Winter in India brings with it all kinds of root vegetables, tubers and leafy greens. With carrots, beets, radishes, sweet potatoes, spinach, sarson ka saag, fenugreek leaves and green peas, and these vegetables come winter dishes. Let’s start with carrot- ‘Gajar Ka Halwa’. We all know ‘Gajar Ka Halwa’ but I ate the most delicious ‘Black Gajar Ka Halwa’ at Rahmat Ali’s sweet shop in the old streets of Lucknow. Deep purple in color, these almost black carrots are full of antioxidants and good qualities found in blueberries, grapes and blackberries. This carrot grows only in winter and adds an earthy flavor to the halwa, which is made less sweet than usual, with no khoya and ghee added. Nothing keeps you warm.
Talking about ‘Halwa’, we can make ‘Gajar Ka Halwa’, ‘Milk Halwa’, ‘Semolina Halwa’, then why can’t we make ‘Egg Halwa’. After all, this is an old traditional recipe. ‘Halva’ itself comes from the Arabic word ‘halva’, meaning sweet, and appears to have come to India during the Sultanate period from the 13th to the middle of the 16th century, and its roots can be traced to the Ottoman Empire. . The use of eggs in sweets is in any case quite common, as in ‘malpua’ and ‘vatalappam’ both made during Eid and on special occasions in North and South India. With a lot of ghee, sugar, milk and patience, ‘egg pudding’ is hot as well as warming.
In winter, where both spinach and sarson ka saag are available in abundance, in Punjab, sarson ka saag will always be made from sarson ka saag. No cheating just with spinach. Sarson ka saag is mixed with four other vegetables, spinach, ‘bathua’, radish and fenugreek along with onions, tomatoes, green chillies, ginger and garlic and ‘maize flour’ for thickening. The result is a thick fortified broth, which should essentially be eaten with smoky ‘makki di roti’ dipped in fresh white butter.
Nothing defines the northern winter more than ‘sarson ka saag’ and ‘makki di roti’, as ‘undio’ defines the Gujarati winter, especially ‘surti undhiyu’. Made only during winters as only vegetables available during the season are used in Undhiyu. Such as muthias made from green eggplant, purple yam, beans, raw banana and fenugreek leaves. It is a bright green dry mixed vegetable in which coriander, chilli and gram flour have special significance.
In the bitter winter of Kashmir, a ‘Gushtaba’ warms the heart and the hearth. ‘Gushtaba’ is mythological and holds its place in any Kashmiri ‘Wazwan’. It is traditionally served as the final dish of the feast rather than as a dessert. ‘Gushtaba’ are minced mutton balls cooked in a creamy gravy of curd and milk in spices, spiced with fennel, cloves, bay leaves and cardamom and cinnamon; Extremely rich, heavy and perfect for winters.
No winter morning in Agra is complete without ‘Nihari’. It is a slow cooked mutton or beef soup. The word ‘Nihar’ is derived from the Arabic word ‘Nahar’, which means ‘morning’. In the days of Nawabs and Mughal kings ‘Nihari’ was slow-cooked with spices throughout the night, ready to be served after the morning prayer. If you walk through the narrow walled lanes, there is a ‘nai basti’ and, if my memory serves correct, “nai” does not mean a “new” settlement but a ‘barber’s’ settlement. It houses the Mughal Nihari, which opens in the early morning and the large vessels are emptied within a few hours. Hot, spicy ‘Nihari’ with chopped green chillies and ‘Khimari Roti’ is the hearty necessity of winter.
There is so much food that drops as the temperature drops. There is ‘sweet potato chaat’ on the streets. Sweet and salty, boiled or fried sweet potatoes. The ‘Gond ka laddus’ of Rajasthan are filled with ghee, dry fruits and spices that are bound with edible gum resin. The Bengali ‘Nolen Gurer Sandesh’ is a traditional sweet made from freshly made ‘Chhena’ (cheese) and ‘Nolan jaggery’, a type of date jaggery that is available only in winters. Soft, smoky and melts in the mouth. Nutritious ‘Panjiri’ is a mixture of ghee, wheat flour and dry fruits. ‘Raab’ is a drink made of ghee, milk and flour in shameless quantities.
It seems that everything we eat in winter in India is highly biased towards ghee and prosperity. And why not, after all we have a culture, which is as rich as ghee.
Kunal Vijaykar is a food writer based in Mumbai. He tweets @kunalvijayakar and can be followed on Instagram @kunalvijayakar. What is the name of his YouTube channel? The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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