Filmmaker Hansal Mehta’s kitchen would be the object of any neighbour’s envy. It’s well-lit, extremely airy, spotlessly tidy and neatly stacked. The owner, however, is not entirely satisfied with it.
It has been just a year that Mehta moved into the fourth floor apartment right opposite Prithvi Theatre in Juhu, and he hasn’t had the time to do up the kitchen according to his own convenience. Pulling out the pots, pans and masalas was easier in his previous home in Goregaon. However, just as in his previous residence, the kitchen remains one of his favourite spots at home.
Food first Mehta confesses to being more a cook than a connoisseur. “One eats, enjoys and forgets. Eating is like a one-night stand. Cooking is what enduring love stories are made of,” he says. He considers it therapeutic, a way of focusing and a great mode to unwind at the end of a hectic day. “It’s like going to the gym. Lifting weights pumps up your ego, cooking pumps up your senses,” says the filmmaker.
Cooking is not just a passion, but something that also gave Mehta his first shot at fame and recognition, much before he became a well-known filmmaker. It was way back in 1993 that he started directing the popular Zee TV show Khana Khazana with chef Sanjeev Kapoor as the host. It turned out to be India’s longest-running cookery show. “Choosing Kapoor was an instinctive decision, just how I picked Rajkummar Rao for Shahid . And Kapoor has become a brand now,” he says. Years later, Mehta is now using the internet to bring good food home to people. He recently started an online initiative, eatwithindia.com, where regional cuisine experts put up a specially curated menu and people can book a seat and join the on-ground foodie event.
Practical motivation But for all of Mehta’s passion for food now, he started cooking for a purely functional reason. In Mehta’s previous avatar as a computer programmer (before he took to filmmaking), he was on an assignment to Australia and was missing home food. “I was single, 22, could only make eggs. I was always on a trunk call with my mother,” he recollects. This is when he also started buying cookery books and, like a lot of Indians, tried many Tarla Dalal recipes. Books on food comprise the biggest part of the collection in his library. And much to the chagrin of his wife, Safeena Husain, he continues to shop for more of them online.
The culinary initiation may have happened abroad, but it was during a long sabbatical in 2008 following the film Woodstock Villa that Mehta explored food more intently. “I used to cook all the meals, every day,” he says. That had to stop when the spotlight fell on him with the release of the much-acclaimed Shahid . It has become all about special recipes now rather than roz ka khana (daily meals).
Zeroing in Mehta’s speciality is nihari. He picked up the elaborate recipe from a cookbook and has been perfecting it over the last decade. He prefers non-vegetarian dishes than vegetarian cuisine simply because he feels there is a lot more variety. In vegetarian fare, he likes to experiment with international cuisine, soups and salads. His mom’s undhiyo recipe is his forte, but he can’t get the family’s khatti meethi dal quite right. It’s his father-in-law, actor Yusuf Husain, who Mehta considers the biggest appreciator and critic of his food. He has adapted his father-in-law’s recipes of shammi kebabs and kate masale ka gosht (see box for recipe) with success, and his approval.
For our photo shoot, Mehta can’t go too elaborate. We meet him just as he is preparing to leave for a long schedule of his next film (the Kangana Ranaut-starrer Simran ) in the USA. He just slices some onions, heats the oil in the pan, dunks some cumin seeds and begins to sauté the onions. “Something will get cooked in the bargain”. It turns out to be a simple potato sabzi that is best enjoyed with roghani roti: a sweet, aromatic bread in which kewra and elaichi powder are added to the dough.
Memories of food In between cooking, he recalls that during the making of Shahid, they couldn’t afford food on the sets. “We barely had enough to manage tea, but had one big party after the shoot.” It was a different story during Aligarh ; the food was exceptional. “There were two tandoors on the sets. We used to get hot paranthas, pakodas, kebabs and tandoori chicken. It was such a comfort in the winter,” he says.
But isn’t unit food derided, usually? “Food used to be provided in bulk from studio canteens. The quality was often suspect and people often used to fall sick. But I am told that the food now served on the [sets] of Karan (Johar) and Farhan (Akhtar)’s [films] is outstanding.”
Film, travel and food go hand in hand. During the shoot of Aligarh in Bareilly he discovered Tyagi ke chhole bhature and Dinanath ki lassi: “It was like a sedative.” A stint in Punjab for his upcoming film with Rajkummar made him connect with the home-cooked food in the state. Much against the stereotype of it being rich, Mehta found the food simple, not overwhelming. “It is made with fresh, seasonal agricultural produce,” he says.
Since most of his films have been shot in Mumbai, in the underbelly of the city, his on-shoot foodie explorations have been concentrated in Nagpada, Pydhonie and Govandi, and have involved plenty of brun-maska and Irani chai.
What’s good here? For a Mumbaikar, he is least appreciative of the city’s food. “The city caters to an eclectic mix and people in a hurry,” he says. He finds the famous Arsalan biryani greasy and spicy. Tomatoes in biryani and potatoes in everything are a pet peeve. “Trishna is overhyped. Mahesh Lunch Home is at best mediocre. And [my] nihari is better than the Dum Pukht recipe,” he states emphatically.
According to him, Mumbai food has been seeing a steady decline. It used to have the best Chinese food in India (after Kolkata of course) with the likes of chef Nelson Wong and China Garden restaurant leading from the front. Not any more. “The Taj Mahal had chefs Satish Arora and Hemant Oberoi. President Cuffe Parade (now Taj Vivanta) had chef Anand Solomon. Their café Trattoria and coastal cuisine restaurant The Konkan Café were the best,” he says. For him, Mumbai’s best food is either available in homes or in its clubs: Khar Gymkhana, Bombay Gym, Otter’s Club and CCI. However, Sidhu Dhaba on the Mumbai-Pune highway is his pick, especially for its hot jalebis. Mehta prefers Delhi for variety and discernment. He loves the traditional food served at Lucknow's weddings.
Films on food For someone so passionate about food, why hasn’t Mehta attempted a food film yet? It’s the lack of the right script, he says. A short film on gluttony planned with actor-writer Saurabh Shukla went nowhere. It was about a nawab ’s last meal before the end of the princely states. “There are these tales about how the nawab s used to feed goats the grass that had been watered with rose water, all to make the meat fragrant. They put fennel, mint, and slices of lemon as coolants in water. Food for them was all about awakening the senses,” he describes evocatively.
Mehta loves how Chinese films present food. He is envious of Ritesh Batra for making ordinary, home food so mouth-watering in The Lunchbox . He couldn’t handle Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman as it made him terribly hungry, but he found the food presented in Jon Favreau’s The Chef unpalatable.
He would much rather make food shows.
There again the popular show, Masterchef , doesn’t excite him. He calls it Big Boss in the kitchen. “It is about playing with the minds than with the food.” Instead, Mehta veers towards programming like the miniseries Cooked , Keith Floyd’s shows and Yan Can Cook .
Food to Mehta is about history and tradition, about elements — earth, water, air, fire. Or, as he puts it in a nutshell: “Cooking has to be a cultural experience.”
Yusuf’s Kate Masale Ka Gosht
Ingredients
1 kg mutton/lamb, big pieces
10-12 medium onions, thick slices
12 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
3 tbsp ginger, chopped
2 bay leaves
5 black cardamoms
2 cinnamon sticks
15 whole blackpepper corns
12 whole dried red chillies
salt, to taste
75 gm yoghurt, beaten
4-5 tbsp ghee or oil
Method
Heat ghee/oil in a saucepan. Take approximately half the quantity of onions and sauté until golden brown.
Add mutton, bay leaves, black cardamoms, cinnamon sticks, pepper corns, red chillies and 1.5 tsp salt.
Sauté on high flame until the meat changes colour.
Add garlic and ginger. Sauté for another five minutes.
Add the remaining onions. Mix well and sauté for about one minute.
Seal the vessel. Cook for approximately 45-50 minutes on low flame. In case you are using a pressure cooker, wait for three whistles and then let the meat rest while pressure is totally released from the cooker.
Open the lid and you will see that onions are totally liquefied and the meat has been simmering in the liquefied onions.
On medium heat sauté the meat until most of the liquid has evaporated.
Reduce heat and add yoghurt. Mix well. Cover the vessel once again (not under pressure) and simmer for five-10 minutes or until the meat is totally done.
Let the meat rest for at least 15-20 minute before serving.
The cooking of meat in the onion gravy is the key. The red chillies and browning of the onions lend this dish its distinct red colour. Excessive browning will make the dish very dark and some people prefer it that way. You can add approximately 1 tbsp roasted and roughly pounded coriander seeds after adding the yoghurt. This adds a little extra bite but many people do not enjoy the distinct coriander flavour.
