Keepers of the Tandoor Flame
The late food historian Deryck Roberts would spend many an evening with us at Thursday Food (always with an excellent bottle of red wine), arguing that our passion for Indian cuisine begins and ends with a plate of curry goat, roti and rice.
“Chicken Tikki Masala,” he chuckled, “would never become the national dish here in Jamaica.” That was almost a decade ago. In today’s cosmopolitan Kingston however, more people are turning up nightly for Northern Indian cuisine at the newly refurbished Akbar restaurant, and over on the north coast, both Passage to India and Akbar at Half Moon Shopping Village get rave reviews. So what is it that we like so much about plates like samosa – crisp patties filled with spices, peas and potatoes; bhindi masala – fresh okra with onions and spices; Navrattan Korma – choice vegetables in cream sauce; chann masala – chick peas in brown onion gravy; fish goa – fillet of fish in a sweet and sour sauce, and tandoori chicken – chicken, marinated, seasoned and roasted in the tandoor (the famous Mesquite charcoal-fired clay oven)? We posed the question to restaurateur Rajiv Bakshi.
“First things first, there’s no bottle or container of curry powder in any of our restaurants and if you ask for curry in India, you’ll get gravy,” shares Bakshi. “With that out of the way, we move on to the emphasis on fresh ingredients and the various spices that are mixed until the exact blend is found. The spices are in fact almost a trolleyfull of geera or cumin, dhania or whole coriander, garan masala, a mixture of nine spices, haldi (tumeric), cayenne, mustard seeds, black and green cardamon powder, cinnamon, bay leaves, sesame seeds and tumeric powder.
“These,” continues Bakshi, “as well as the chef’s touch are integral to Indian fare . I emphasise the touch of the chef to underscore the fact that our cuisine is not like preparing a good steak, where the finished product depends for the most part on the cut of meat chosen. In Indian food, our chefs are constantly tasting and touching . It’s almost ritualistic.”
It is indeed, with Emperor Akbar’s cultural influences always uppermost in the mind. “The tandoor oven was encouraged for use in India by the emperor,” continues Bakshi, “and has been popular in India since 1948, when a Kashmiri restaurant named Moti Mahal became a fashionable dining spot for politicians in New Delhi. The tandoor oven provides a healthy way of preparing meals. a combination of radiant heat and convection.”
This method of quick cooking/baking with indirect heat, where meats are cooked from skewers, ensures that both oils and fats are drained off in the oven and not absorbed in the food. Meats, we also glean, are marinated overnight in yoghurt that’s heavily spiced.
Rajni Sud, of the multi-award-winning Passage to India restaurant, where guests enjoy a credible culinary journey into mystical India – with palate ticklers like jumbo shrimp filled with crab meat, tandoori lamb chops, shahi portobello mushroom and chicken malai kebab and main courses of bhuna sanudri khazana (lobster, scallops, conch and shrimps), salmon fillet Madras, chicken tikka capsicum masala, Kashmiri gosht and keema curry – speaks to her initial challenges of educating her patrons. “People were aware of the cuisine but not too sure about the dishes. This afforded us an excellent opportunity to educate, inform and create a following.”
This they have successfully managed to do, particularly those vegetarians in search of visually exciting, tasty meals. Sud also speaks to the importance of herbs and spices, the blending of flavours, the aromas and the fact that meats are skinless and cooked in a clay oven on skewers.
And now that we are all truly ravenous, how about celebrating excellent Indian fare this Diwali weekend.