Kunzes Angmo : the storyteller chef of Ladakh at her sit down meal in Kochi

“I think I still have earth under my nails.” Chef Kunzes Angmo from Leh, who hosted a food pop-up called Ladakhi Odyssey in Kochi recently, is talking about how she was foraging for leaves and vegetables from her garden until the last minute. “I carried 25 kg of ingredients on the flight.” This was after sending ingredients such as yatpa baltilang (buckwheat greens), scotse (dried garlic chives) pul (natural soda) and phabs (yeast) earlier. “50kg in all,” she laughs. The event was hosted by Guestronomy, the Kochi-based experiential hospitality group, and will be held in Kottayam on Decem,ber 2.

A researcher in food history, culture and evolution of Ladakhi food, Kunzes’ dinners are always “sit-down meals with a narrative.” The diner learns learns about the cuisine of a cold desert with no rainfall and scarce glacial water, how food is preserved to last during the long and dark winters and interesting titbits about traditional Ladakhi kitchen ovens and various aspects of the meal.

Like the fact that roasted roasted barley flour used in the soup had been ground in a runtak, a traditional water mill driven by fast moving water. The flatbread sourdough, versions of the roomali roti  — come from a strong bread-making tradition common to most of Ladakh. Rice, barley, wheat and meat preparations that form the main course became part of the diet at different points in time due to historical influences, like migration from Tibet.  Fresh greens — radish, turnip, dandelions — are foraged during the short summers and preserved. Sun-dried vegetables and meats are consumed during the biting cold winters. Though there’s no concept of a dessert, Ladakhi food uses fresh fruits such as apricots and apples from Turtuk in the west as a sweet. 

“Ladakhi food is a result of its history, its trade with Central Asia, its socio-religious-cultural exchanges with Tibet and now the influences from the sub-continent,” explains Kunzes who studied Political Science and Business Administration outside Ladakh. She set up Artisanal Alchemy two years ago and serves curated meals at Jade House and Stok Palace in Leh. Her attachment to the region’s authentic food came from her family’s attempt to keep in touch with their roots by eating “true Ladakhi food”. She recalls how they would eat Skyu, a rustic thumbprint pasta with root vegetables and tomato tempering in Delhi’s sweltering summer.

When Kunzes returned to Leh, after studying in Dalhousie, she became aware of the nuances of Ladakhi food culture. “The climate has shaped our architecture and food habits,” she says. In traditional architecture, she points out, every Ladakhi home had passive solar heating. Made with mud bricks, Poplar beams and willow twigs, the traditional stove is the heart of the home. Kunzes remembers the family gathering around the oven and doing homework in its warmth. A south-facing room of glass, called Shelkang, was another family space that received maximum sunlight.

We begin the meal with a shot made of pureed seabuckthorn berries and Roku gin. As the breads and soups arrive, Kunzes continues her narrative. “An exhaust was added to the oven in the1880s and the German missionaries introduced a wrought-iron stove.” The Germans married locally and introduced vegetables such as potatoes, carrot (sarg turman) and kidney beans.

For the soup, the diners have to choose between Sugu-sgnamthuk (Goat Trotter’s broth) or Zathuk, a vegetarian version made with foraged wild stinging nettle. Thangnyer, made with Yellow Himalayan chilli and Cilantro, makes a perfect dip for the Khambir or sourdough and the Tsong Thalsshrak, an onion biscuit bread. 

“Food preservation and fermentation are the two most important aspects of Ladakhi food,” says Kunzes, explaining that both dairy and meat are sun-dried and that vegetables and fruits are preserved in cellars. Most houses make barley wine and arrack is distilled liqueur. Another interesting nugget she shares is the origins of grape wine made by the Brokpa tribe in Turtuk that draws its ancestry from the lost tribe of Alexander’s army.

Yarkhandi Pulao

The presence of rice in Ladakhi diet was an indication of the family’s privileged position. Kunzes’ affluent maternal ancestors ate rice but it was not part of the common man’s plate. The Yarkhandi plou is a rich dish with meat, black Afghan raisins and sweet apricot kernels. It was served with salted butter tea or Solja shrushma that consumed all- day long in Ladakhi homes. A choice of Skyu, a staple in Kunzes’s home, too was in the main course. Another wholesome meal is the Lama Pakthuk, wholewheat small noodles with greens and dried cheese.

“Ladakhi food does not use spices except pepper. But we use lots of herbs,” says Kunzes and goes on to list cilantro (usu), Chinese celery (Chintse), onion greens (tsong lop), wild garlic chives (skotse), tumburuk (summer savoury herb), Moldavian Dragon head (tsamik), purple Basil (Kaliyan), Yellow Himalayan chilli (Thangnyer) and Phololing (water or house mint). “These are foraged from the mountains and along the water channels.”

The exotic gastronomical experience accompanied by compelling storytelling ends with a delicate dessert made of apricots and apples.

Recipe

Yarkhandi Pulao

Serves: 5

Cuisine: Ladakhi, Central Asian, Yarkhandi

Main course

The Yarkhandi Pulao is a true representation of the historicity of Ladakh on a plate. This is a dish that has travelled south to Ladakh from Yarkhand (part of present-day Xinjiang province in China) along the southern tributaries of the ancient Silk Road. Traditionally cooked with big chunks of goat meat, always on the bone from the leg and rib-joints (raan and cham) of the animal; Yarkhandi pulao was the Ladakhi haute cuisine of yore. This was because in a high-altitude cold desert where the diet reflected the crops that the earth could sustain, the rich pulao was constituted of rice, an extremely premium grain until about 70-80 years back (till the Public Distribution System was introduced in the region), with meat, fat (clarified butter) and nuts being the other “rich” ingredients. It is the only dish in traditional Ladakhi cuisine that employs a few whole spices like ‘shah zeera’, a native of west Asia. This lends a subtle yet refined flavour and aroma to the rice without the feel of the spices in every bite. Yarkhandi pulao pronounced “Yarkhendi pollo”, is most akin to the Afghani or Kabuli plov, the Mongolian plov which is often cooked in the stomach of the animal and fellow Indians might find a striking resemblance to the Parsi pollo (as its Persian in origin). The use of nuts as garnish is again very similar to other central-Asian pulaos, but the Yarkhandi traders in Ladakh mainly used almonds, sweet apricot kernels and small black raisins; with the latter being picked on their way from Afghanistan before finally reaching Ladakh.

In old Leh, there were only 2-3 families who hosted the Yarkhandi traders, one of them being Kalon, which is my husband’s family and another being Shrangara, my maternal grandmother’s family. The following recipe is recounted mainly by my aunt-in-law, an accomplished cook with some inputs from my nonagenarian maternal grandmother, both of whom have spent their childhood and youth living the stories that many locals now narrate to visiting travellers.

Recipe:

Ingredients

For cooking the meat:

 600-650 gms of mutton (from the leg and rib joints, raan and chaam – always on the bone) cut into 5 big pieces

 2 black cardamoms (bari elaichi)

  1 tablespoon whole fennel seeds (saunf sabut)

 ¼ of a whole onion

 1 teaspoon salt

  Water for cooking/boiling the meat

For the garnish:

  2.5 whole onions julienned and deep fried into a beresta

Refined oil for deep frying the onions

 1/3 cup almonds

  1/3 cup sweet apricot kernels

 1/3 cup black raisins

  1 teaspoon clarified butter for frying the nuts

For the pulao:

 2.5 cups packed finely julienned carrots (from 3 long carrots)

 Teaspoon clarified butter (ghee)

1 teaspoon shah/kala zeera

 2 cups long grain basmati rice washed

Instructions/Directions

Cooking the meat:

In a pan boil 8 cups of water and add the pieces of meat. Skim any impurities/scum that rises to the top while boiling on medium heat. Add 1 teaspoon salt, 2 black cardamoms, 1 tablespoon whole fennel seeds, ¼ of a medium-large onion to the boiling water. Cover the pan with a lid and let the mutton broth cook and simmer on medium heat for around one hour, 45 minutes. (while the meat is cooking you can get the other ingredients ready as given in step 8.  Keep checking the water in the broth at regular intervals. When/if the broth reduces considerably below the surface of the mutton pieces, which is expected after an hour of boiling, add 4-6 cups of hot water so the big pieces of meat are fully submerged in the broth again. Let the meat continue cooking on medium-low heat till tender and fully cooked but not falling off the bone; and the broth is reduced to almost half, about 3-4 cups.  Once cooked, remove the mutton pieces from the broth onto a clean plate with a slotted spoon and sieve the broth through a strainer. You should ideally have about 3-4 cups of clean, mutton broth. Keep the broth aside. In a wok, heat 6-8 teaspoons of ghee. Once hot add 2 of the boiled pieces of mutton and shallow fry on medium heat while turning the pieces so that all sides of the meat are browned and fried evenly. It is advised to cover the wok partly while frying to avoid hot oil from splattering on your hands.  Once done remove the nicely browned pieces with a slotted spoon. Repeat step 6. until all the pieces of meat are fried. And then keep them aside.

Preparing the garnish:

 After step 2. while the meat is cooking, in another pan/wok heat 1.5-2 cups refined vegetable oil. Once the oil is heated, add half of the julienned onions and deep fry on medium-low heat. Stir the frying onions in between to ensure they brown evenly and once they turn golden-brown, remove the fried onions from the hot oil immediately onto a clean dry plate.        Repeat the above step with the leftover onion slivers until all the onions are fried. Once done, keep the fried onions/beresta aside.           Wash the almonds and sweet apricot kernels to remove any dust and pat dry.             Add 1 teaspoon of ghee in another pan and add the nuts to fry/toast on medium-low heat. Stir continuously so it is fried evenly for 2-3 minutes and remove when done.

For the Pulao:

  Take a thick bottomed deep sauce pan/stock pot/biryani handi/pot. (I used an anodized handi sauce pan) and heat 3-4 teaspoons of ghee in it. You can also use the leftover ghee from frying the mutton pieces.        Add the 2.5 cups of julienned carrots and sautee on medium heat stirring at regular intervals so the carrots are evenly cooked.      Once the carrots are well cooked (they will be noticeably reduced to almost 1/3 the quantity), add 3.5 cups of the strained mutton broth. If the quantity of the broth is less than 3.5 cups, add hot water to substitute the remaining portion.        Once the broth starts simmering, add the 2 cups of rice (I washed the rice and kept with the water drained for 1 hour before cooking), 1 teaspoon shah/kala zeera, the 5 pieces of mutton fried earlier, 1 tablespoon of fried onion slivers and salt to taste. Here add the leftover ghee from frying the meat if not added in step 13. Or else if used earlier, add an extra 2-3 teaspoon of ghee to the pulao.       Stir and let the Yarkhandi pulao cook covered on medium heat covered with a lid till the water is almost absorbed but the rice is noticeably wet like a gruel (that is for the first 5-8 minutes)       Seal the lid with some wet dough or a heavy weight and let the pulao cook on very low heat for 15-20 minutes. The total cooking time of the pulao from the moment the rice is added to the broth is around 25 minutes.       Once the pulao is done, around 25 minutes from the moment the rice is added to the simmering stock, remove from the stove top and let the dish sit undisturbed for 15-20 minutes.

Plating and Garnish:     Carefully open the lid removing the sealing dough (if used). And fluff up the rice/Yarkhandi pulao (I use a stainless steel chopstick to fluff up my rice) adding the fried onion slivers, fried/toasted nuts and the black raisins in the process. The rice should be not be overcooked so as to go mush on fluffing and should have just enough fat/ghee so that the grains don’t look a homogenous mound with too much solidarity when plating.      Plate and serve layered with the remaining fried onion slivers and nuts and raisins.

Tips:

 While frying the meat in Step 6., use a lid to partially cover the wok/pan to keep hot splattering oil away from your face and hands

Variations:

 Sweet apricot kernels can be substituted with cashew nuts since apricot kernels are hard to come by in any grocery store in the subcontinent. Similarly black raisins can be substituted with plain green ones. Instead of cooking the carrots in the pan, they can be deep fried earlier too in refined oil but in doing so, the carrots loose their flavour in the hot oil which is not added to the pulao.

 With vegetarianism on the rise, the recipe can be altered with the omission of the meat for vegetarians. In such a scenario, substitute the meat stock with plain water for cooking the pulao.

Traditionally the Yarkhandi pulao was cooked in traditional heavy stone pots called “doltok” in Ladakhi. The substantial weight of the stone lids of these pots did not necessitate the use of wet dough for sealing when cooking the pulao. The Yarkhandi Pulao made the traditional way was said to be symbolic of the big hearts (read deep pockets) of the hosts for their guests which was proved by the amount of fat/ghee dripping down ones elbows while eating. The recipe above uses just enough ghee/fat and does not overdo it like my ancestors.