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I had written an article on popular beef dishes in India for the MW magazine some time back.

Ironically that was a week when I had an article out in a men’s magazine and in a woman’s magazine (Femina)!

Here’s the text of the article:

Joseph and Monica were in for a surprise when they dropped in at
Sneha, the small Keralite restaurant at Mumbai’s Mahim causeway, recently.
They had just come out of the Wednesday mass at St Michael’s Church
and then headed to Sneha, as they did for every Wednesday for the last twenty
years. They had come for their favourite beef fry only to find that it was not
on the menu this time.
The folks at Sneha had taken off beef from the menu after the news
of the Presidential Assent given to the Maharashtra Cow Slaughter act.
Ironically Sneha had just won the ‘Tastiest beef dish in Asia’ award for the
beef fry in the Chowzter Asia 2015 Awards.
Sneha was not alone as beef started going off the menus of
restaurants across the country.
The beef fry at Sneha was a beautifully slow cooked one which was
rendered into tender succulence after an hour of cooking with a medley of
spices, caramelized onions, green chillies, mustard seeds and curry leaves.
The slow cooking process of the beef fry at Sneha was typical of
most famous beef preparations across India. India was never best place to look
for a medium rare steak after all.
Cow slaughter was banned across the country so what you got as beef
was primarily buffalo or bullock meat. Unlike in the West, these were not
reared for consumption. Indian beef unlike Japanese Wagyu and Kobe or Aussie Angus,
did not come from pampered happy cows.
A few high end restaurants would import beef but those would be
frozen blocks of meats. The steaks made from them would be served well done to
the point of being chewy in order to disguise the poor quality of meat.
What is interesting is the range of brilliant cooking techniques
that had come up across India to deal with the indifferent quality of beef that
was locally available.
Apart from the beef fry of Sneha you had the poetic renditions of
the bara handi cooking available in Mumbai’s Bohri Mohalla. This cooking
tradition, which had originated from Iran and come to Mumbai via Guajarat, was
on its last legs with Vallibhai Payawallah shutting down recently. At
Vallibhai’s, cuts of beef, including the usually discarded cuts such as ox’s
tail, rump and hump, were slow cooked over six hours to a poetic silky finish.
This was mixed with delicious wheat and lentil based broths cooked in twelve
vessels (bara handi) to offer one of the most heady experiences to be had for
meat lovers in Mumbai. Vallibhai had recently shut down as the premise was sold
off for redevelopment. Just in time for the beef ban some would wryly say.
Surti’s Bara Handi still remains though beef is off the menu.
Just down the lane from Vallibhai was Haji Tikka Bar-B-Q Corner
where you would get twice cooked, scrumptious khiri (cow’s udder) kebabs fresh
off coal skewers. These too have disappeared as have the delicious deep fried,
very cheap and very popular steak and onion fry at Martin’s, the small Goan
restaurant at Mumbai’s Colaba.
In Kolkata, where cow slaughter is still not illegal, most
restaurants had taken off beef of their menu over the years. The two remaining classic
beef dishes which most Kolkatans swore by were the beef kebab rolls at Nizam’s
in New Market and the well done beef steaks at Park Street’s Oly Pub. The
latter was a bit of a rites of passage for college goers in Kolkata.
No trip to Lucknow would be complete without a trip to Tunday for
kebabs. The more atmospheric Tunday outlet at Chowk served only beef kebabs and
parathas. The secret marination process, which involved papaya juices, resulted
in kebabs which were near pate like in tenderness.
Then there were Moinuddin’s delightfully juicy beef kebabs sold on
the pavements of old Delhi as well as Pehelwan’s biryani, which he dished out
from a deg (vessel) on the streets. The beef in the biryani was near pleasantly
mellow in texture.
Add to these legends the tenderloin phaal at Imran’s stall in
Bangalore’s Shivaji Nagar, the roast ox tongue at Goa’s Infantaria, and you
will realize that India had a very rich tradition of beef cooking and we have
just scratched the surface of this here.

It would be rather sad if future generations can
only listen the tales of this culinary wizardry.



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