Hearts and guts

“The Tangkhul Nagas of Manipur have a dish called hokhari. That’s pork intestine filled with liver, heart and inner fats, and spiced up with ginger-garlic, wild coriander and a special chilli known as sivatei. Then there is dohjem, a Khasi dish from Meghalaya that is made from pork liver, heart and intestines.”

The 25-year-old holding forth knowledgeably on the organ meats of the North-East is, remarkably, not of the region born. He is just one of the many Indians who have discovered their love for offal and are willing to travel many miles for it largely because this is one food that is still best secured close to its home.

Sam George, a Pune-based management student, who has visited the North-East several times, is as effusive about the offal available closer home. “There’s a supermarket in Kochi, called Ashish, where you can get what we locally call potty, aka kudal curry. It’s made of beef intestine and is very popular in my community of Latin Catholics.”

There was a time when the mere mention of jigar, kaleji, intestines and other offal would have made people squeamish. Much of it had to do with socio-economic distinctions: Inexpensive organ meats were frequently the food of the underclasses. A growing band of food enthusiasts is now actively demolishing one of the longest held myths about guts, livers and kidneys.

For many in the brigade, the fascination with offal started in childhood—being fed poached kaleji while ill in bed or creamy bheja fry as an evening snack or tongue soup as a spillover from an adult cocktail party. I, for one, remember being lovingly fed crisp fried chicken liver as a birthday treat by an aunt who firmly believed that no special occasion was complete without a dash of offal.

“Whenever we had chicken, the old lady who worked for us would ask for the spare parts—everything, from the skin to the beak—and cook them for herself. I once asked for a taste and was simply blown away,” says Aalok Wadhwa, a management professional based in Gurgaon, near Delhi, and founder of the Facebook group Gurgaon Foodie.

Since then, Wadhwa has tried everything that could count as offal during his travels in India and abroad. “I had a work meeting lined up in Nagpur and, as is my habit, I began researching food options weeks ahead of my visit. That’s when I discovered a sizeable population of the Saoji community there. I’d loved Saoji mutton in Pune and Hubli, so this was exciting news,” he says. “Now Nagpur as a city doesn’t waste its money on chicken. The population is divided into two sections: Those who buy mutton at ₹ 400-500 a kilo and those who buy offal at ₹ 100 or so. The gems of the local cuisine come from the latter. At the Yuvraj Saoji Bhojanalaya, I sampled sundari for the first time. It’s made with the stomach of a goat. It’s spicy but not chewy and definitely not for the faint-hearted.”

I decide to speak to a member of the Saoji community about the sundari. “Khaoge tab hi sundari ka jaadu jaanoge (you’ll have to eat it to understand the magic of sundari),” a voice cackles on the phone. It belongs to Mahadev Ganpatrao, owner of the Saoji Jagdish Bhojnalaya, who claims to feed the sundari to nearly 100 customers daily.

“Our Saoji samaj used to specialize in weaving saris. However, with the advent of powerlooms, they lost out on their profession. So some like me started eateries,” he says. Not everyone can make sundari, he says—just washing the goat’s stomach takes more than an hour. “The dish will smell of the stomach if not washed properly. After that, just use a little bit of water and some spices to cook it like mutton. Just remember that the stomach needs to take centre stage and not the masalas,” he cautions.

In Mumbai, “the Parsi community makes use of a lot of brains and kidney while the Goans make sorpotel from various parts of the pig,” says Kalyan Karmakar, a food blogger and columnist. This deliciously smoky stew explodes on your palate with a galaxy of flavours ranging from tangy to spicy and is best eaten with a hearty breakfast of bread and eggs.

Karmakar, who conducts food walks through the by-lanes of the city, has introduced many to the wonders of offal. Among them is Vipul Yadav, 31, who tagged along with Karmakar to the Bohri Mohalla. “The kitchens in these hole-in-the-wall eateries seem like biology labs, with every possible organ lying on the slabs,” he says. “So there is pachauta, which has tails, kidneys and every other organ you can imagine. If you truly love food, you want to try everything.”

In Hyderabad, the nerve centre of meaty cuisines, offal is firmly enmeshed in the city’s royal past. “A number of offal dishes date their origin to the time when the armies of Quli Qutub Shah and Aurangzeb were stationed in the Deccan. The army needed proteins and food needed to be produced quickly and in large quantities,” says entrepreneur Ashhar Farhan, co-founder of cultural non-profit Lamakaan, who knows Hyderabad’s culinary legacy inside out. “The easiest thing to do was to cut up the lamb and toss it with whatever was available. The first thing that comes out when you break down a lamb is offal. So breakfast for the armies comprised organs. Hyderabad still has a tradition of eating a morning meal of kidney and liver with palak (spinach).”

Another popular dish is the jabda, which involves breaking up the head and jaw of the sheep and using these in a broth. “Then there is the chakna, a super-spicy, slow-cooked stew of wheat, millets and goat intestine. Some of the best chaknas are served at country liquor sheds or toddy shops,” says Farhan. The most avid of chakna enthusiasts don’t believe that any accompaniment other than alcohol can bring out the flavours of this dish, but there are some sedate others—like me—who like to scoop up the spicy flavours with a naan or roti.

Like Hyderabad, Delhi, too, connects its obsession with offal to its royal past. Priti Narain in her essay in the book Celebrating Delhi, edited by Mala Dayal, writes: “Of the communities living in Shahjahanabad, the Kayasthas and Khatris worked in Mughal courts and their language, culture and cuisine were greatly influenced by that of the Muslims….some famous dishes (of that time) include shabdeg, which is a combination of mutton kofta, kidneys, turnips and potatoes in a rich gravy, simmered overnight on charcoal embers, to which cooked brains are added before serving.” Many such dishes can still be found in the lanes of the Walled City.

“If you do look, you will be surprised at what you will find,” says Gurgaon resident Shivendu Mittal, 40, who makes regular trips to Old Delhi. “For instance, at Jama Masjid, a guy sells haleem with buffalo tongue. The texture is unique. Then there is the very famous Babu Bhai, who sits near the Jama Masjid. He makes phenomenal dil ki boti kebabs or heart tikkas and has an attitude to match.”

However, if there is one place that Mittal can visit again and again for his comfort bowl of offal, it’s Tee Dee at Majnu Ka Tila. “That’s where I had Lowa Khatsa, buffalo lung fry. It’s absolutely dry, like kaleji, but the texture is different,” he says. “It’s one of our most popular dishes and goes well with the traditional Tibetan bread of tingmo,” confirms Tashi, owner of Tee Dee. For the uninitiated, the dish tastes a wee bit like deep-fried bean curd, only spicier than most offal dishes.

The growing acceptability of offal has prompted fine-dining restaurants to add a number of such dishes to the menu as well. Award-winning restaurant Indian Accent, located in Delhi’s plush Friends Colony (West), used to have a foie gras galawat on the menu till India banned the import of foie gras following protests by animal rights activists. “Then I did a soft, creamy, dry bheja masala that could be scooped on to crisp melba toast, accompanied by onion salsa,” says corporate chef Manish Mehrotra.

The Bombay Canteen, in Mumbai’s Lower Parel, is also on the fine-diner’s radar for their spiced grilled chicken kaleji with onion and carrot salad, simple bheja fry with coriander, lemon and kadak toast and the gurda kapura taka tak with caramelized onion masala, pickled radish and salt biscuits. “It’s a good introduction to offal, especially for people who are reluctant to go to the older parts of the city,” says Karmakar.

Chasing the tail

Options on the offal trail

u Mumbai: For ‘bheja’ fry, try Sarvi in Byculla (West), the Radio restaurant on Palton Road, the Janata restaurant in Bandra (West) and stalls on Mohammed Ali Road. Try the ‘gurda kapura’ and ‘kaleji’ in the Bohri Mohalla, and smoky ‘khiri’ or beef udders and ‘gurda’ at the India Hotel.

u Delhi: Head to Karim’s and Al Jawahar near Jama Masjid and Kake da Hotel in Connaught Place for ‘bheja’ fry. Naeem’s family has been serving ‘haleem’ with buffalo tongue at Gali Kababiyan, near Jama Masjid, for nearly 125 years. Just across the road is Babu Bhai’s stall, where you can have fresh ‘dil ke tukde ke kebab’. In Green Park, Rosang serves North-Eastern takes on offal.

u Kolkata: Head to the U.P. Bihar restaurant in New Market for ‘khiri kebab’ and ‘khiri’ rolls.

u Hyderabad, For ‘chakna’, a spicy stew made of goat’s tripe, liver and kidneys, visit the Chaknawadi area, near Charminar, or any of the authorized toddy shops around the city. Cafe Bahar in Basheerbagh is a great place for kidney masala, ‘bheja’ fry and ‘haleem’.