“Amrit Dhaba and Mannat Dhaba in Murthal, Bharawan Da Dhaba and Pehelwan Da Dhaba in Amritsar,” Chef Amrick Singh can point you to the most popular dhabas anywhere along NH1, from Attari village near Wagah border to Delhi. Now, the chef plans to widen his culinary offerings beyond the border, bringing in recipes from Lahore and Kabul, at the Punjabi Border Cuisine Festival at The Raintree Hotel.
His reason to do so can be traced back to the early 1800s. “During the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, everything extending from the Yamuna river to Kabul was called Punjab,” says the chef of The Raintree Hotel’s Up North restaurant. He believes that the communities here still have similar food traditions, even though they belong to three different countries today: India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“Lahore and Amritsar are close to each other, and Amritsar has many shops with ‘Lahore’ in their names, selling foods of Lahori influence,” he says, “The only difference is that they have a lot of meat in their diet, while we mainly have vegetables. Punjab is still largely a farming community and people eat what they grow.”
In this menu, however, it’s the roasted meats from Kabul that are in focus, along with Lahore’s and Peshawar’s lentil preparations. So don’t be swayed by presumptions of hearty tandoori chicken: Chef Amrick’s menu has as wide a vegetarian spread too. And from the cottage cheese-stuffed ‘shaam savera’ koftas, to a melt-to-the-touch sabz noorani seekh made of blended vegetables, to a “saagwala meat with lamb”, spinach gets the largest share of the limelight. A highlight from Peshawar is the brick-red and spicy sabz shami kebab, but beyond that, it is difficult to gauge which dish is from which side of the border.
And then there’s a range of preparations with chicken, lamb rack, prawns and fish — “cat fish, like we eat in Punjab”, says Chef Amrick.
The haleem that he serves is much lighter than usual haleem , and consists only of lamb and wheat, for reasons of tradition. The chef looks back on his childhood,“In the morning, when they start cooking for breakfast, the women of the house would take out a big earthen pot. They would keep the ingredients in it and leave it on the flame till evening. By then, everything will have melted, blended and cooked together: and that would be dinner,” he smiles.
Punjabi Border Cuisine Festival is underway at Up North, The Raintree, Anna Salai till February 10, for dinner only. Call 43939999 for details.
