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11-07-2025
- General
- Scroll.in
The signature food of the Parsis: A history of dhansak and the many ways it can be made
I got my first taste of dhansak during the mid-1990s on a visit to Mumbai with my childhood friend Anupama. Jeroo Nariman, the matriarch of Parsi Dairy Farm, knew Anupama's family well and had invited us to join her weekly Sunday dhansak ritual with the brood at her 100-year-old home on Princess Street. Jeroo's family – her nieces Meheru and Shernaz, along with their respective husbands and kids – was big-hearted and zestful, and welcomed us to the table without a shred of formality. The mutton dhansak arrived along with its cavalcade of caramelised white rice, golden prawn kavabs, and crunchy kachumber or salad of finely diced onions, cucumbers, and tomatoes. The spicy dal, with large chunks of meat, had so many parts that it felt more like a production than a dish to me. As the achingly tender meat fell apart in our mouths, we oohed and aahed over its luscious texture. Platters were passed, conversations sparked, banter exchanged, and frustrations vented. The meal ended on a high note with Jeroo's spectacular caramel custard, and Rambo the dalmatian scoring a regal dollop of white butter. All too soon it was late afternoon. Replete with Duke's Raspberry Soda and buoyed by the boisterous bonhomie of our hosts, we headed back. It was a good Sunday, and a fine lunch. The deep love for good food and hospitality that made Jeroo's dhansak so memorable has long been a hallmark of Parsi culture, traceable to the community's Persian ancestry The Zoroastrian descendants of Parsis sailed across the Arabian Sea to escape religious persecution in Persia and landed in Gujarat, sometime during the 8th century CE. Before the Arab conquest of their homeland in the 7th century, they were a part of the great Sassanid or Sasanian Empire, one of the most developed and prosperous empires of the ancient world. Many elements of dhansak, including the love of meat, would have existed in Sasanian Persia. According to food historian KT Achaya, 'pulses would have taken the place of rajmah beans and spinach used in Iran.' He notes that 'at least three dals, and even up to nine' went into making dhansak, which also included 'pieces of fatty meat, tripe and vegetables'. One can only imagine the early journey of the dish. Stew-loving Zoroastrians, with their rich tradition of meat-and-vegetable blends from Iran, would have arrived in Gujarat. The unique taste of Indian spices and produce would have piqued their interest. Before long, they would have succumbed to the Gujarati passion for sweet, tangy, spicy flavours, leading to the creation of dhansak. Over the centuries, the dish would have evolved, replacing the mellow preparations of Persia with a spicier concoction through the liberal use of Indian spices and condiments. Filtered through the hands of countless cooks and melded with the local ingredients and Gujarati culture, dhansak would become, well before the 20th century, the flagship food of the Parsis. The version of yore was cooked on wood fire and made with masalas prepared at home. Though the essential recipe hasn't changed, it has become less elaborate, calling for fewer ingredients and steps. The nine dals Achaya talks about got reduced to one or two, the use of tripe got omitted, and everything went into blenders and pressure cookers. The basic recipe for making dhansak calls for vegetables – pumpkin, onions, eggplants, methi (fenugreek) leaves, and mint – to be cooked along with lentils, before straining the mixture to a smooth, velvety blend. A vaghar or slow tempering of tomatoes with masalas is then prepared, to which the lentil and veggie mush and boiled mutton (or chicken) are added and left to meld. Each ingredient plays its part in producing the astounding range of flavours – sweetness derives from pumpkin and onions, bitterness from methi, citrusy notes like coriander and mint, tartness from tomatoes, heat from red chillies, and complexity from spices. With as many dhansak variations as there are cooks, the devil is often in the details. Some home cooks like to use only toor (tuvar) dal, others prefer a combination of two or three lentils (mostly masoor, toor, and moong). Some swear by the tried-and-tested red pumpkin and eggplants, others add carrots or even pineapples. Some like their dhansak smooth, others like it a bit grainy. Some like to add jaggery and tamarind, others shun them. Some dump all of its ingredients into a pressure cooker, others believe in more thoughtful assembly. Mahrukh Mogrelia, a food entrepreneur who owns a brand called Mahrukh's Kitchen, holds that the flavour of dhansak should derive from the natural sweetness of vegetables like pumpkin, and not from sugar or jaggery. 'Dhansak shouldn't be obviously sweet; it should have that spiciness. And the dal must be strained to a smooth consistency. God forbid if a pumpkin piece gets into a Parsi's mouth; he will know it has veggies, and never eat dhansak again!' she said, laughing. Homogenising the ingredients made it easy for Mahrukh to sneak some nutrition into her unsuspecting children's diet. 'Mum would grind all kinds of veggies into the dhansak without letting us know. Once she added beetroot, and I asked her, 'Why is the dhansak red today?' But she just said, 'It's so tasty. Chaakhi le, dikra (Taste it, son)!' And I lapped it up!' her son Khurshed recounted with mock horror. Jeroo Shroff, a gourmet chef and culinary teacher of forty years' standing, strongly disapproves of the current practice of using masoor dal instead of the traditional toor. 'Nowadays, people use masoor because it's cheaper, but it alters the taste,' she said. She also emphasised the technique of giving the vaghar the love it needs. 'You have to put the vaghar on a very slow flame and for a very long time, and cook the tomatoes till all the water dries up. Only then add in all the masalas.' Food photographer Yasmin Khambatta's preferred way of making dhansak, following her mother's recipe, is to use a combination of four dals – toor, chana, masoor, and moong. 'Mum did not use eggplants as they made the dal very dark. Instead, she added carrots along with pumpkin to make the dish a bit sweeter. And she always served dhansak with murabba made from small mango pieces cooked in sugar syrup,' she said. The choice of meat elicited sharp reactions, dividing the cooks I met into the mutton and the chicken camps. The former stressed that mutton dhansak cooked with the meat bones adds flavour to the dal, whereas the latter, like Khurshed, preferred the soupy texture of chicken dhansak. 'Trust me, chicken dhansak tastes better. Always,' he declared. The strikingly different ways home cooks worked with the dish are a testament to its adaptability. The ultimate validation of this flexibility comes from that most revered of Parsi cookery bibles, Vividh Vani. Authored by Meherbai Jamshedji Wadia, the late nineteenth-century tome mentions not one but three recipes of dhansak, each with slightly different ingredients and techniques. And it clearly says that either chicken or mutton could be used. Interestingly, my own practical lesson in dhansak-making was replete with rule-flouting. Magan, my lawyer friend Pervez Rustomkhan's cook, was a reluctant teacher. The veteran brought a devil-may-care impunity to his cooking. He omitted the vegetables and methi leaves, sneaked in some curry powder, and threw in a handful of curry leaves. It was a killer dhansak.
Mint
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
Weekend food plan: Delicious mango menus for a sweet summer
Mango reimagined Nothing beats the joy of experiencing the true taste of summer with none other than the king of fruits. If it means celebrating the sheer diversity of mango, trust The Bombay Canteen to do the job. The city's beloved restaurant has brought the best varieties of mangoes from across the country — Ratnagiri and Devgad hapus, banganapalle, mankurad, badami, chausa, neelam, kesar, and laxmanbhog — to reimagine some old and new creations. From a dahi bhalla served with raw mango chutney to mango phirni meets Korean bingsu in a chilled coconut phirni, every dish tells the delicious story of India's favourite summer fruit. Where: The Bombay Canteen, Mumbai Contact: +91-8880802424 Summer nostalgia It's pouring mangoes everywhere. Parsi Dairy Farm's summer menu boasts of a range of mango classics featuring lassis, malai barfi, shrikhand, kulfi and yoghurt. Made with fresh Alphonso mango pulp, walk down memory lane with summer's sweetest gift. When: On till 25 May Where: Parsi Dairy Farm outlet Chilled coconut phirni at The Bombay Canteen, Mango maniaJournal in Mumbai is going all out with their mango menu in the form of surprising desserts, drinks, salads and more. Treat yourself to a light mango and avocado salad with a chilli-lemon vinaigrette, a delightful mango and passionfruit smoothie bowl, a decadent mango shokupan with a scoop of vanilla gelato, and mango matcha latte to round off your mango cravings this season. When: Until season lasts Where: Santa Cruz, Mumbai Contact: +91-9004699654
