Jama Masjid with Megha Kohli … and some thoughts on Indianness and Islam

 

I went to Delhi to visit India Art Fair. But to be honest, I really went to Delhi to eat at Jama Masjid while it was still cold, while the smoke from the charcoal grills warms the heart and the hulking majesty of the Jama Masjid rises above the winter haze preside over this ritual food and community in the shadow of the minarets. 

I hadn’t been to Jama Masjid for four or five years and it really felt like I had been missing a part of my soul. As I crossed CP and moved towards the old city.. crossing Delite Cinema, past Delhi Gate and Golcha, past Sablok Clinic (which has made me smile for two decades), and up Daryaganj towards the Red Fort, I felt a sense of excitement and happiness that very few restaurants can provide. 

This visit was even more special because I was joining Chef Megha Kohli who was showing a bunch of us Jama Masjid through her eyes. I know that most people know Megha for her Mediterranean food but in her heart, her great passion is Indian food. She is obsessed with traditional Indian food, researching dishes, understanding roots and history, interacting with people and culture and sharing her discoveries with her team and friends and diners. 

This time she took along four other chefs (Priyam Chatterjee, Azaan Qureshi, Pawan Bisht and Shridula Chatterjee), one mixologist (Jonas Vittur, a week into India) and one general civilian glutton (me). 

We started at Aslam Chicken and ate the Butter Chicken and Butter Fish. This isn’t the cream and tomato butter chicken we usually get but more like the Chicken Hakimi you get at Mumbai’s Noor Mohammadi, a tandoori chicken that is then deep fried in butter to create a sinful, irresistible dish. But if the chicken was familiar the fish wasn’t. Cooked in the same buttery sauce, it was a crispy juicy river sole that I thought was fried but had a bit of a char like it had also been grilled.

Then we stepped out into the streets and had a fish fry at Haji Mohammad Hussain’s. Interestingly every plate of fish had three different kinds so you could get different flavours and textures when you bit into the fish. The fish was fried together in the same vat of oil where the chicken is cooked and then tossed in a chatpata masala with a generous chilli powder hit. I couldn’t help but think of how fish cooked this well with such flawless batter would be celebrated for its technique if it had been served in Tokyo. 

While we were waiting for our fish, our eyes kept straying towards the really fancy looking sheermal cooked next door at Shaan e Mughal Shahi Sheermal and naturally, we ended up buying some. The sheermal was cooked in ghee and topped with slivers of almond and pista. This isn’t a traditional sheermal but a dish created and named by the proprietor Ayoub Khan, and it felt deserving of the “shahi” moniker, sweet but not too sweet, both chewy and soft at the same time. 

We then stepped out of the famous Karims lane and stepped into a semi-deserted gully further down the road. There we walked past gigantic sheep deep into the narrow lane till we reached Abdul Malik Chicken Corner. Chef Pawan Bisht had discovered this place several years back and was so blown away that he called Megha the next day and insisted on taking her there the same evening. After eating the kebabs there I can see why Pawan was so impressed. The mutton Sheekh was excellent. But the buff Sheekh was something else… rich, fatty, juicy pieces of Buffalo mince perfectly skewered and grilled and completely melt in the mouth. And despite not being a chicken fan I was stunned by how soft, creamy and succulent the chicken tikkas were. Washed down with Thums Up, this place was a real discovery.. a hidden gem that deserves greater renown. 

And then it was back to Cool Point Shahi Tukda for desserts. Desserts not dessert, because the amount we ate there was a meal in itself. Shahi Tukda, Kesar Shahi Tukda, Rabdi, Badam milk, Anjeer ice cream and best of all the most spectacular hand churned mango ice cream that really blows Naturals out of the water. I still can’t get over the texture, how smooth it was, how the flavour wasn’t over sweet and synthetic but actually tasted like a mango. 

Finally it was time to say goodbye.. but not before a fully loaded paan at the legendary old paan shop opposite gate number 1 of Jama Masjid. 

At a time when our country feels so divided by religion, the evening was a great example about how our different religions, cultures and histories only make us a richer, more unique and more special nation. There were six Indians this evening. We came from different hometowns and states. Not one of us was Muslim. But we spent the evening eating food in a locality that has been home to the richness of India’s Muslim heritage for almost four centuries, ever since people started living next to the grand mosque that was built outside the imposing fort, and throughout the evening, we felt fortunate to be able to claim this as part of our own history and heritage as Indians. 

Food is a useful reminder that our lives are better and richer when we celebrate and cherish and discover each others cultures, when we come together to create something beautiful and powerful. Jama Masjid fills my soul because it reminds me that despite the best efforts of the politicians, no one can take away the Indianness of my Muslim fellow citizens and there are many more of us who love them and celebrate them than those who try and separate us. 

Jai Hind!