It gets better with butter

Manpriya Singh

The three secrets of French cuisine are almost a cliché in the food circles now. Butter, butter and some more butter. But then probably they hadn’t heard of Punjabi cuisine. Where butter is not a secret but an ingredient meant to name and define the dish. Dal Makhni, butter chicken and the stereotypically famous sarson da saag and makki di roti, well that too comes with dollops of butter. What better time to revisit the Punjabi cuisine than in the season of saag. Though technically, Punjabi cuisine refers to the food that collectively developed in the entire of undivided North India. For the sake of peace (and also patriotism) we stick to Punjabi cuisine as it came to be in this part of the border. As for its strong association with rich and buttery flavours, Chef Japvir Vohra, executive chef, JW Marriott would like to take that one. “Given the popularity of Punjabi cuisine, a lot of times at many places the dishes are prepared out of a total lack of understanding of how to maintain the right balance,” he points out to the mélange of different clashing flavours, the practice of putting too many spices and making the food a rich, buttery experience rather than an authentic one.

“In fact, Punjabi food is the amalgamation of just a few key ingredients but ones added in the right amount. Also, it is food prepared slowly rather than cooked in a hurry.” As for the key ingredients, he adds, “The first three that come to my mind, which define the essence of Punjabi cooking, are coriander seeds, mustard and fenugreek seeds in the cooking medium of either ghee or mustard oil.”

The signature dishes

Slow cooking is at the core of its signature dish comprising mustard leaves, fondly called sarson da saag and best had with equally heat-generating makki di roti. It is the cooking technique, as adds the chef, wherein the authenticity and quality is often immensely compromised. “Punjabi dishes are all about slow cooking.” It is likewise with dal makhani, which if prepared authentically takes hours and hours. Moving on, Butter chicken or murgh makhani, a dish as popular in watsapp jokes (especially the ones deriving humour from cultural uniqueness) as it is in restaurants has at its core the flavours imbibed from yoghurt, tomatoes and kasuri methi. Let alone, if you are a Punjabi, or if you have a Punjabi friend, you know what we are talking about. Paneer tikka, lassi, pinnis, Amritsari fish, the list is not nearly exhaustive.

Given the range, the iconic dish is more of a divisive factor among families than a uniting one! For Chef Japvir, “Personally speaking, in my opinion the most iconic dish would have to be pindi chana, named after and typical of Rawalpindi, the place where my grandfather migrated from. A well made dish of pindi chana has a subtle khatta flavour, courtesy the amchur and is very versatile dish in terms of what all it can be accompanied with and also a very celebratory one. The second close contender would be aloo wadi.”