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"WHEN YOU THINK OF HYDERABAD, it’s the mouth-watering flavours of Dum Biryani that come to mind. But the richness of Deccani cuisine cannot be limited to a few dishes. Biryani is only the beginning of a unique experience that can bring the human palate to the brink of ecstasy,” says Shahnoor Jehan, the 62-year-old chef behind the home-cooking venture Khassa, which focuses on recreating the unique and nearly extinct Hyderabadi dishes of yore.
Jehan had always loved to cook these old Hyderabad delicacies for her family and friends, but in 2019, she started Khassa after much encouragement from them. Since then, she’s gained a widespread following for her meticulous reconstruction of ancestral recipes from across Hyderabad. Jehan’s grandmother — the late Muzaffar Unissa Begum — was connected to the family of the Sultan of Yemen; Jehan’s food therefore is an amalgamation of Mughal, Turkish and Arabic cuisines in addition to Hyderabadi influences.
Her repertoire spans popular dishes like Haleem, Rann Ghosht, Kairi Ka Dopayaza as well as signature dishes that are rarely available elsewhere: Kuzi (leg of mutton cooked with almonds, saffron, and spices like black pepper) and Tamatar Ka Kut (a rich tomato gravy with mild temperate spices, topped with boiled eggs). Then there’s the Kulthi Ka Kut (a thick, dal-like gravy made from horse gram and garnished with boiled eggs), Shab-Degh (mutton with turnip) and the Afandi Salan (a mutton dish in which the meat is sliced, filled and cooked with saffron).
PAST PERFECT
Jehan has fond memories of the kitchen of her childhood home. “During my school days, I remember that in spite of having a gas stove, we also had a traditional stove (a separate place for a woodfire and a “phukni”/blower). At the time, I used to feel the process of cooking must be long and impractical.” With their aristocratic lineage, the family had many helpers, but Jehan’s mother was insistent on preparing meals from scratch herself. Recipes were closely guarded. “For example, even to make cold coffee for a huge gathering she had a technique unlike any seen today,” recounts Jehan. “I haven’t had such delicious cold coffee ever, afterwards.”
Unlike the lost cold coffee, several other dishes are being restored from the depths of obscurity through Jehan’s efforts at Khassa. A case in point is the Dam Ki Machli (fish), made very carefully and handled delicately. The dish is made only on burning coal, but the way coals are placed defines the taste of the dish. Mutabaq, another old resurrected recipe, is a slow-cooked dish with very, very — Jehan emphasises — thin slices of rotis that form the dish. A frequently made dish, albeit not in its original avatar, is the Marag. Jehan is insistent that the original version had big pieces of mutton with a lot of fat and no oil or ghee. She explains, “It should only be the fat of the mutton and it is served with ‘masube’ — the roti for it. But today, except for very few old Hyderabadi families no one has heard of it!”
TRADITIONAL TOUCH
Traditional dishes are not easy to make and require elaborate preparation. The marination alone makes these dishes very labour and time intensive, and this is why Jehan operates only on a pre-order basis. For instance, one of her sought-after desserts, Badam Ka Kund, takes about four hours of prep time for the ingredients, and another four hours to cook. Namish, a milk-and-cardamom drink made specially for winters, has to be prepared overnight. The cooking time for Dam Ki Machli is at least three hours. Spices are ground by hand. Food is cooked using the dum technique. Only the finest cuts of meat will do.
Jehan is very particular about using the “right type of mutton” in her recipes. The Telangana Potla (live lamb) used should be not more than eight kg, and should be healthy. Specific dishes need specific parts. For example, Mutton Dalcha requires seene ka gosht (chest pieces only) and the meat needs to be chopped in a specific way.
More than the ingredients it is the method of cooking that differentiates the dishes. Jehan adds, “We source most of the ingredients from local Hyderabadi markets, except for the dry fruits — those are sourced from Iran — and zafran from Spain.” Jehan is firm on keeping the home-cooked identity of Khassa intact rather than turning it into a commercial establishment. The minimum number of people she cooks for is 8-10, with a maximum of 50.
Each morsel of Jehan’s meals speaks to a way of life that is on the wane, if not vanished entirely. Khassa is a throwback to the type of cooking that revered flavours and rewarded fortitude — a type of cooking that we now experience only through the efforts of culinary soldiers like Jehan.
