Food Talk
Tasty torai

The salan has long been meted out a stepmotherly treatment and has suffered silently, writes Pushpesh Pant

Qormas and kaliyas are much better known — albeit superficially — to most of us than the salan. Qorma is braised, is elegantly aromatic and served in more often than not a yogurt-based sauce like gravy that usually eschews turmeric — all in all a refined dish.

Kaliya — synonymous in UP with tender kid — has a flavourful but thinner gravy and, here in the Ganga-Jumna doaab, it has a very different complexion than the Kashmiri Dara Shahi Kaliya that rivals the qorma in resplendence. The salan quite unfairly has long been meted out a stepmotherly treatment and has suffered silently.

This was not always the case. Come summer and it underwent-in traditional truly meat-loving, households- a Cinderella-like transformation. A plethora of recipes were recalled to lighten the repast. Squash vegetables —bottle, wax and ridge gourds (lauki, parval and torai) as well as okra (bhindi) were routinely added to the main course.

An aunt, the eldest in our gluttonous family, insists that salan means any meat cooked with any vegetable.

(She refuses to budge even when confronted with the testimony of venerable Raja Sahib Sailana who opines that any meat cooked with any vegetable is termed do peeyaza.) The massive and magisterial dictionary the Hindi Shabd Sagar asserts authoritatively that the word derives from salavan translating ‘with salt’. We have never been able to clear this confusion. We are loath to admit defeat but the trail seems to have gone cold — no one we know is willing to either take on the lexicon or explain the word’s origin.

Munnu a.k.a. Atul Rai recently treated us to a delightful nenue ka salan reviving memories of salans partaken many moons ago. Nenua is the term of endearment for torai in Awadh and eastern Uttar Pradesh. We have great pleasure in sharing it with our readers.

Nenue ka salan

Method
Clean and wash the meat pieces. Peal the torai and cut in small pieces or rounds not too thick. Slice the onions thinly. Heat oil in a thick-bottomed pan to smoking, reduce heat and then add onions. Stir-fry till these are light brown then put in the garlic and ginger pastes with the spice powders dissolved in a little water to avoid burning. Continue stir-frying for another minute then add the meat and stir-fry till it is evenly browned but is not too dark. Now add the torai with the salt, mix well and cover. Cook on low-medium heat without adding any water. Stir once or twice while the dish is cooking to ensure that it does not stick to bottom. Remove when tender to taste.

Ideally, some torai pieces should remain partially visible and release enough water to cook the meat. If additional water is required, it should be added in miniscule quantities and always hot. The texture of nenue ka salan is very like a qorma! (If using lauki the pieces should be cut chunkier and with vegetables like bhindi that do not release as much water, the quantity used is reduced by half. To retain the bight with bhindi and gobhi, these are added when the meat is half done).

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