The alu is no 12th man in the biryani of Kolkata!

Alu in the Bombay Canteen Lucknowi biryani

Think biryani and Kolkata and the first thing that comes to your mind is alu (potato). 

Kolkata is not the only city in India to have alu in its biryani! As I had written earlier, it’s rather ironic that the biryanis in the city I moved into when I left Kolkata, Mumbai, have potatoes too. I am talking of mutton and chicken ones, not veg.

Why does no one talk of this then? 

You could say that this is because there is no exotic Wajid Ali Shah sort of food origin story around it. Some say that people in Mumbai began to put alu in the biryani when they saw what was happening in Calcutta. That was the time of ‘what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow’ after all. Why only Mumbai then, would be my counter. 

Others say that the biryani bhatiyaras (cooks) of Mumbai would put alu at the base of the deg in which the biryani was cooked to prevent the more precious elements such as the meat and the rice from getting burnt in the heat. The alu was a prop and not at the heart of the biryani.

I have my own theory about why the alu in the Mumbai biryani has remained the background in the manner of the chorus-girls of the songs picture-ised around Amitabh Bachchan in the 70s and 80s It is because the alu here does not have a unique character and is lost somewhere in the medley of meat, a heavy dose of masala and long grained rice that makes the biryani of Mumbai.

In Kolkata, however, the alu plays a central role in a biryani. It is cooked till a near baked consistency. It soaks in the subtle flavours of the spices used, the kewra water and the meat and its stock. The average Kolkata biryani serving has less meat in it compared to those in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Chennai or Thallasery and hence you need the potato to see you through till the end. A finisher in the manner of Dhoni at his best.

And here’s the thing, it is unfair to reduce the biryani of Kolkata to just the alu. Just as it was to reduced the cuisine of India to a ‘single spice’ the way a humourist of the Washington Post recently did. I am not going to give that story more credence by naming him or giving a link to his piece. Letting the ball go down the offside as Gavaskar would have suggested and you can’t argue with the the law of the Sunny Days. 

It is not just about the alu. There is a distinct flavour palate to the biryani of Kolkata. The aromas that enshroud it when served on to a plate can make many a probashi (expat) Bengali cry with joy when back in Kolkata. The Calcutta Chromosome is visible even in the side plate of ‘salad’ that comes with its biryani. Sliced onion, green chillies and a slice of lime. It is up to you to add salt and pepper to the same. The meat often takes the backseat in the Kolkata biryani and can be rather stone hearted at times. Getting a good, juicy, piece is like trying your luck in a Russian roulette. Getting in the good graces of the serving staff helps. Which, in the traditionally Muslim run ‘Mughlai’ restaurants of Kolkata, is not as hard as trying to get the Bengali salesmen of a state handlooms showroom interested in selling to you.

The point I am making is that you cannot add potatoes to just any biryani and call it ‘Calcutta biryani’.

ITC Hotels Metiabruz biryani

Calcutta is the flavour of the season when it comes to biryani these days it seems. Partly thanks to the ITC Hotels group including a “Metiabruz’ biryani from the ITC Sonar Eden Cafe buffet and ITC Royal Bengal banquet menus in their national ‘biryanis and pulao’ delivery range. I tried it a couple of times after the launch and most recently when ordered in through Swiggy. The biryani is said to be inspired by stories of Wajid Ali Shah’s time in exile at Metiabruz in Calcutta. You can get as taste of the legendary Awadhi gosht biryani of the ITC’s Dum Pukht restaurant in the rice and meat of this version. This is lovely as the Dum Pukht one is my favourite biryani today in absolute terms. The Metiabruz (Metiaburuj in Bengali) one has a boiled egg and potato in it in keeping with the Wajid Ali in Calcutta story. Well, in the last version that I had, the potato was a bit al dante and didn’t really have the poetic spice notes that the potato in the Kolkata biryani has. Not key to the plot in this case. A bit like Sunil Valson in the ’83 World Cup winning team. It was a lovely biryani no doubt. Just not one from the Shiraz or Aminia gharana and to be fair, they were not aiming to be that at ITC. They would not have added birista (fried onions) and mint leaves had they been doing so. It was important to give a distinctive edge as chef Manisha Bhasin from ITC Hotels had once told me on the subject.

Mustard Cafe mutton biryani. Tons of masala lay beneath the rice.

Mumbai’s Mustard Restaurant, which offers Bengali AND French dishes, has recently re-opened in a takeaway version called the Mustard Cafe for the first time since the pandemic hit us. Some of their new introductions include the biryani and I ordered a portion of mutton biryani through Swiggy along with a chicken chaap and the mutton roll a few weekends back. 

The mutton biryani had a boiled egg and potato in it. It also had gallons of wet masala and chunks of alu bukhara. While I have had dishes that took me straight back to Kolkata in my previous outings to Mustard, first in Goa and then Mumbai, this biryani seemed to have been prepared by a chef who was hoping to intern at Jaffer Bhai’s in Mumbai. In their defence, the biryani did not have Calcutta, Metiabruz or Mudiali appended to it on the Mustard Cafe menu online and I found no memories of home in it or in any of the other dishes that I tried that day. I do not know if they have made any changes to the recipe since then. They have a strong foundation in Bengali food at Mustard and I am sure they will come back on track.

When I discovered the alu in the Bombay Canteen biryani

While adding a potato does not make a biryani a ‘Kolkata’ one, there were a couple of very unlikely candidates, where the potato in the pulao or biryani made this former Kolkatan in Mumbai smile.

The first is in the mutton palao dal of the Parsi weddings and the best place to try this from is ‘A Parsi Affair,’ the delivery outfit of the queen of Parsi catering Tanaz Godiwala. You have to mix the dal with the pulao, which does not sound that strange if you have been married to a Parsi for 19 years and 10 months and counting, and the end result is a bit spicy and make you perspire as if you are dining at a lagan or a navjote under the open sky at Albless Baug. The exciting part for us Bengalis is the potato in it which is nicely braised and redolent with the flavours of the pulao. This is alu with character.

The Bombay Canteen curiously named ‘Lucknowi’ biryani

Another pleasant surprise was the short rib and bone marrow Lucknowi biryani that I had Swiggy’d in from The Bombay Canteen recently. The ‘bone marrow’ bit is what had caught my attention and made me order. this The marrow was present across the biryani in finely chopped bits. Firm in texture. Adding a subtle fatty undercurrent to what was a lovely biryani in any case thanks to the subtle spicing, the flavoursome rice and the tender meat. The marrow not as prominent in its presence as the plump pieces of nalli (marrow) added as extras to the bara handi curries at Vali Bhai’s at Bohri Mohalla.

The Bombay Canteen can get rather ‘creative’ in their definition/ interpretation  of dishes and this ‘Lukcnowi’ biryani came with pieces of alu and a soft boiled egg. I have never came across either in any biryani at Lucknow! Not that I was complaining. The potato here was braised to a firm and yet squish-able texture and had that slight caramelised taste and texture that brought the potato to the fore instead of making it a side player as is usually the case in Mumbai. Lucknow-ites would have been puzzled by the alu and the egg, but they made this Bengali’s heart happy.

There are independent players such as Peetuk that do a Kolkata biryani in Mumbai. Hyangla too, though I have not tried them in a while. Bhojohori Manna had begun to do a nice version before they shut shop in Mumbai unfortunately. I have tried the Kolkata mutton biryani made a by the odd home chef in Mumbai and I do not think that they succeeded in their efforts.

You can use the Just My Root app and call in for biryani from your favourite place in Kolkata to Mumbai. We had the Shiraz one recently thanks to a friend who ordered it for us. Took me back to south central Kolkata right up to the spoon of Gelusil needed the morning after. 

Pure love!

PS: What about the boiled egg? Well it only comes with the ‘special biryani’ plate along with an extra piece of meat. Not a part of the regular Kolkata biryani experience and not something I lose much sleep over.

Shiraz Kolkata in Mumbai via Just My Roots

Appendix:

1. My earlier piece on alu in the Bombay biryani

2. Why biryani is so central to someone who has grown up in Kolkata

3. The Just my Roots experience

4. Biryani as a national dish written for Daily O