In Praise Of Winter - Chef Anumitra On Pairing North Indian Winter Cuisine With Whisky
While news headlines tend to linger on the horrors of winter – cold waves, pollution, fog and flight delays – it can also be a time of small, pure pleasures. The smell of morning mist laced with the scent of fresh paranthas; the tactile joy of bundling up in woollen scarves and weighted overcoats; basking in a friendly afternoon sun, after months of enduring its harshest rays; flickering fires and pleasantly smoky grills at evening parties; the warmth of a final nightcap indoors spreading pleasantly through you before you settle in for the night...
Cold North Indian winters are the best time for get-togethers, in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Not the desperate frenzy of clubbing, not the formal sit-down dinner parties where you must mind your Ps and Qs, but the camaraderie of friends gathering together to shoot the breeze over excellent food and drinks. These can start early or go late, bathed in sunshine or swathed in mist and moonlight; as long as the company is good, the drinks are flowing and the food is abundant.
Sunny afternoons start with fruit – guavas dusted with chilli powder, juicy oranges, the hybrid keenu and malta, astringent yet sweet rasbhari, oddly called gooseberry, along with amla, the large ber still occasionally collected from the wild, and the tartness of starfruit, can all be relished during the daytime.
Heartier fare emerges as the day wanes: beetroot salad is a perennial favourite, whether simply boiled and dressed with lemon juice and salt, or jazzed up with rosemary and thyme. Consider pairing it with a local cheese: Kalimpong cheese or fresh (not aged) chhurpi made from yak-cow hybrids are both excellent and bring out the smokiness of malt whisky beautifully. Cremini mushrooms and leeks are another good combination for a light meal – particularly when baked together, so a quiche or a tart is the ideal pairing for a sweeter drink, such as Godawan 01, Rich & Round.
Winter in the North is synonymous with fresh vegetables: think the sweetness of long juicy red carrots, the sharp bite of white mooli, the bright green taste of new peas... While all of these can and should be relished raw, much of the local winter produce is best enjoyed with the aid of a roaring fire. Whether you’re roasting new potatoes and shakarkandi in the ashes, popping desi corn in a shaker over the flames till you have popcorn, or snapping chholia, the new green chickpeas, from their pods, still attached to the leafy twigs, after cooking them at the edge of the fire, it’s an evening well spent. The possibilities are endless, as are the drink pairings – especially when it comes to easy whisky drinks, such as highballs or old-fashioneds that centre the flavour of the spirit, and can effortlessly bridge the gap between late evening and full night.
By the time you’re ready for dinner, the fire can be relegated to entertainment, and a smaller barbecue brought out for serious (yet fun!) on-the-spot cooking.
Start the evening with some grilled Kalari, a Jammu cheese that can be treated like Swiss raclette. It is a fresh buffalo buttermilk cheese, that both stretches like mozzarella and holds its shape and so can be grilled in thick bread-like slabs – it’s called Kalari roti in some parts. Pair it with fresh greens – try the tendrils of pumpkin vines in early winter, or move on to wilted spinach, bathua or even beetroot greens as the cold sets in. Breakfast sausages are a wonderful accompaniment to this cheese, and round off the meal.
Kebabs are an evergreen winter dish, whether the classic mutton sheek, dotted with slivers of chironjee for an extra bite, or chicken mashed with fresh green herbs like dill, mint and methi. A more daring idea is to try a malai tikka recipe with a touch of sharp cheese, like the fermented version of chhurpi, to add unexpected flavours to the usual chicken dish. And, of course, dahi ke kebab are a vegetarian delicacy that can give any meaty counterpart a run for its money. Most of these dishes pair better with a heavier whisky like Godawan 02, Fruit & Spice, but the sweetness of Godawan 01, Rich & Round is the perfect foil to the creamy unctuousness of dahi ke kebabs.
Don’t sleep on the unexpectedly creamy crunch of cauliflowers. Look for the smaller heads nestled within bright green leaves and paler green stems when picking your vegetables for the evening; brushed with butter and grilled on the barbecue, their flavour is best paired with cheese. Go for a crumbly grana Padano if you want to savour the cauliflower dish with a sweeter whisky like Godawan 01, Rich & Round, or a sharp creamy cheddar to pair with the deeper flavours of Godawan 02, Fruit & Spice.
Grilled trout, caught freshly from mountain streams across the Himalayas is a revelation, if you can get it. Such good fish needs the bare minimum of accompaniment: a touch of salt, good butter, the kiss of the smoke from the grill, and a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of dill to round off the taste, pulling out the floral notes of Godawan 01, Rich & Round.
Ambitious hosts can aim high: a raan of mutton roasted with garlic, cream, saffron and a hint of cloves would crown any party. Prepare ahead though: the secret of this dish is entirely in the marination, and ideally you would start a day or two ahead of time, to make sure that the spices thoroughly flavour the meat. You will also need to roast it for several hours, so start early, and apply Godawan 02, Fruit & Spice liberally to yourself during the process, as well as while eating!
*Drink Responsibly. This communication is for people over the age of 25.
