notes from a fort

I am sitting here waiting for my order to arrive: slow cooked chicken marinaded all night long in curd and tossed into a bowl of warm rice and served with the leg sticking out. It arrives in a copper bottomed vessel, I take a swoop of rice, tear a piece of chicken from the bone and mix it with the Mirchi Ka Salan tasting its dry peanut taste over the spices taking care never to wash it down with cool drinks. No, for the Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani, its just ice cold water sweating it out on the table.  

I can never hurry through a Biryani. Perhaps its the effect of reading, years before, of the soldier's meal. During those days when wars were separated by yawning days of long marches, waiting for the enemy to make the first move or laying siege to an unfortunate citadel, the troops carried with them large cauldrons simmering with slow cooked biryani. If it was the traditional dum style, for we can never be sure of this, the cauldrons must have been sealed shut by large rings of dough. Under this dome was piled alternatively a layer of meat followed by a layer of rice half boiled in saffron infused water, until it touched the top. The cauldrons could never be heated directly because too much heat could burn away the subtle infusions, they were inturn placed in larger vessels. If the army was on move, this entire contraption was placed on an elephants back.

I pour out a little bit of the raita in my plate and let the rice soak it in. The curd in the raita cuts the sharpness of the spices. For folks with less sturdy bellies I have often recommended this way of enjoying a Biryani. However, I would never visit any over ethusiastic restaurant that was easy on spices in the Biryani. That’s often the case in places that serve westners: as if that race of mankind ever spiced up their cheese burger for a visiting Indian in Dallas. We need no apologies, neither does our food. 

Perhpas the authentic hyderabadi biryani is long lost. But if it isnt, it is hiding somewhere in the old city where I have tasted the Biryani of the nawabs. In it is the right balance between spice and moderation that could never have been a sell out. Perhaps a legacy of the Bidari Bahamanis or the Bijapuri Sultans whose fat portraits can be understood by the Biryani, or may be the pakwaan from the house of one of those 10,000 courtesans who apparently dotted Qutub shahi Hyderabad. In the old city the Biryani must never be had without this inquisitiveness. 

The one I am having in Paradise is a product of Secunderabad. There is the taste of the working class, rice more plain at top and the mix stronger at the bottom. I am here for nostalgic reasons but if you accuse it of being the McDonalds of Biryani, good but impersonal, I'll have to agree. But hell... is it good!  The other representation of this kind is at Bawarchi, Biryani made purely for lust - with too much rice and too strong a mix. This is the Biryani for adolescents. 

Its tough to be away from this taste. Once on a visit to New Jersey I was told of a "Paradise" there that sold Hyderabadi Biryani. Its my experience of a mirage in the desert. I should have known what to expect when I saw Amitabh Bachchan and Tabu argue about Cheeni in Asli Hyderabadi Zafrani Biryani. Either I have never had biryani properly or the taste of sugar is so faint that only a masterchef and his girlfriend can zero in on an argument about it.

Its done now. In tough times of choice I have defined a good Hyderabadi Biryani as one that finishes just ahead of your appetite. The slender chicken bones must be cleaned of meat, the Mirchi Ka Salan squeezed out and the bowl of rice double checked for remnants. That is when you have done good by the Biryani.