The most Delicious Dinner on Earth – A curry dinner of Nainital

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Among one of the most delicious dinners on earth is a dinner consisting of a curry of meat or chicken served with flat bread and a salad. Those who do not eat meat substitute it with paneer (a cheese that does not melt) or more simply peas and potatoes etc. Even when the main ingredient is meat, peas and potatoes may be added to the dish. It may be pointed out that when curry is mentioned here it does not refer to a dish made with curry powder as many do in the west, particularly North America but it is a dish with a sauce prepared from a mix of individual spices and herbs that usually include onions, garlic, tomatoes, ginger and cilantro added last as a garnish and a large variety of spices that includes cardamom, cloves, black pepper and cumin. In the richest of curries, some nuts such as cashew nuts and almond are added while cooking. Yoghurt is also used frequently in the preparation at the frying stage and at times fresh cream is added at the end  as garnish. In southern parts of South Asia, coconut is used and these nuts greatly enhance the taste and nutritional value of the dish.

The most delicious curries come from the northern part of South Asia. These achieved perfection during the prosperous Mughal era. Four cities had the best curries in Mogul and later periods – Lahore, Delhi, Agra and Lucknow, each with its own variation of the dish. When Nainital was established around the mid-nineteenth century, cooks were brought in from Delhi, Agra and Lucknow and the curry has since become a part of Nainital dinners. The destination was popular with both Europeans as well as Indian royalty who usually traveled with their cooks. Some of these cooks stayed back in European homes later and thus the best of Indian cooking traditions arrived in Naintal to supplement European style cooking.

In Naintal, the curry developed its own variation to suit British taste. One major change was that use of red chilies was reduced so that the curry was not as hot as it tends to be as one moves southwards from the Himalayas. The water used in the curry also contributes to its taste and the way the dish cooks. Since the water of Naintal is one of the sweetest, purest and most delicious in the world, the curry prepared with it is equally so. In my childhood it was prepared three or four days a week by our cook Hira Lal who had worked with a British Brigadier prior to 1950.

The favorite meat for the dish was the mountain goat reared on soft mountain grasses or when game was available, it was venison from the foot hills of Nainital. Chicken was expensive and the varieties available in early days were not very good as have been developed later in modern poultry farms. Hunting is now prohibited. Fish was never prepared as a curry as people of Bengal or Kerala in South Asia tend to do but was prepared as a roast or as the British fish and chips.

Why the Curry is liked so much?

A meat or vegetarian curry contains besides its protein content, a lot of onions, herbs and spices, clarified butter that add a variety of nutrients to the dish. Thus not only is a well made curry delicious, it is a complete meal in itself along with bread for carbohydrates and some salads that contain more nutrients, roughage and live enzymes. Thus a dinner of curry with bread with salad is a full and satisfying dinner. It is delicious if the curry is made well. However whenever a home has a large family or guests have been invited some other side dishes may be laid on the dinner table so that the offering looks more hospitable and none goes hungry. The most common side dishes are stir-fried seasonal vegetables, lentils and a mix of yoghurt with some added vegetable called a Raita.

The Best Bread with a curry

A variety of breads are prepared in different countries of the world with wheat but the best ones with a curry are flat bread such as Nan, a bread made in a clay oven called a tandoor, or unleavened bread roasted first on a flat iron plate then directly on fire. One may have noticed how breads in which wheat is roasted and hot is just lovely i.e. toast and butter. These breads, especially the Nan, cook and roast the wheat and are therefore delicious. the bread has to be hot because on cooling unleavened breads tend to become leathery from their gluten content.  However, while in a restaurant one may set up equipment for Nan or a tandoor it is tiresome to do so at home. The iron plate roasted flat bread called a roti is the common accompaniment at home. Butter or ghee is not added on this bread when eating with a curry since the curry dish is rich in clarified butter or ghee already. Similarly, pickles common with other meals are not eaten with a curry dinner because the curry itself is loaded with flavor that far exceeds that of any pickle.

Time Consuming

The initial frying of onions and spices for a curry may take anywhere from forty five minutes to an hour. If it is rushed on high heat, the onions do not disintegrate and dissolve in the sauce. The curry then does not taste good. This is followed by frying the meat or paneer and finally the dish simmers for about half an hour in a cup or two of water. In the days when cooks were at hand this time consuming process kept the cooks busy. Our own cook used to serve tea at four then go for shopping freshly butchered meat and other things. He would return at around five thirty and then after his own cup of tea and a couple of bidis (a tiny cigar like cigarette) would begin cooking so as to have dinner ready by eight. Nowadays, when cooks are not so easily affordable, some house wives have devised a short cut. They prepare the initial fry for a whole week in one go, divide it in portions and freeze it for use later. In our own home, we have found another short cut. We have found that some curries such as paneer and potatoes come out delicious with skipping the onions all together, and using instead just garlic and tomatoes in a mustard oil fry.

The interested reader may search the net for recipes of the right South Asian curry. The right recipes involve using a generous amount of finely chopped onions that are browned slowly in lots of clarified butter to begin with. A thumb rule that was used in our family was for a kilo of meat, a third of a kilo of clarified butter and six medium size onions. However because clarified butter is expensive, often Trans-fats were used as substitute but these latter are not healthy. The dish does not come out properly with most vegetable oils with the exception of mustard oil because the onions do not dissolve properly in the curry then.

http://www.angelagray.co.uk/recipe/naan-bread/