| Message from Nagma M Mallick, High Commissioner of India to Brunei Darussalam |
THE city of Hyderabad in south-central India is famous for many things – the iconic 16th Century monument of Charminar, for being the seat of the Quli Qutb Shahi royal dynasty in the 15th and 16th centuries and then the capital of the Asaf Jahi dynasty in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries when the ruler was known as the Nizam and the State of Hyderabad was the largest princely state of British India.
It is also known for its unique and varied cuisine which was developed in the royal kitchens and in the kitchens of the aristocratic Paigah family, a scion of which built the celebrated Falaknuma Palace. Today, it is the capital of the state of Telengana, the 29th state of India, and is well-known for its Ramoji Film City, the Telugu film industry and as an IT hub.
Among the Muslim princely states of India there was always a degree of rivalry for the top spot between the cuisines of Hyderabad in the Deccan (as south-central India is called) and Avadh in north India. Both use the ‘dum’ style of cooking in which the meats and rice are cooked in the steam of their own juices, where the cooking dish is sealed and burning coal placed on its metal lid so that the dish is evenly cooked from the top and the bottom.
Hyderabadi food was distinct from all other cuisines, however, because it used local ingredients like coconut, peanuts, sesame seeds, tamarind and raw mango, which were not much used in north Indian cooking.
Like all Muslim cuisines, the maximum effort and care was devoted to perfecting meat-based dishes, usually goat. All the parts of the goat are used in different preparations – raan or the leg in grills or elaborate saalans or gravies, paya or the trotters in gravies simmered overnight, keema or mincemeat in kebabs like the shaami and seekh kebabs, all the organ meats in a popular stew called chakna.
Quails, partridges and wild fowls, or the hunt of the day, would typically be cooked in the royal kitchens of the old days: these have given way to simpler fare today. Their dals, or lentils, are justly famous – they cook khatti (sour) dal, meethi (sweet) dal, and dalcha (dal with mutton) often with tamarind.
The dalcha in Hyderabad has chickpeas cooked with tomatoes, meat, ash gourd and tamarind water, somewhat different from the dish of the same name in Brunei. An especially famous creation is the mirchon ka saalan, or large green chillies cooked in thick gravy of poppy seeds, coconut and peanut, tempered with mustard and cumin seeds.
There are also famous rice dishes – pulao and biryani, and breads like the naan. A celebrated dessert is the double ka meetha, a rich sweet in which slices of bread (colloquially called double roti in India, since it is leavened and rises to become double its original, unlike our flat roti!), are fried, milk and khoya, or wholemilk fudge, are spice-infused and cooked and poured over the bread and then garnished with nuts and saffron.
There are many other delicacies unique to Hyderabad all of which I cannot detail here!
It is our good fortune to welcome Chef Sanjay B Dasari, master chef of both Hyderabadi and Avadhi cooking, to Brunei for the Hyderabad in Brunei Food Festival and Handicrafts Bazaar. Chief Dasari has 22 years of experience as a senior chef with the India-wide Ashok chain of five-star hotels.
Currently, he heads the kitchen of the Ashok Hotel’s premier fine-dining restaurant ‘The Oudh’ in New Delhi which serves authentic Avadhi or Lucknowi cuisine. He has often catered for events hosted by our senior-most dignitaries and contributed to the success of Indian food festivals in South Africa, China, Lebanon, Colombia and Ecuador, to name a few. He will be assisted by Chef Tara Dutt Bhatt, demi chef de partie.
The Food Festival and Bazaar will be held today until March 25 at The Rizqun Coffee House, free to the public from 2.30pm today.
Hyderabadi handicrafts will be showcased during the event, such as hand-made stone-set bangles – a specialty of Hyderabad; bidriware – in which thin wires of metal are inlaid into another metal in exquisite designs and fashioned into boxes, jugs and decorative artefacts; pearl jewellery; Pochampally sarees – characteristic hand-woven zig-zagging designs, mostly on sensual silk and cool cotton; Mughal-style miniature paintings and hand-made wooden toys.
There will also be a live demonstration of the glass-blowing craft by artisans.