Certain simple combinations of spices can almost miraculously wake up simple stir fries, discovers C Y Gopinath

First let me describe the claviger. He must have been in his early eighties. One eye was rheumy and clouded, which might have made you wonder what he was watching so intently on the grainy black-and-white television. The period was the spectacular seventies, when all TVs were grainy black-and-white. Your humble narrator was, at the time of this story, cold, tired, grimy and with several days’ stubble on his face. It was the heart of deep winter in north India. With the determination of a pilgrim, I had been traveling for a week in the footsteps of the Buddha to the towns linked with his life — Lumbini, Sarnath, Bodh Gaya, Rajgir, and Kushinagar.

And now I was hungry.

But Rajgir’s hotels were apparently full of the devout here to pray at the base of the hill where the Buddha had preached his, erm, menu for a better life. A friendly stranger pointed me down a pencil-thin road that led straight out of town, and down this I walked, in search of a circuit house where, rumor had it, one could get a decent meal. The sun sank, a single star came out against the remaining blue sky, the hill became a dark silhouette, and then night fell without a sound. I trudged on, wondering this road would go on forever, leading me into another universe where no one ate food.

Just as I thought I was approaching an understanding of infinite hunger, lights marched over the horizon. Very dim, now there, now not, but finally, there indeed. Perhaps a hut. Perhaps a late-closing teahouse. But no, it was the circuit house, and it stood a little off the road, surrounded by a demolished wall, a bit of barbed wire, a wooden gate that someone had dismantled and laid flat on the grass. A bluish light shone from the building, but all else was dark. There could have been no guests. With diffident steps, I walked in through the wide open door. Within were three corridors, one turning left, one running straight, and one turning right. Ready by now for ghosts, I tiptoed towards the glow.

It was a recreation room. As I reached the door, the tall, quivering figure of the claviger rose from the wicker chair, where he had been absorbing a Hindi film’s violence and violins on a fuzzy old television set. He turned to me, his face stubbled white, hands gnarled, eyes crinkly and sad and full of water, and a fading smile.

“You are hungry,” he said.

I don’t remember speaking or hearing another word. He disappeared through a dark door into another world where he pottered about for about forty-five minutes. I could hear a kerosene stove pump itself up. Some aromas began to stray out, a dance of friendly spices led by a coriander fairy. A black pariah dog suddenly sprinted out through the door, its thin eyes darting with fear and uncertainty, and fled. I heard steel clanging steel, water gushing out of taps, something bubbling. Under it, I could hear human muttering, as though the old man was reminding himself of the recipe.

Then dinner arrived. There was a very simple black gram dal (urad) with a sliver of ginger and two cored and halved green chillies in it. For a vegetable, there was ash gourd, cubed and lightly fried, garnished, God knows what else. And with them was salad on a cheap white plate: sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, with salt and a squeeze of lemon. A hot roasted poppadum.

It has taken me thirty years to figure out what was special about it.

The claviger was a minimalist, I know that now. Most poor people are. Most Indians are poor people. There’s nothing like cooking a family meal over a coal fire with too few ingredients and spices to bring out the innate creativity of a human being.

Imagine a kitchen that is, well, not even a kitchen; it is a corner of the hut in which the family lives, sleeps, eats, studies. It doesn’t look like those amazing Good Housekeeping kitchens, awash with copper-bottom pots and pans, McCormick spices in lovely bottles in a special rack hewn from teak and hand polished, and a sleek cooking range with a hob above it. Instead, in the humble Indian hut, there will be a few key spices in second-hand bottles without labels — for sure, the powders of coriander, cumin, coriander and chillies, and also hing, the powdered version of the aromatic resin asafoetida. Prominently absent from the line-up will be garam masala, the all purpose spice mixture based on cinnamon, cardamom and cloves with a couple of other spices. Now those would be beyond the family purpose. Vegetables? Expect the expected — okra, potatoes, eggplants, green capsicum, cabbage, cauliflower, beans, peas.

What philosophy should we expect from the creative cook in such a kitchen where the vegetable du jour, purchased with the day’s winnings, must be made memorable but with a handful of spices. One doesn’t want to waste either coal or spices, so we rule out elaborate preparation or multiple applications of multiple spices. There is no electricity, so blenders and mixies are out. It is precisely in such environments that Indian minimalist cooking was born.

Unbeknownst to me, I was fed and raised on the minimalist cuisine of Palakkad in the south. In the meals my mother cooked for us at home, the garnish reflected the traditions of Palakkad, the hybrid district at the intersect of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. In Delhi University, where I studied at Shri Ram College and ate at the finest mess on the campus, Gainda Singh, cook extraordinaire fed me minimalist fare from Haryana. And then, one day, eating at a friend’s home while on a visit to Kathmandu, I was served an outstandingly simple dish featuring just okra with a teasing and provocative touch of spices I could not identify. After the meal, I ambushed Arjun, the cook, and learned that this was the cooking from the hilly corners of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where he had his home.

That was my moment. In a flash of epiphany, I knew how the claviger had made that extraordinary little minimalist dinner.

In a minimalist dish, there are no dry spices. All that is allowed is a garnish. Try this simple experiment and you will discover the magical transformational power of the garnish. Take the same vegetable — say, beans or okra. Say, in fact, okra. How can we transform this three different ways, using just a garnish? Here are three simple spice combinations that you can keep readymade in a spice jar. I’ve left the proportions open, and urge you to play around with variations and be creative till you find the mix that works

The Bengal touch (panch phoron)

cumin seeds (jeera)

black mustard seeds (rai)

aniseed (saunf)

fenugreek (methi) seeds

nigella (onion seeds)

The Palakkad mix

urad dal

black mustard seeds (rai)

a couple of red chillies

a few curry leaves (kari patta)

in some cases, (such as beans

The Minimalist mix

carom seeds, or bishop’s weed (also known as ajwain)

cumin seeds (jeera)

asafoetida (hing)

 

Method

Nothing to it. Heat up a tablespoon or so of oil in a wok. If cooking the Palakkad way, use peanut oil; if Bengal, then mustard oil; and if the Minimalist, then it’s Uttar Pradesh, so any normal cooking oil will do.

Bengal: When the oil is hot, throw in the panch phoron, and when it is turning dark — but not brown or black — throw the rest of the vegetable in. Now need for any turmeric or any other spices. Cook it at low heat, adding a few teaspoons of moisture for moisture. Nothing should burn or brown or char. The vegetables will look thoroughly cooked at the end — that is, nothing of natural color will be left.

Palakkad: Heat the peanut oil, throw in the mustard seeds first. When they begin to crackle, throw in the urad dal, which brown quickly. As they begin to darkne toward a nice golden brown, add the dry chillies, count to three, and throw in the vegetables. Most vegetables benefit from being a little boiled ahead of time, so that they will cook faster without browning. (Okra? Don’t be a dummy. You never boil okra.)

Minimalist: Heat the oil, throw in the hing first. When the flavor rises from the pan, throw in the carom seeds and the cumin. As they begin to brown slightly, add the okra, cut into small pieces. Turn the heat to low, cover and cook until the okra have lost their color, turned brownish-green and limp.

The claviger at the circuit house in Rajgir served me a minimalist dal — mung dal, with a garnish of cumin seeds in ghee, along with wet and juicy cool cucumbers. And rice.

And thus would you discover the pleasure of the simple minimalist life at the foot of Buddha’s mountain.