The cream of my cooking... Pasta in Chorizo Cream Sauce

"Enough of pasta tossed in olive oil or pasta in tomato sauce. I want creamy pasta."

Here's what followed, the recipe largely given by the diner, made a million times before by the cook. The difference made by the tantalising Chorizo with Herbs which we picked up from Godrej Nature's Basket and some lovely light Gouda.

• Heat a tablespoon of olive oil
• Sauté a teaspoon each of finely chopped peeled garlic and tomato and add a slice of slim cheese
• When done add a few pieces of chopped chorizo to get the flavour of the meat into your sauce. Add the rest later if your patron wants the meat to be 'soft' and not fried
• Add a cup of skimmed milk with a tablespoon of cornflour dissolved in it. Add a tablespoon of Capsica or Tabsco sauce
• Let it boil, reduce the flame and occasionally stir as the sauce thickens
• Add about 75 - 100 g of finely chopped chorizo. Let it cook in the sauce for a couple of minutes
• Add 100 g of boiled pasta
• Let the sauce spread all over the pasta
• Cover the pan with a lid and let it cook for about five minutes
• Top the dish with some split green chillies to add a bit of fire and bits of chopped fresh Gouda
• Eat it as the yellow Gouda sensuously melts into the sauce

Yes, this looks creamy enough

Little 'Dadu'. A story from Nowroz Bag, Mumbai's Oldest Parsi Colony

Dadi Pastakia, fondly known as Dadu by many of us, passed away on 25th August 2011.

This is his story as told by Kainaz

"There’s only one man in this world who knows how to make prawn curry and his name is Dady Pastakia.  I was 18 when I met him. He’s Rita’s dad. Rita’s my friend and she deserves a post of her own. This one’s not about her. 

A young Dadi Pastakia. His daughter, Rita, in the background

This one’s about the only man in the world who knows how to make mutton chops and his name is Dady Pastakia.

Within half an hour of meeting him I was richer by a minimum of 2000 calories. Fried potatoes, prawn curry, ghee-laden chapatis, egg something or the other, Pepsi – not made by him, chocolate ice cream – totally made by him. In the next half an hour I learnt that he’s not Dady uncle or Dady ji or Mr Pastakia. He’s Dadu. To me and to all the other six girls who lunched at his home at least four times a week. We were seven of us and he was our Santa Claus of Spices.

We ran to him after exam results and he pacified us by frying fish till the skin crinkled. When fever had wiped out our taste buds he would resurrect them with hot chicken gravy. He knew when one of us had our hearts broken, because that’s when we wouldn’t take a second helping. That one got special attention and the leg piece. 

Ham sandwiches that would end in screams of delight. Eggs only fried in too much butter. Not chocolate. Chocolates.... Cutlets and kebabs worth bunking lectures for. And if any of us got blacklisted for attendance he would come to college as our dad! He would get into character and fire us in front of the principal. Then take us home in his blue dome-shaped fiat and feed us scrambled eggs. 

Many know how to cook, but Dadu knows how to feed. Who was allergic to rice, who couldn’t stand raw onions, who wanted gravy separately, was all noted by him and taken for granted by us. Some of the girls asked him for recipes but I only asked for stories. 

If there is one thing Dadu can do as well as cook, it’s to tell a story. Actually make that two things. To tell a story and to love. Which brings me to talk about  Meher, the love. The wife.

I would run out of English if I tried to tell you how much Dadu loved Meher. She was beautiful, warm and with a temper that would make a sizzler feel like an ice cream. They fought like children. Doors were banged and thousand-rupee worth prawns (in the nineties) were chucked out of the window – some neighbour must have felt very lucky that day. I wasn’t there to see any of this. By the time I met Dadu, Meher was gone. A prolonged illness took away from Dadu, the sugar and salt of his life.

He started cooking only after she died. Why? My guess is to feed and take care of what was left behind of Meher; their daughter Rita.

Meals would often be accompanied by stories of Meher. How she loved this and would have yelled at him for that. I remember once mid-meal Dadu got up and opened what was once her wardrobe. It was intact. Dresses on the hanger, ironed, not musty. Skirts and scarves where the belonged. Her exquisite sarees. Only the most expensive and best for her. She was not his wife. She was his queen. Listening to him talk about her would make me put my spoon down and let the fish get cold.

Today’s Rita’s birthday and we met. Dadu was lying down. Age can defeat a man, or at least try. He sat up with some support from the table, looked at me and said, ‘you can have the prawn curry with chapatis,’ He remembers I am allergic to rice. Even if he forgot that he had actually made chicken curry today. 

I had the chicken curry with chapatis. It was one for the soul." Kainaz Karmakar

Kalyan K: This is a story from one of the Parsi 'Colonies' that dot the older parts of the city and are intrinsic to Mumbai. 

Unlike the 'stupid fellow' (my mom in law's words), from North India on Kaun Banega Crorepati who didn't know that dhansak is a Parsi dish, most Mumbaikars would have had some exposure to the Parsi community. Some would have known Parsis, or worked in Parsi run companies, met their dates under statues of venerable Parsi gentlemen or lusted after the famous Parsi Laganu Bhonu (wedding feast) . But the Parsi Colonies, hidden behind steep walls, remain a mystery to many.

These colonies were set up by wealthy members of the community to provide charitable housing to fellow Parsis. Today I was at Nowroz Bag. This is Mumbai's oldest Parsi Colonies. Set up by the Wadia Family who own Bombay Dyeing today.

The set up of the Nowroz Bag would be similar to most other colonies. High walls enclosing the apartment blocks. A play ground for football and other community organised sports. Blocks of buildings. Three to four story tall. Each floor honey sliced into individual flats. Each apartment opening onto common verandas. Each floor linked by stone staircases, 'uneven', as Jamshed Adrianvala told us today as he deciphered the plaque at the base of the building we were at. The plaque listed the name of the benefactors of the society. 

Jamshed Adrianvala...Dadu's friend from school

The architecture is simple. Neat clean lines. A certain similarity to the look of each building. And yet a place which reeks of character. You looked around and you knew that there were a million stories all around you. 

Stories of people who lived their entire lives over here. Breathing their last breath in the very room they were born. Ninety years back. Of fights over who bought the best fish from the fisher woman. Of elderly parents sitting at the veranda waiting for the postcards from New Zealand and Texas. Of husbands and wives who knew each other as toddlers. The young girl who crossed the little path to move to her new family in the building next door. Of young boys in sadras (traditional Parsi vests) and striped pyjamas learning how to learning how to dismantle a Yezdi bike from their uncles. Of children who married out of the community and never could come back to live there. Of celebrations where every family in the community came together to participate with equal vigour.

(As you can see I have discovered the colour adjust feature of MS Photo Editor)

Today's post was about one such story.

Today's post was not about the very tender mutton chops that I had for lunch. Nor was it about the home fried potato chips. Or about the fierce looking and yet delightfully subtle, light and well flavoured chicken curry. It is not about the alcohol soaked heady birthday cakes ordered from model Naheed Cyrusi's mother. Or the baker's confusion about whether the cake should say "Happy Birthday Rita" or "Happy Birthday Geeta" .

Today's post is the story of a man with a big heart. A man who fed seven hungry college girls day in and day out. A man at whose house I had the privilege of eating a couple of times. A man who once would spray Hugo Boss on himself before he went in to fry fish. A man who sits on his stool today and still directs his trusted cooks to conjure some of the most amazing dishes. A man who believes in excess when it comes to hosting. A man who when hospitalised for heart problems calls for mutton curry and rice from home.

Today's post is about the story of Dadu (Dadi Pastakia). It was his daughter Rita's birthday  on the 29th. (The same day as my mother's - K)

Dadu could not come up to the upstairs house where the lunch happened. But he oversaw the cooking, was satisfied that he had over-ordered and then let the party begin. Hoping that Rita's fiancé, Farhad, would share some of his duties as a host. There is no photo of Dadi Pastakia in this post except one of one year old Dadu. He doesn't look very different today, close to eighty years later.

Little Dadu

This is a story that I won't attempt to tell. I will leave that to Kainaz, one of the three of the gang of seven who made it back to 'The Den' today. So here goes. Keep your handkerchiefs ready boys as you read Kainaz talk about the one and only Dadu. A man she calls 'The Original Knife'. An association I am proud of after reading this story.

Dateline Mumbai.... China House, Grand Hyatt, Kalina

My recent posts have been about Vintage Bombay. Its nooks and crannies. Majestic colonial buildings from another era. Hole in the wall eateries. Of food for the soul. To fit every wallet. To fill every stomach. Served by people with no pretensions and very big hearts. Redolent with history and character.

This post is about a dinner in a place which is what Modern Mumbai is all about. Very different from the past. With no place for nostalgia. A city on the move. A city that doesn't look back. A Xanadu in the midst of barren lands, slums, large pockmarked roads, concrete highways, suspicious security checks. Architectural and design brilliance which matches the best in the world. Service levels which are modern, efficient and cannot be faulted with. A sense of space and modern design which stands out from the crumbling infrastructure of the rest of the city. Where a meal or a room can cost more than the most expensive places in the world. A dinner at China House at the relatively new Grand Hyatt, Kalina.

It's unfortunate that I didn't have my camera to capture the brilliant, awe inspiring and yet cosy decor of the hotel. Or of the largely memorable dinner. And the bill which would probably cause an Income Tax raid at our place.

In a way not having the camera was symbolic of the teenage angst that Modern Mumbai is going through. To start with it has to get used to being called by its official name Mumbai. And forget 'Bombay' the name by which it was till recently called. A bit like a Bengali child has to forget the Tumpas, Jhilmils, Bubais and Boombas and get used to being called Tillotoma, Satyendranath or Indrajit. Or get used to curfew hours. Mumbai wants to be a world city. Its political masters want it to be Shanghai. We like to call it the New York of India. And yet the city that true never sleeps is forced to go to bed by midnight.

K and I made impromptu plans to go to 55 East. This is the restaurant at which I went to the Bloggers Dinner recently. I didn't carry my camera as I had photographed the place ad infinitum the other night. We reached at 1140 PM. Were told that the restaurant shuts by 12. The idea of being left with a pumpkin after paying so much didn't appeal to us. So we checked out other options at the Hyatt.

We headed to the Chinese Restaurant, China House. I remember reading about China House when it was launched. I rued not having my camera as we walked past the open air Oriental pond, pushed open the heavy wooden gates and entered. The ambiance was very charming. Dim mood lighting with brighter yellow lights focusing on the tables so that you could see your food. Chinese food is all about colour and texture after all. They had nice wooden tables strewn all around as well as very elegant wooden Oriental booths with comfortable sofas. The cutlery set was earthen with peaceful calm colours. Made a pretty picture which unfortunately didn't inspire my Nokia E 71. A completely useless phone for indoor photography.

We were under tremendous pressure though. We were told that the last order would be taken at 1145 PM. It was 1148 PM. That all our food would be brought to the table at the same time. And that we better behave because Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town. That's Mumbai. You can get the best that the world has to offer if you can pay for it. But are always racing against time.


Our order was taken by a young, well informed, courteous waiter. He patiently listened to our questions, reacted to our suggestions and made his own recommendation and gave his stamp of approval on our final order. He gave us the feeling that we were in good hands.

The bowl of boiled peanuts and glass noodles, 'compliments of the Chef', looked suitably Oriental and expectedly uninspiring. I was happy to see the crushed pepper mix which Arindam OD's on in KL's Restoraan Chilli Pan Mee amongst the condiments on the table. The chilly oil in the aesthetic little oil jug was charming too.

Our wine, 'full bodied red which will go well with your pork', and bloody expensive, Vanilla Absolut and the food came together to our table as we were conscientiously warned.

The sliced pork belly with pepper was phenomenal. The host at the counter had mentioned this when I enquired about pork dishes. It lived up to its front page billing. Thin slices of very succulent pork. Good, honest meat. Aristocratic enough to make you feel pampered. A very delicate flavour which would find a nod of approval from the most demanding of Chinese Emperors. This was the sort of dish whose memory stays with you for years. 

We had a long discussion with our waiter before we decided on our choice of noodles. Crispy noodles would come with sauce which we didn't want. Another noodle would be 'Maggi like', slithering and not to our taste. Dan Dan hand pulled noodles sounded exciting but not the soup it would come with. Seafood noodles didn't 'make sense' as we were ordering a prawn dish. too The waiter finally suggested a simple noodles with pickled vegetables.

I broke into a big grin the moment the noodles arrived. This was a far cry from the limp, flaccid 'Hakka' Noodles served in most restaurants here. This looked colourful with the promise of sauces typical of the Far East with a heady aroma which took me straight to the Hokkein Mee stalls of the food courts of KL & Singapore. One bite and I realised that it tasted as good as the noodles I make at home

Next came our order of prawns with mushrooms which was recommended to us when I wanted a dish with real Sichuan peppers. The most expensive dish of the night, the one which breached the four figure mark was disappointing. The king prawns were juicy no doubt. And generous. Must have been close to ten to twelve pieces. But the sweetish, red sauce was passe, reminded K of Ashok Restaurant & Bar at Dadar, not the definitive standard in Chinese. It definitely did not inspire the sort of awe that its price did.

Still it was a meal which we ate through with a happy smile on our faces. I remembered my newly acquired skills and used chopsticks in between. We gave the Oriental desserts a miss and drove back home through the wilderness of the highway with a song on our lips.Noone expects a five star dinner to be the cheap. The overall experience was special. The food? Inspired at parts. Mundane at others.

It was a meal which made you feel special through its sheer opulence and grandness.  Still, call me an old romantic fool if you must, but me heart is owned squarely by the little honest enterprises of Vintage Bombay.

My experiments with vegetarianism...Anand Bhavan Hindu Hotel, Shri Mahalaxmi Juice Centre

Our car stopped for a minute in front of the traffic signal at CST on Wednesday morning. I lazily let my eyes wander over the Grand Dame. Taking in the angel at the top, the lions looking away, the intricate designs of the gate, the sandstone. The signal turned green and the car moved on. We passed one stately colonial office building after the other through the very British weather. No steaming cup of coffee could compare to this experience at the start of the day. I realised once again how lucky I am to be working out of Fort for a few months. Mumbai's original mercantile district. I am going to soak in every second here and will share it with you. I am going to be a tourist in my own city.

I decided that I wouldn't pack lunch from home for work for during my stint at Fort. That I would explore the place during lunch time. I realised that I won't be a true explorer if I stuck to my comfort zone. So this time I headed to a place where you would never think of finding a card carrying Bengali. A vegetarian South Indian place.

I looked around. Saw no one familiar. Slunk in. 

Anand Bhavan 'Hindu Hotel' was a deep cavernous restaurant. It wasn't air conditioned. Yet it was  cool inside thanks to its high ceilings and thick, light green coloured walls. The decor was simple and basic. Utilitarian booth of plain tables and benches. Full of people eating with deep intent and a look satisfaction on their faces.

I asked the young waiter who came to take my order for a menu. He smiled and pointed to the board with the bill of fare hung from the wall. There was no menu card. The list was a mix of the usual South Indian stuff - dosa, utthapa and a few relatively less common names. I decided to try my luck and asked for a thali or set meal.

I didn't think that I would blown by the food. My expectations were low. The end result was a meal which had its moments. But not something I can honestly wax eloquent on.

Here are the good parts. Puris. Piping hot. Gossamer thin. With an interesting hardy bite of wheat unlike the softer flour based luchis of Bengal. Crisp. Sinful. Indulgent. Surprisingly decadent for a spartan vegetarian meal. Reminded me of the B Grade soft porn Malayali film posters that we used to look at surreptitiously during our Malena days at Calcutta.

Rasam in a tiny bowl. I used to think that rasam and sambar were the same thing when I used to live in Calcutta. If I remember right, some of the Tamil friends I met when I was new to Mumbai told me that rasam was more watery than sambar and was an appetiser. I remembered this and decided to slurp up the rasam first before eating the rest of the meal. I took a sip and went 'whooa' like Colonel Slade in 'A Scent of a Woman'. This was a tequila shot. Hot, sour, spicy. It really shook up your senses and gave you a new life. This was seriously powerful stuff. I wish they had served more.

I liked the buttermilk which came with the thali. It was cooling with a wicked bite of green chilly, very sharp and wise bites of ginger and fresh and mischievous bites of coriander . What a wonderfully well balanced drink. I remembered hearing about butter milk being a digestive and kept it for the end.

Here's is the very versatile Pree making her third entry into Finely Chopped in recent times with her recipe for butter milk.

I was indifferent to the stuff that in between rasam and the butter milk. The sludge'ish aubergine based cream thing which I had with the puris didn't inspire any awe. Nor did the rather tasteless sambaar which my East Indian sensibilities guided me to have have with the rice which appeared later, the dessicated coconut and sautéed beans dish, papad and pickle. On the plus side the sambar was not sweet unlike in the Gujarati influenced Shiv Sagar Udipi joints.

Well the meal was an experiment which neither thrilled not disappointed. And what did one loose? It hardly cost anything. Or that's what I thought. Read on. There are perils to vegetarianism as I soon found out.

The thali meal came at all of Rs 33 or less than one US. A wholesome meal for honest workers out on the road. The heavy turnout of eaters ensuring that the food would be fresh and of good quality. A value proposition from another century.

Which was no surprise considering the fact that restaurant was around seventy years old according to Viswananthan, the  busy gentlemen at the counter. We chatted for a short while as he patiently answered my questions with a smiling face. He explained the food here is Keralite. On asking he said that their signature dish was 'Pongal' which they serve on Mondays and Thursdays. On asking he said that they did not serve idlis. (Anyone knows why? Do Keralites not eat idlis?) He then went in to chat with some guests who had just come in. They looked like regulars.

I knew that the meal didn't do much for me. But I could also see that there were many who were completely at home here. A welcome refuge in the middle of a busy and hard day. The sort of place which is rare in an increasingly materialistic and mercenary world. A world you can't trust as the sign below outside Anand Bhavan reminds you.

This sign outside the restaurant said, "beware of thieves and armed robbers. Shut the main gate the moment you hear the siren".

I stepped out of this "Hindu Hotel" and was bemused to see a Parsi Agiary or Fire Temple just opposite it. This is the time to put in a good word about the 'religious harmony' of India. But hey, when did Hindus and the benign Parsis have a problem with each other in any case?

I then spotted a juice shop across the road. Not exactly a hole in the wall. More like a shelf in the wall. I thought I deserved a bit of indulgence after my Spartan meal. So I decided to treat myself to a fresh grape juice. The gentleman at the stall put the grapes in the mixer, strained out the pulp and soon gave me my glassful of anti-oxidants. It was refreshing and cool especially after he added some ice. For all of twenty Rupees or half a USD. These roadside juice stalls are not rare in this part of town. We used to go to one run by a guy called Rajesh at Nariman Point when I worked there in the early 2000s. the hawkers there have been cleared out since. The outfit here was more humble than Rajesh's. The gentleman who made the juice, Dilip, said that the stall was set up in 1947.

Which is when it hit me. I looked around the street and realised that a lot of what I saw around me came up just as India became independent. Full of hopes and aspiration of the new nation. The buildings around me saw India grow into a modern nation. Were they happy? Were they proud? Or did they miss the British who ruled the streets and the country?

Done with my bit of pop philosophy I looked around and saw a rather strange pattern forming. You had the juice shop selling what one would assume to be healthy stuff. Next to it was a cigarette shop. Where, apart from gambling with your life, you could buy lottery tickets. And then came a paan shop where you could buy the popular Indian aperitif and digest whatever life threw at you.

The gentleman making the paans, Kapil Upadhyay, happily posed for me as I clicked photos. His colleague, friend or innocent bystander with a big moustache told me that this shop was about seventy years old too. They were all tenants of a restaurant called Lalit. Yes, in Mumbai, even the walls of building are rented out.  Mr Moochh (moustache in Hindi) went on to say that the restaurant Lalit was apparently inaugurated by the chief minister of Kerala soon after independence in '47. And that these cheerful little juice and paan stalls were up and running even then.

Gosh it was almost as if I had a meal which was in the making for seventy years that afternoon.

I was brought back to reality in a few minutes. I learnt that no good can come out of eating vegetarian food.

I had clicked quite a few photos by then. People around me got into thick of things. Some posed. Others suggested camera angles and critiqued my photos. Everyone wanted to see the results.

Except the commandos accompanying a ministerial cavalcade which went by. They weren't amused. I had to explain the concept of blogging to them and dish out every visiting card that I had. I was finally let off with a stern warning from the perplexed commandos. "Don't you know what's happening in Mumbai?" I managed to escape Guantanamo Bay by the skin of my teeth.

I had learnt my lesson. I headed to Jeffs and brought home mutton kebabs and chicken biriyani for dinner.