A Western Disturbance and a Winter Lunch at Khan Hotel, Old Delhi

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As the temperatures rise and Delhi-ites rush to get their ACs serviced and start to dread the long, sweaty slog ahead, we have been granted a few days’ reprieve in the shape of unseasonal chilly squalls.  This, we are informed by every daily newspaper,  is thanks to the ‘Western Disturbance’,  a term used in this part of the world to describe a sudden cold snap caused by extratropical storms in the Mediterranean.

The cold winds and swirling leaves are making  me think back to some of the lovely book-related  Old Delhi outings  of the past few months that I never got round to blogging about.  Winter is such a great time for Old Delhi pottering, when the city is  warm and cheering  rather than exhaustingly hot.

Back in January, for instance, on the day of the Lohri , I went for a stroll in the area which specialises in gajjak – a jaggery/nut brittle  eaten and gifted during this winter harvest festival. The gajjak shops turned out to be not too far from Chawri Bazaar metro towards the Khari Baoli end of Lal Kuan, and seemed to  envelop the area in a tantalising nutty, jaggery aroma.

In Frashkhana, there was a cluster of shops overflowing with nutty delights and doing a roaring trade.  It was a street I hadn’t explored before and  was keen to keep going but Rahul my rickshaw driver stopped after about 100 yards and said it wasn’t safe to go any further as the end of the gully marked the beginning of G.B. Road, Old Delhi’s red light district.

I wanted to linger, though. Luckily I spotted a busy food stall snuggled up to an old Mughal archway. Bathed in the soft winter sun, Khan Hotel was crowded with workers in their cosy woollen tank tops, an old man was making bread and all seemed well with the world.

The shop’s young proprietor, Chaman Khan, looked astonished  when I strolled up and ordered a plate of mutton and potato – I suppose not many foreigners stray into these parts.  One of the workers ushered me to a bench in the gully under the arch where I sat and dipped my fresh tandoori roti into the gravy, studiously ignoring Rahul’s rising twitchiness. The meal was simple and homely with none of Old Delhi’s signature spicy pyrotechnics –  also on offer was potato and spinach and dal, each served with the freshest of bread for 20 rupees a go.

Eventually, I gave in to Rahul’s constant reminders that this was not a good area and got back on the rickshaw.  Returning via Lal Kuan, we stopped at Lal Ramkrishan Das and Sons where a huge crowd was blocking out a beautiful display of gajjak. I sampled a few – a perfect chaser to the savoury meat – then watched sugar being spun at the back of the shop. (unfortunately I’ve managed to delete a video I made of this!)

Just looking at these photos makes me feel winter is already a distant memory but if the Western Disturbance troubles us for just a little bit longer, we can enjoy a few more leisurely Old Delhi strolls.

Khan Hotel, about fifty yards up on the right of Frashkhana coming from Lal Kuan

Lal Ramkrishan Das and Sons, gajjak shop, on Lal Kuan next to the opening for Rodgran Gali 

Say it with Cardamom and Orange White Chocolate Truffles

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Multi-hued: Truffles are quick to make and make for a beautiful gift. Photo by Priyanka Parashar/Mint

 

 

 

 

 

Priyanka Parashar/Mint.

For someone with a terrible sweet tooth, I’m unusually restrained when it comes to chocolate.  The previous two recipes, for choc chip cookies and chocolate éclairs, are pretty much how I like my chocolate baking, that is, as a highlight rather than a principal ingredient. If I’m honest, I usually find things like chocolate brownies and chocolate cake just too overpoweringly chocolatey.

Occasionally, though, nothing but a full-on chocolate hit will do and while I love all the artisan, high-percentage cocoa solid varieties, I also have a weakness for things like Mars and Snickers which are more sugar and fat than chocolate. I’m also particularly partial to white chocolate which, strictly speaking, is not really chocolate at all as it contains no cocoa solids, only cocoa butter and milk solids. It does, though, make beautiful truffles and these Cardamom and Orange White Chocolate Truffles would be a particularly gorgeous Valentine’s Day gesture.

There are two types of truffle—one made with egg yolks, another that only uses chocolate and cream. I decided to do the egg-free kind but this was the first time I’d made them and I quickly realized that you can’t substitute white chocolate in a dark chocolate truffle recipe. You need a lot less cream with white chocolate, otherwise the mixture won’t set enough to mould—and I have several bowls of Cardamom and Orange White Chocolate Sauce in my fridge to prove it.

Once you know that (and you do now, so no excuse) they’re quick to make, look beautiful boxed for a present and, most importantly, they taste wanton and voluptuous, just the right side of schmaltzy and sickly sweet. A bit like Valentine’s Day itself.

Valentine’s Day Cardamom and Orange White Chocolate Truffles

Makes 12-15

Ingredients

150g good-quality white chocolate (not cooking chocolate—this is for your loved one after all!)

85ml whipping cream

Zest of 1/2 orange, very finely grated

1/4 tsp cardamom seeds, freshly ground

Sieved icing sugar or cocoa powder to coat the truffles

Method

 Step by Step guide to making truffles

Chop the chocolate into small pieces, then blitz in a food processor.

Put the cream, cardamom and orange zest in a small pan and bring to a boil. Immediately pour the cream on to the chocolate and blitz the mixture until it’s smooth and all the chocolate has melted. Pour the truffle mixture into a shallow dish and chill for an hour or so.

Handling the truffles needs to be done as quickly and coolly as possible—this is definitely not a hot-weather job. Run your hands under the cold tap for a minute to cool them down. Dust your hands with either the cocoa powder or icing sugar, depending on which you’re using. Use a small teaspoon to take out a cape gooseberry-sized chunk of the mixture. If it’s too soft to handle, return to the fridge for another hour. Roll the mixture quickly (or it will melt) between your hands, then roll each truffle again in either the cocoa or icing sugar. You could also roll them in melted white chocolate but you have to work quickly and make sure the mixture is very cold. Finely chopped pistachios and desiccated coconut also make pretty coatings for truffles.

Place each truffle in a small paper case, then keep in the fridge till needed. Truffles will keep happily in the fridge for about three days.

 

Easy Chocolate Eclairs

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I always assumed it would be impossible to replicate chocolate éclairs at home and even if you could—well, imagine being able to conjure up éclairs whenever you felt like it—that way lies ruin. But having promised  a pro-chocolate drive, I decided to have a go. Selfless, I know.

Finger-licking: A perfect batch of home-made éclairs needs a bit of practice and lots of patience.

Priyanka Parashar/Mint

 

 

 

 

I started by consulting Raymond Blanc, a French chef, and Delia Smith, an English cook and television presenter, hoping that somewhere between the two extremes there would be a middle way to choux perfection. In the end, I had to make five batches and call on chef and author Rachel Allen and Larousse Gastronomique before I had anything approaching an éclair. The first, Delia-inspired batch was just downright flat and soggy inside and out, Allen’s and Blanc’s were like a pile of crazy paving, with deep cracks all over the surface but still soggy inside. It wasn’t until I consulted the Gallic aloofness ofLarousse and pastry chef friend Susan Jung (yes, she of the amazing curry puffs) that things started to look up.

Larousse specifies more water and eggs than other recipes, but it was the one that worked best for me so my recipe is loosely based on theirs. Susan pointed out that choux is unlike other types of pastry, in that it is made from a wet flour and water paste which has to be lightened with egg to make the pastry puff up in the oven. The most important stage, she advises, is the adding of eggs to the mixture—the paste has to be gently cooked first to dry out slightly to enable as much egg as possible to be incorporated.

Part of the problem, as always, had to do with the vagaries of my oven, which I suspect is a problem for many aspiring bakers in India, so I’m giving precise instructions for times and temperatures.

As I say, fifth-time lucky. My son and I managed to eat about 20 each and stash away 40 in the freezer. I leave it to you to decide how lucky that’s going to be.

Chocolate Éclairs

Makes about 20 finger-length éclairs

Ingredients

For the choux pastry

125ml water

35g butter, cut into cubes

1 tsp caster sugar

65g flour (maida)

2 eggs, well beaten

For the filling

Whipped double cream

For the icing

180g icing sugar

2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

2-3 tbsp boiling water

Method

To make éclair shapes, you will need a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain nozzle. If you don’t have a piping bag, make little choux buns instead and use a tablespoon to pile the pastry on to the baking sheet.

Grease a large baking sheet and preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius.

Put the water, sugar and butter into a large pan. Heat gently until the butter melts, then bring to a boil. Immediately take the pan off the heat to stop the water evaporating.

Quickly pour the flour into the liquid and mix well with a wooden spoon. Put the pan back on low heat and cook the paste for a minute or so until the mixture comes away from the sides of the pan.

Take the pan off the heat and let it cool for a minute. Add a small amount of egg and beat until completely incorporated in the mixture. Continue to add and mix small amounts of egg, beating well each time until the mixture is soft and glossy. Don’t let the mixture become too runny—you may not need all the egg.

Spoon the paste into a piping bag (or use a tablespoon) and pipe 4cm strips, widely spaced (they will puff up in the oven) on to the greased baking sheet.

Place the baking sheet into the oven for 10 minutes. I use an electric stand-alone oven that has top and bottom heating elements. For the first 10 minutes, I baked the éclairs with both elements on. Then I reduced the temperature to 200 degrees Celsius for 5 minutes with both elements on. To finish, I switched off the top element for a further 5 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius to make sure the insides were cooked but the tops didn’t burn.

Take the by now beautifully puffed up and golden éclairs out of the oven and immediately split them down one side to let out the steam and leave to cool on a baking rack.

Make the icing by sifting together the icing sugar and cocoa powder, then adding enough boiling water to make a not-too-runny paste.

When the éclairs are cool, fill the centres with the whipped cream and either pipe or carefully spoon the icing on top. Neaten the icing by dipping a metal knife into a cup of boiling water and using it to smoothen the surface.

Choc Chip Cookies

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Quick fix: Bake cookies for choco emergencies.

Priyanka Parashar/Mint

I’ve been depriving Lounge readers in the most heinous way and it’s time to make amends.

As part of the whole taking stock and moving forward process required at the turn of the year, I was looking back at the recipes I’ve done over the last year or so and to my astonishment discovered that only one of them is remotely in the chocolate category. Even then the Chocolate and Cherry Muffins were egg-free, so they hardly count as full-blown chocy wantonness.Inexcusable, I know, and I can’t really account for it except to acknowledge that my baking with fruit tendencies have got way out of hand. By way of an apology, and in the spirit of a fresh start, my New Year’s resolution is to step away from the cape gooseberries and lavish you with chocolate.

We’re going to limber up with everyone’s favourite, choc chip cookies. Like many bakers I’ve had my share of choc chip disappointment—too hard, too dry, too sweet. Trial and error brought me to this recipe, a simple one but so good it has been pinned to my fridge for years now. It’s what we make in our house when sweet/chocolate cravings have to be staunched quickly. They take about 5 minutes to make, 10 to bake before reaching biscuit perfection: crispy around the edges and chewy in the middle. Warm from the oven and savoured with a glass of cold milk, you’ll be in choc-chip heaven. Nothing you buy will ever come close.

The recipe, of course, is merely a template to be adapted at will. For emergencies, I keep a pack of chocolate chips to hand but it’s best to use a good-quality chocolate (anything with more than 70% cocoa content). My current passion is a milk chocolate bar (which ordinarily would be against the rules) containing chunks of almond brittle. Chewy, crispy, buttery, caramelized, nutty and above all CHOCOLATEY perfection. So good.

Here’s to a choc-tastic 2012!

A word about size: It isn’t everything. In the choc chip cookie stakes, less is definitely more. No one needs a 12-inch cookie—I guarantee you’ll be bored to death of it by the fifth bite, so don’t be tempted.

Choc chip cookies

Makes about 16-20

Ingredients

125g salted butter

75g Demerara sugar

75g caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g flour (maida)

1/2 tsp baking powder

100g chocolate (chips or a bar of good-quality chocolate chopped into small chunks)

Method

You will need a large, greased baking tray.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Begin by melting the butter in a small pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the butter and two types of sugar. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat again.

Sift in the flour and baking powder and stir until all the ingredients are combined. Finally stir in the chocolate.

At this point, you could chill the cookie dough until ready to bake the cookies. Usually though, I’m responding to an urgent chocolate/cookie need so I make them straightaway. Spoon dessert-sized spoonfuls on to the baking tray. A little irregularity is no bad thing with home-made cookies but if you’re a neat freak, roll the dough into balls somewhere between the size of a walnut and a golf ball. Make sure they’re spaced well apart because the cookies spread a lot during baking.

Bake in the centre of the oven for about 10 minutes. If you like a crispy edge and chewy centre, take the tray out when the edges are lightly browned. If you like a crispier cookie, leave them in for a few more minutes. But watch them carefully, they burn quickly.

Note: I use a large stand-alone electric oven for most of my baking. For this recipe, I switched on both top and bottom elements and the cookies baked in about 7 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

Delhi: Colder Than Dumfries

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Our son has just returned to college in Dumfries where it’s generally bloody freezing, even in summer so we were surprised to compare notes with him yesterday to find he’s enjoying temperatures about 10 degrees higher than Delhi.

I took these pictures this morning  as Dean and I shivered our way round Lodhi Gardens with the dogs – atmospheric but decidedly nippy.

A Recipe for Cape Gooseberry Tarte Tatin

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[first published in Mint Lounge on December 17th]

My love of the cape gooseberry, rasbhari, physalis or sometimes “Chinese lantern”, knows no bounds. Every year at this time I can never quite get over seeing in abundance a fruit which at home is bought by the handful rather than the kilo. As well as being the most cheerful-looking of fruits, cape gooseberries are perfect for baking and I always have more ideas for recipes than I have time to make.

French connection: Gooseberries lend a welcome piquancy to desserts. Divya Babu/Mint.

Divya Babu/Mint

Like old-fashioned varieties of apple and the green English gooseberry, they lend a welcome tartness to otherwise over-sweet desserts. They’re perfect for all sorts of puddings, pies, crumbles, fools and compotes. In fact one of my end-of-year rituals is making a batch of Cape Gooseberry jam as the ultimate topping for morning toast.

Today, though, we’re letting them loose on the tarte Tatin, named after the Tatin sisters, who ran a hotel-restaurant in Lamotte-Beuvron, France, at the beginning of the 20th century. The original was a tart of caramelized apples cooked under a pastry lid, then flipped over so that the pastry is on the bottom and fruit on top, then served with lashings of crème fraîche. For some reason, in our house, my husband holds the tarte Tatin portfolio—I’ve never actually made one.

I always assumed they were a major French faff (perhaps that’s what my husband would like me to think!); in fact nothing could be easier—the only thing that requires some effort is the pastry but you can even use a ready-made puff pastry for the least strenuous dessert imaginable.

Cape Gooseberry tarte Tatin

Serves 6

Ingredients

Pastry

170g cold unsalted butter, chopped into small pieces

250g flour (maida)

A pinch of salt

3 tbsp caster sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tbsp orange flower water or cold water

Cape gooseberries

400g cape gooseberries, paper casings removed and washed

100g caster sugar

60g unsalted butter

1 vanilla pod

Method

You will need a 20-23cm tin or dish that is happy both on the stove and in the oven.

To make the pastry, sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the butter and rub into the flour with fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, then add the egg yolks and orange flower water. Stir to bring the mixture together. If it is still dry and crumbly, add a little water, but don’t let the pastry get sticky. Knead the pastry gently to form a ball, cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

In the oven-proof and flameproof shallow tin, melt the butter and sugar. Split the vanilla pod in half lengthways and scrape the seeds into the tin. Tip the cape gooseberries in and coat with the caramel. Make sure you use enough fruit so it’s tightly packed on the bottom of the tin—this will improve the appearance of the finished tart. Let the fruit cook for a few minutes to release some of its juice into the caramel. Then let the caramel bubble long enough to thicken, a couple of minutes—stop before the fruit darkens or gets soggy. Take off the heat and leave to cool.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Lightly flour a work surface and roll out the pastry to a little larger than the tin. Carefully lift the pastry and place on top of the fruit. Press the edges down to encase the fruit.

Bake the tart for about 30 minutes until the pastry is nice and brown.

Let the tart cool for a minute or two, then take a plate that is larger than the tin and place it face down over the tart. Carefully flip the tart on to the plate and remove the tin. The cape gooseberries should now have formed a wonderfully sunny, caramelized topping. If any of the cape gooseberries has rolled out of position, just push it back so that the fruit is evenly distributed over the pastry.

Serve warm with crème fraîche.


Previous Lounge columns

Gulabi Chikki – Coming Up Roses In 2012

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Happy New Year everyone - wishing you all great things in 2012! One  of my wishes for the year ahead is  to spend more time here on my poor neglected blog. Thank you to everyone who wrote to find out if I’d dropped off the face of the earth – I really appreciate all your messages.

The truth is, I wouldn’t let myself do any blogging until I’d made some serious headway with the book.  I spent most of the autumn in Old Delhi, taking part in all the festivals, soaking everything up and filling dozens of notebooks but as soon as Diwali was over I knew I had to just sit down and try to make sense of it all. For a while I seriously doubted I could do it (I still have my doubts actually).  How could I possibly do justice to my beloved Old Delhi? How would I ever get beyond my journalist’s comfort zone of 1500 words?  Was my spine , and sanity, going to survive sitting at a desk for months on end?

Eventually I gave myself a good talking to,   strapped myself to a chair, switched off the internet and vowed to do no blogging or  excursions to Old Delhi until  I’d made significant progress.  It worked, sort of, and  it was a massive relief when  I sent off the first chapter a day before Charlie arrived back for the Christmas holidays.  Baby steps, but still an achievement.

My back’s still killing me but at least I’d earned a trip to Old Delhi. So last Friday, Dean and I left the kids sprawling on the sofa and headed out into the chilly morning. When we  arrived  in Chawri Bazaar  the streets were still thick with cold winter fog so we decided to warm up in Standard Sweets, a few steps from the Metro station.   We ordered two plates of Chhole Puri, a soft and comforting chick pea dish served with piping hot deep fried breads.  The Standard version of  this ubiquitous Delhi  dish is the addition of   potato, paneer and an extremely tasty kofta (a creamy vegetable dumpling).  We parked ourselves at a table to watch the shop and street get ready for the day.  A huge platter of carrot halwa was set on a stove to keep warm while young men in mufflers trooped in bearing trays of freshly made samosas and balushahi. Our breakfast, washed down with sweet spicy chai was delicious – I particularly enjoyed the kofta.  All round, a perfect winter warmer. From Standard Sweets we decided to wander through  Gali Peepal Mahadev where several temples were doing a brisk trade in early morning pujas.  Here, on the left,  we spotted the young owner of Standard Sweets making his offerings

We came across  an embroidery workshop and a dyeing shop

From Ballimaran we headed towards Kinari Bazaar and found a Daulat ki Chaat vendor.

I say ‘found’ but they’re not exactly difficult to come by these days.  Has anyone else noticed the multiplying of  Daulat ki Chaat wallahs in Old Delhi this year?  A happy renaissance to be sure but I’ve noticed some of them, particularly those clustered round Chawri Bazaar metro station,  taste a bit synthetic – cutting corners perhaps? The one we ate in Kinari Bazaar, however, was top notch.  The vendor, a serious young man in a Nehru waistcoat, was almost hidden from view in a side lane.  He took great pains to make sure each plate was just so, waited for us to finish then folded up his stand, put the platter on his head and disappeared into the main bazaar.

Dean stopped for a haircut, which as cruel friends have pointed out, never takes that long

From Kinari Bazaar we turned into Paranthe Wali Gali, not for paranthe but for sweets at Kanwarji which is at the end of the street on the corner with Chandni Chowk. Here I bought the beautiful rose chikki you can see at the top of this post. Chikki are like  nut brittle –  usually  nuts, seeds or puffed rice set in sugar or jaggery.  In the winter months, when the roses are at their best in India, the sweet shops sometimes add rose petals to their chikki.  Delicately rose-flavoured and beautiful to look at, they made the prettiest of new year gifts.

We also popped into the historic Ghantewala sweet shop a few doors up on Chandni Chowk to try their Habshi Halwa, a dark sugary, nutty, spicy sweet which, it turns out, both looks and tastes like Christmas pudding.

Then, just as we were about to head home, we decided to  take a peek in one of the lanes between Chandni Chowk and Kinari Bazaar. And in that little detour  we found  this lovely little place;

this young man with his thriving knife-sharpening business. Can you see the sparks flying from the scissors he’s sharpening on a stone that he’s turning by pedal power?

an old abandoned desk;

and a happy doggy  soaking up the winter sun…

It’s not just the food of Old Delhi  I’ve missed over the past few weeks, I’ve also missed  these endless discoveries.  It doesn’t matter how often I go to Old Delhi there’s always something I haven’t seen before; a doorway, a clock, a shaft of light, someone making something or fixing something, the boy with one blind eye  watching the crazy foreigner have his hair clipped.

Here’s to a year of discovery!


View Larger Map

Standard Sweets, Gali Hakim Baqa. From Chawri Bazaar metro station   turn into Chawri Bazaar and take the first little turning on the left and you’ll see the shop on the left.

Ashtami Celebrations in Sadar Bazaar

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I’ve said this before (many times) but I’m going to say it again anyway:  I never cease to be amazed by the extraordinary kindness of people in India and the everyday  willingness of complete strangers to open their hearts,  homes and recipe books to me – particularly in Old Delhi.

On Tuesday Dean and I  were extremely  touched to be invited to an intimate family Navratra celebration.  At the home of the Arora family (Amit and his mother Kamlesh) in Old Delhi, a world away from the mayhem of the Durga Puja pandals,  we took part in a quiet and dignified Ashtami Puja.

Ashtami is celebrated on the 8th day of Navratra and is a moment many families hold a special ceremony to offer prayers to the Mother Goddess or Durga/Kali. For the Aroras, Ashtami is a particularly poignant time because it is a time memories of Amit’s father Ashok (of Ashok and Ashok fame) who died suddenly in 1997, come flooding back.

As in Ashok’s day, nine little girls  from the neighbourhood are invited in to represent devi, or goddesses.

4 beautiful goddesses: Moni, Seema, Nandini, Kajal

My devi of the day: Moni

The girls, some as young as 2, all sit perfectly still throughout the proceedings. First, Vijender, from the local temple, lays out offerings for Durga: coconut, almonds, sugar, walnuts, almonds, raisins, burfi and puris topped with chick peas and halwa.

Kamlesh leads the puja, emotional as she remembers her husband, a picture of whom can be seen in the shrine. In his day, Amit tells us later, everyone was invited and his father  used to take Polaroid pictures of everyone to hand out.

When the prayers are finished, and Dean and I have taken a turn at offering prayers,  Kamlesh gets to work in the kitchen, frying up mountains of puris.

As the room fills with the smell of ghee and incense, Amit ties sacred threads round each child’s wrist.

Tying the scared threads

The devi are then served their food.  On Ashtami it’s traditional to eat chole, (spiced chick peas), sooji halwa, (semolina halwa) and freshly fried puris (puffed, deep fried bread). The food looks  and smells wonderful but it’s our turn to be patient as we watch the devi devour their food.

Where are my puris?

Soon the plates are clean  and the girls revert to being a little less heavenly. Perhaps  they’ve been on best behaviour too long or  a sugar rush from the halwa suddenly kicks in but when they realize Amit has a stash of  chocolate and crisps a stampede ensues.

When the snack supplies and 20 rupee notes have been exhausted, the children clatter off down the stairs leaving us to savour our own plates of Ashtami food.

In the Hindu calendar, this is the time of year blessings are bestowed and counted. As I walk slowly back through Sadar Bazaar, Khari Baoli and Lal Kuan I marvel for the millionth time at  the great good fortune that brought me to India then led me to Old Delhi.

Ananda Mela or The Gorging Puja

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The festival season is well under way here in Delhi and with so many celebrations overlapping and coinciding, it can be tough to keep up. I’m doing my best – for my book, I’m trying to make sure I  at least catch everything in the Old Delhi calendar – but sometimes it’s hard to know what’s happening when.

So if there’s anything you think I might miss, please drop me a line – for example I hadn’t realised that  the Bengali festival of Durga Puja was celebrated in Old Delhi until new Bengali friend Surya took me in hand.

delhi durga puja samiti

It turns out the Kashmere Gate Durga Puja (also known as the Delhi Durga Puja Samiti) is in fact Delhi’s oldest, dating back to the time many Bengalis came to Delhi to work for the British when the government moved from Calcutta.  In the early days, the Puja was held in the heart of Old Delhi in Nai Sarak, then Fatehpuri.

The Puja’s new home is the Bengali Secondary School on Alipur Road and last night Surya, her husband Sean and I met at Civil Lines metro to check it out. As I frequently find myself lost in Hindu traditions and rituals, Surya first of all sat me down to explain some of the Durga essentials, calling her Mum in Siliguri a couple of times for clarification.

Durga Puja coincides with Navratra, which began last Wednesday, and both are linked to the start of winter and harvest time.   Navratri, which literally means ‘nine nights’, a nine day fasting period for Hindus,  is observed several times a year but the most significant is the Maha Navratra (‘Great Navratra’)  at the beginning of autumn.

The Goddess arrives on an elephant, leaves on a palanquin

The dates of Bengali festivals and pujas are determined by the annual Panjika almanac, compiled by astrologers and priests; it also determines auspicious days for weddings, business ventures etc. according to the lunar cycle.  The Panjika also details how Durga, along with her children Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesh, and Kartik will arrive,  by  horse, palanquin, boat etc.   If she arrives by elephant, as she did this time, it’s going to be a good year ahead. Although not such good news for her departure:  she’s leaving on a palanquin, signifying epidemic.

The Kashmere Gate Durga Puja is a traditional and low-key affair compared to many in Calcutta:  the Goddess was radiant without being too flashy and the music was ‘Rabindro Sangeet’, the beautiful music and words written by Rabindranath Tagore; songs of ‘love and revolution’ according to Surya. Today is the start of three days of religious rituals then Durga’s earthly visit will be over for another year and she’ll go back to heaven via an immersion  in the Yamuna river on Thursday.

Ananda mela: the gorging puja

But of course I was itching to get on with the food side of the things and I had already noticed lots of women pulling stoves, pressure cookers and platters out of bags.   Which could only mean one thing –  the Ananda Mela was about to start. The Ananda Mela is a wonderful tradition of local women sharing their family specialities on the evening before the puja begins (which this year is today).

We tried almost everything on offer: Luchi Chola (chick peas with puri), Jimikand (also known as ‘kochu’ or ‘taro’) Cutlets, Chicken Biryani, Chicken Korma ‘Rashmoni’ Kheer (‘kheer surprise’), Malpua (sweet, fried fritters), and Patishapta (a sweet pancake stuffed with coconut)  and the excitingly-named Bonanza Chilli Chicken with Lemon Rice.  Wonderful, lovingly-cooked homestyle dishes, a grand start to the glorious Delhi eating season.

A Delhi Street Food Feature For Feast Magazine

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Here’s a link to a feature I wrote for the Australian food magazine ‘Feast’. Photographer  Alan Benson and I did this in May when it was boiling, boiling hot and even I was finding it hard to eat huge amounts of deep-fried food!  At Dilli Haat craft market we were literally the only people at the food court.

Alan’s  photos are gorgeous though – Old Delhi never looked better and happily, there are no shots of my red, sweaty face in there!

Feast Feature