Festive feast, a toast to the roast

Festive feasts — be it Christmas, Eid, wedding or housewarming — always have a special item that occupies the pride of place and dazzles the guests. This is, in most cases, a roast that can allow the host the right to boast! This could be a suckling pig clutching an apple between its teeth, a whole leg of lamb, roast duck or turkey or the good old murg musallam. We were treated to a delicious machhi musallam by a mezbaan in Lucknow more than a decade back that left us speechless and spellbound. The vegetarians have created a variety of droolworthy roasts for themselves like gobhi musallam, lauki musallam and smoked, stuffed elephant yam (jimikand).

The basic technique remains the same — long marination in a spice mixture that blends flavourful and aromatic ingredients, followed by patient roasting in a pot. Finishing may or may not be done in an oven. All roasts are enhanced by a draping sauce-like gravy. Not to forget the stuffing that the roast can be enriched with. The act of carving and serving individual portions completes the culinary theatre.

If you are planning to have a vegetarian roast using a head of cauliflower or cabbage, the marination time, stir-frying and pot-roasting times are cut down by almost 1/4th compared to the high-bred murg musallam. If yam is preferred, then the time after peeling and boiling yam would be reduced by half.

Let the curtains go up as you usher in the New Year, raising a toast to your preferred roast!

Murg musallam

Ingredients

Chicken 1 kg

Onions (medium, chopped & ground to paste) 2

Garlic paste 1 tsp

Ginger paste 1 tsp

Red chilli powder 1 tsp

Turmeric powder 1/2 tsp

Cumin powder 1 tsp

Coriander powder 2 tsp

Black pepper powder 1 tsp

Cloves 4-6

Black cardamoms 2

Green cardamoms 2

Cinnamon stick 1x2 inch

Bay leaf 1

Curd 1/2 cup

Oil/butter 1/2 cup

Salt To taste

Mint leaves 1 sprig

Coriander leaves 1 sprig

Filling

Eggs (boiled, shelled,