“It is the food from undivided India,” says Chef Osama Jalali, a chef, an ex-journalist, and a powerlifter, while speaking to Slurrp about the rich Pashtoon cuisine that has roots in the North-West Frontier. Also referred to as Pashtun cuisine, the food and its flavours take one back to the pre-partition era. It is the food with traces in Lahore, Peshawar, Multan, Bannu, Islamabad, Kabul, and a few other parts of today’s Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
“The food carries with it the memories of how people migrated from this side of the country and settled in India (after the partition in 1947). It is their home-style recipes,” added Chef Jalali while talking about curating a special menu for the Gharane-e-Pashtoon at Hyatt Regency, Delhi. While the dishes were a mix of Pashtoon and Nawabi cuisines, the North-West frontier food was the highlight of this recent food pop-up.
Pashtoon Cuisine Vs Nawabi Cuisine
If you look at the gravies, ingredients, and spread of Pashtoon and Nawabi cuisine, they look quite similar but they differ vastly in flavours, use of spices, and techniques of cooking. Speaking of how the two cuisines are dissimilar, Chef Osama Jalali adds, “Nawabi gravies are refined. There is a finesse in them, whereas Pashtoon curries are rustic, coarse, and use minimal amounts of spices.”
When you taste the Pashtoon food in comparison to Nawai, you will witness a symphony of flavours. The North-West frontier food has mild notes of spices that allow the star ingredients - meat and vegetables - to shine. “The meat will always overpower the masalas,” adds the chef.
If you ever get a chance to try mash ki dal by Chef Osama Jalali or a home chef who is an expert in Pashtoon cuisine, it is a must-have. Much like the grains of basmati rice, each grain of urad dal falls separately on your plate. It is neither soggy nor crunchy but melts in your mouth. Chef Jalali says, “It’s an art (to get the texture right).”
While both are meat-based cuisines, Pashtoon food is cooked using old techniques, whereas Nawabi dishes are cooked by grinding ingredients in a blender and using aromatic liquids like kewda or rose water. “They also strain their curries to make them smooth and shiny,” says Chef Jalali.
Evolution Of Pashtoon Cuisine
With more than 10 years of experience in the culinary world, Chef Osama Jalali brings authentic Pashtun food to the table from his few trips to the North-West frontier where he documented what people ate on the streets or cooked in their homes. “I believe if you want to learn to cook local food, you have to visit that particular region and dine with locals,” the chef says.
He adds that with time and a boost in commercial kitchens, the cuisine and cooking methods have also evolved. For example, one cannot use traditional grinding methods in a commercial kitchen, especially since they have to cook for hundreds of people. Hence, culinary experts use mixer grinders but ensure that the paste remains coarse so that the original taste and texture of the dish remain intact.
Going Back To Roots Of Regional Food
Sharing his experience as a journalist, Chef Osama Jalali says that whenever he used to go for food reviews, he observed that many restaurants were rebranding themselves and serving modern Indian food. He saw regional food vanishing from the menus.
“Nobody was taking pride in regional food and cooking techniques. I thought let’s trace our roots because I firmly believe that our future lies in our past,” he adds with pride. He encourages chefs to cook traditional food and brings seasoned chefs to the forefront so that authentic Indian food can take centre stage on global platforms.
Documenting Indian Dishes, Unwritten Recipes & Forgotten Foods
With a solid background in food journalism and a flourishing career as a culinary artist, Chef Osama Jalali encourages people to document recipes, especially the traditional ones which are getting lost in the attempt to add a modern twist to everything.
While it is easier to perfect a recipe that has been documented, it is an art to carry forward the legacy of unwritten ones. Chef Osama Jalali once found a reference to mutton (gosht) halwa in one of the books in a library and he perfected it. "I just found the reference in the book. There was no recipe in it, and we re-created that dish," he adds. The dessert made with meat mostly makes it to the menu of food pop-ups he leads across the globe.