Finding Dakhni food

During a lean day at work, my colleague Rumah Rasaque, in her early 40s, said, “As I grow older, I crave the foods that I relished as a child.” From halwa puri to kulti ka kutt — the list of dishes prepared in Dakhni households like hers seemed never-ending. “I haven’t had kutt in ages. Do people have time to make these dishes?” she wondered, wistfully. The family of working women had given up on the time-consuming cooking practices of their community. “When I moved out of Bengaluru to study and work I realised I couldn’t connect with the Muslims in Delhi or Lucknow,” she said.

The random conversation set us off on an exploration to find ‘forgotten foods’ of the Deccan. Only later would we learn that this cuisine was anything but forgotten.

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While I don’t belong to the Dakhni community, having lived in Bengaluru all my life — 24 years — I believed I knew all there is to know about Dakhni Muslims. I could speak the language; I had participated in Dakhni traditions; I knew the Muslim neighbourhoods well. I remember the first time I had muzaffar, a Dakhni kheer made with broken rice. It was at a traditional Bengaluru Muslim wedding and I ate it like everyone else — scooping it up with two fingers rather than using a spoon. I have been obsessed with this rice-based dessert ever since.

I had imagined I could reunite Rumah with a part of her childhood. During Ramzan this year, I excitedly handed her a cover full of halwa puris (fried dumpling with a sweet filling made of split chickpeas and coconut). They were delicious but they didn’t taste like the ones Rumah grew up eating. Made at a small bakery in Bengaluru’s very own Chandni Chowk, “the stuffing had more semolina than split chickpeas”, Rumah said, pointing out the difference.

When you hear halwa puri, you’re likely to think of the popular north Indian or Pakistani breakfast dish comprising fried flatbread and semolina halwa. The Dakhni community’s take on halwa puri, however, is more similar to gujiya or karanji, fried dumpling made with a filling quite similar to Karnataka’s holige (sweetened flatbread, also known as obbattu). This is just one of the many differences between the Dakhni cuisine in the south and the Muslim cuisine up north. Curious, I decided to find out other ways that Dakhni food stood out.

Rumah, who heads the videography team at DH and Prajavani, dispatched her team to film my culinary quest around Bengaluru.

What is Dakhni food?

A simple Google search for ‘What’s Dakhni cuisine?’ yields only a handful of useful results. And most of the ‘Where to find the best Dakhni food in Bengaluru’ listicles guide you to biryani joints.

But I knew Dakhni food was much more than the biryani, having seen and eaten it at the homes of my Dakhni friends. I especially remember the kulti ka kutt (horse gram curry) — a personal favourite of my dadi (grandmother), the many koftas (mutton meatballs), and the mouthwatering dal ka meetha (sweet pudding made of ground lentils).

Bhaaji ka chaar, a two-part vegetarian dish. Credit: Special Arrangement

Much like the Dakhni language, the cuisine of the community is often misunderstood. Many think that Dakhni is a dialect of Urdu while, in fact, it is a mix of Dehlavi, Kannada, Marathi, and Telugu — it differs from state to state.

As for the cuisine, food anthropologist Kurush Dalal said, “It literally means the cuisine of the Deccan region. This involves parts of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, which had the culture established by the Deccan Sultanates and other Muslim rulers. The food and the culture (of these parts) are inspired by a gentle Islamic rule when compared to other places.”

The Dakhni food of today is drastically different from how it started out. “Early on, the Persian influence was strong. The dishes were elaborate and were developed to have multiple layers with subtle flavours. You would often see meat cooked with fruits, dry fruits, rose water, and saffron. However, the food of Bengaluru Muslims today isn’t the same. They developed their own cuisine after the Sultanate fell (between the 1500s and 1600s),” explained Dalal.

Making the kutt

From being the rulers, the Dakhni people now became a part of the common populace. During this period, their food underwent a significant transformation and turned into what Dalal dubs ‘frugal food’. The kutt is a prime example of that. He said, “Muslims are credited for bringing horses to south India. Traditionally, kutt was eaten for dinner. You would boil the horse gram the previous day, and feed it warm to horses in the morning. The water strained from the horse gram was brought home, reduced, and turned into kutt. This way, there was no wastage and the meal was also rich in protein.”

I first tasted kutt when I was eight. A relative had sent over a huge container of brown gravy. My dadi was elated. She served herself hot rice on a plate, then a generous helping of the curry and a dollop of ghee. I followed suit. After my first bite, I sat staring at the plate, heartbroken. I did not like the taste — the tamarind and cumin came through strongly, and the horse gram flavour was too earthy for my liking. I had despised the dish since. But after sampling it again last month, I have strangely developed a liking for it.

Kulti ka kutt is prepared by reducing the stock of horse gram by boiling. Horse gram needs to be soaked overnight and the stock is then stewed for a few hours with spices like coriander, cumin, and tamarind until it turns into a thick gravy, to which meatballs and boiled eggs are added. It doesn’t end there — the gravy then continues to cook on a slow simmer until the meatballs and eggs turn a soft brown after absorbing all the flavour and spices. The dish is eaten over the course of a week, either with rice for lunch or dinner, or with eggs and hot dosas for breakfast a few days after the curry turns viscous.

The no-waste attitude can be seen in various other Dakhni foods. The bhaaji ka chaar is a two-part vegetarian dish. It consists of a dry bhaaji, and a tangy gravy. The bhaaji is made by boiling your choice of greens and lentils, the stock of which is used to prepare the gravy. When home chef Sadiya Shifa taught me how to make bhaaji ka chaar, I saw how simple the meal was. The daily food at Dakhni homes wasn’t an ‘event’, she told me, busting the popular belief. It usually comprises rice, dal and veg sabzi or phaal (a spicy non-veg curry).

Sadiya Shifa. Credit: Special Arrangement

Simplicity is where the Dakhni food of Bengaluru differs from that of Hyderabad. Dalal said, “Hyderabad had the influence of the Nizams until very recently, so you see the royal influence in their food. That’s missing in the Muslim food of Bengaluru.”

Suthriyan is another no-waste dish. It is made from leftover roti dough (of wheat or rice) and can be repurposed into either a sweet or savoury dish. The sweet variety is flavoured with either regular milk or coconut milk and cardamom, while the savoury version is cooked in mutton stock.

Kitchen confidential

My quest led me to many Bengaluru Muslims — some I knew; some were strangers. But they all were absolutely thrilled to showcase their culture to me.

Sarah Zoheb Nakhuda is my neighbour. A homemaker, she taught me how to make kutt kofta and Bengaluru-style shami kebab (again, made with split chickpeas). Between the chopping and frying, she lamented how Dakhni food was fading away as nuclear families have became the norm.

Sarah Zoheb Nakhuda. Credit: Special Arrangement

“My mum tried her best to keep traditions alive but many of these dishes are labour-intensive. Making sweet dishes like khajoor or malida was neither a one-person job nor meant for small families. Growing up, all the women and cousins in the family would come together to make these for a big event. Now, no one has the time,” she said.

Then, chonge has fallen out of favour because of changing religious practices. A fried flatbread, it is topped with powdered sugar and desiccated coconut and it was traditionally prepared during Muharram (the first month of the Islamic calendar).

“As a child, I remember sinking my teeth into chonge, only to have my face covered with powdered sugar. My siblings and I would have a blast eating these. However, these aren’t memories that my children will relate to because our family doesn’t celebrate Muharram anymore,” she said.

Social and identity divides have also dealt a blow. Muskaan Khan,
a 22-year-old Dakhni Muslim, said, “The mainstream media has always portrayed the Dakhni community as inferior to the Muslims up north. Plus, social class comes into play. Everyone wants to be a Fraser Town Muslim rather than a Shivajinagar Muslim.” While Shivajinagar has become a stronghold of working class Dakhni Muslims, Fraser Town and surrounding areas are dominated by upper-class Muslims.

Muskaan, a Shivajinagar resident, said, “Over time, the community has moulded itself to become more ‘acceptable’. They would rather be seen speaking crisp Urdu and dining at a Mughlai restaurant rather than eating in the bylanes of Shivajinagar. Growing up, I didn’t want to tell people that I came from Shivajinagar or that my family ate goat head. Only now have I started embracing my culture.”

Revival mode on

From Brazilian to Korean, you can find a diverse variety of food in Bengaluru. Yet its own Dakhni food doesn’t find a place on commercial menus. With just a few taps on your phone, you can order malai kebab, mutton rogan josh and chicken shashlik, but you are unlikely to get pandu ka chaar or suthriyan until you visit a Dakhni home or know somebody from the community.

According to Faseeulla Saifulla, a chef in Bengaluru, there are two big reasons why Dakhni food hasn’t made it to restaurants. One is straightforward — “the local crowd doesn’t want to eat what they get at home”. “Second, from the point of view of restaurateurs, it is not practical. You can’t whip up these dishes quickly even when the base is ready,” said Faseeulla, who is currently researching for his book on Dakhni cuisine because there is “barely any literature on that, especially about Bengaluru”.

To try Dakhni food, he says people need to step into the heart of Shivajinagar. He is talking about a hole-in-the-wall canteen, ‘Firdous Bachelor’s Canteen’. Here, you find the quintessential Bengaluru shaadi ki biryani. It is mildly spiced, made from just three whole spices — cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. Kutt kofta, boti masala, kali mirchi ka phaal, dal gosht, paya soup and shami kebabs are other dishes on the menu. But, only locals come visiting — mostly men.

However, Zoheb Shad, a trained pastry chef, is trying to take Dakhni food beyond the limits of Shivajinagar and City Market. Through his cloud kitchen Food Fantasy, he is popularising Dakhni sweet treats such as badam ki jaali, khajoor and halwa puri. This, he says, is a homage to his grandmother. “As a child, I would watch her crimp the halwa puris and make the rotis for malida,” said the 25-year-old. Malida is made from crushed wheat rotis, sugar, coconut and dry fruits. The word comes from the Pashto word ‘maleeda’, meaning ‘finely crushed’.

Another dish he has fond memories of is the badam ki jaali, Bengaluru’s answer to badam katli, and much prettier and healthier, I would say. Made from soaked almonds, the sweet is usually prepared during wedding celebrations, especially as part of the extravagant meal the bride’s
family sends over to the groom’s side.

Dalal links jaali — the lattice pattern carved on this sweet — to the architecture reminiscent of the Deccan Sultanate whose rule spanned Golconda, Bijapur, Bidar, Ahmednagar, and Berar of south-central
India. “The pattern is an attempt at replicating the architecture of mosques and palaces, inspired by Persian architecture,” he said.

Recently, Zoheb has started teaching these recipes in online and offline classes. “It is important to pass these recipes on to the next generation or they will have nothing in common with us,” he reasoned.

Zoheb’s words ring in my ears because some of my fondest childhood memories involve food — from the saakhuche (a spicy, tangy vegetable and seafood stew made with a dash of coconut milk) I had at my grandfather’s home in a coastal village near Kundapura to the stories of the millet-heavy jailor food culture my grandmother told me about her hometown Sirsi. I am a Nawayathi Muslim and my food has helped me stay rooted in my culture.

But the most endearing outcome of my one-month quest for the Dakhni food of Bengaluru is this — after staying away from the kitchen for years, Rumah has now decided to step in and learn to make dishes she misses dearly. “Asra, my cousin and I have decided to cook all the Dakhni dishes we miss. We plan to meet online every weekend. First up, we’re making daalcha,” she told me. Looks like Bengaluru is getting its very own
adaptation of ‘Julie and Julia’.

What’s the difference?

The Hyderbadi cuisine has royal influences, evidenced from the heavy use of malai (cream) and spices. The Dakhni food of Bengaluru is simple fare. The Bengaluru biryani uses only three spices (cardamom, cloves and cinnamon) and is made with short-grain rice. Hyderbadi biryani, however, features a range of whole spices, besides shahi jeera, and uses long-grain rice. However, the use of coconut and deg (a tapering copper vessel) is common to both cultures.