in Tamil Nadu. The Vazhaipoo Thattai, vadas made of yam, coconut, green chillies and aniseed, also left an indelible impression on my palate. If these preparations made with everyday vegetables and tubers can grab your attention because of the efflorescence of flavours on the palate, then there has to be something right about Dakshin.

Like most Mudaliars, who are now divided into 26 sub-castes spread across Sri Lanka and South-East Asia, Velu comes from a family of farmers. His father, grandfather, great-grandfather and their forefathers have all been farmers, originally from Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, although his family moved to Kerala. Just one member of his extended family, an uncle, has been in the hospitality business for more than 40 years -- he owns one- and two-star hotels in and around Kochi -- and it is his advice that Velu keeps remembering: "In our business, your happiness depends entirely on the happiness of others."

Velu continues to be connected with the soil, helping his father whenever he can to nurture their five-acre farm near Munnar, Kerala, where they grow 'exotic fruits' such as sharifa (custard apple). His umbilical connection with the soil is taking him to the Servarayan Hills, a detached range that straddles nearly 400 sq. km. near the Tamil Nadu town of Salem. Famous for its old coffee estates and the orchidarium run by the Botanical Survey of India, as well as the hill station of Yercaud, Servarayan beckons Velu, despite its difficult terrain and troublesome leeches, because of the prospects it holds out for the discovery of wild mushrooms and root vegetables that can bring a whiff of novelty to the Dakshin menu. This urge for discovery is a trait that Velu has clearly imbibed from Dakshin's brand custodian and brilliant chef, Praveen Swamy, who has not only made the world aware of the many variations of a cuisine that we lump under the umbrella term 'South Indian', but also recovered the lost recipes of the Chola, Chola and Pandya kingdoms.

Velu launched his career 20 years ago at the Southern Spice restaurant in Taj Coromandel, Chennai. He joined Dakshin in 2003 and has 40 food promotions behind him. His work has taken him to various places in the south, but the experience that left a lasting impression on his was his stint at Mangalore, where he got an opportunity to dig deeper into the area's distinctive cuisine and the famous vegetarian fare of Udupi's maths (I first got to know him, in fact, when he organised an Udupi food promotion at Dakshin many years ago). He has even been to Russia, where he mastered the art of cooking horse meat,  a skill he hasn't been able to put to good use after his return to India, but give him fish curry and rice and you'll see break into his infectious smile.

I asked Velu what his forefathers ate and he said their staple, especially during the blazing summer months, was cold fermented rice (it reminded me of the Bengali paanta bhaat) served with sun-dried red chillies and vegetables such as butter beans, black eyed peas (lobia), okra, cluster beans (gawar phali) and brinjal. Why are Mudaliars so partial to sun-dried foodstuff (they even have dried seafood)? Velu said it was purely a response to the harsh weather that made it impossible for fresh vegetables to grow in most months of the year.

Modern storage and transportation methods may have changed the way people eat, but the Mudaliars haven't given up their love for dried vegetables. Incidentally, Mudaliars even cook fish -- surmai (king fish) and snakehead fish or murrel (viral meen in Tamil) are their favourites -- with vegetables, mainly okra and drumsticks. The community's agrarian and vegetarian roots keep showing up in its cuisine, but their marriages feasts are the stuff of legends, for it is at these events that the Mudaliar repertoire of spices -- nutmeg (jaiphal), star anise (chakra phool), mace (javitri), clove (laung), cinnamon (dalchini) and green cardamom (chhoti elaichi) -- find their true expressions.

It takes only a couple of hours with Velu to have a good meal and come back with a large helping of food for thought. He is Delhi's walking encyclopedia on the south's numerous kitchens, each churning out secrets that need a master to decode and share with the world.