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Taste the Memon kitchen’s diverse Ramzan menu
Summary
The cuisine of the Memon community is an amalgamation of tastes, shaped by migration patterns that span centuries
By most definitions, Muslim food is often relegated to biryani, nihari, haleem and korma. It’s what the vast majority of people know, given the significant Mughal influence on food. But scratch the surface and you will find a plethora of Muslim communities with their own foods that, more often than not, make an appearance during the month of Ramzan.
The Bohra community, rooted in Gujarat, has its own specialities, such as pattice and smoked kheema samosas, as does the Konkani Muslim community with dishes featuring coconut and tamarind. For the Memons, however, there isn’t one singular influence that defines their food. It’s an amalgamation of tastes that have evolved owing to migration patterns that span centuries.
During Ramzan, for the Memons, dishes such as lightly spiced mutton and chicken samosas make an appearance for iftar (sundown) and sehri (pre-dawn) meals. There’s dal gosht, a hearty one-pot dish of lentils (chana dal, masoor and toor), meat with tamarind as a souring agent. Drinks like gud ka sharbat or jaggery sherbet with a generous dose of basil seeds and fennel seeds, help to cool the body after a long day of fasting. Then, there are classics like hareesa, a milder version of haleem made with slow-cooked meat, bulgur wheat and sometimes barley. Sweet dishes include China Grass halwa or pudding, which is a wobbly creation of agar-agar and chopped nuts.
Also read: What's cooking for Ramzan in Assam?
This culinary history can be traced back to roughly 1432 AD when some 700 families residing in Sindh in present-day Pakistan migrated owing to religious and political upheaval in the region. These families eventually made their way to Gujarat in present-day India. Groups split and went in different directions, forming distinct subgroups. Some settled in the Kutch region, earning the moniker of Cutchi Memons, while others settled in Kathiawar, and came to be called Halari or Halai Memons. The dialect spoken by each is unique, a cross between the Sindhi, Kutchi and Gujarati languages.
While there are hints of Gujarati influences in the food, with dishes like dahi vadas (lentil fritters soaked in sweetened yogurt with sweet and tangy chutneys) and muthiya or dhokrey (millet dumplings made with bajra and served in a thick stew), the cuisine of the Memons is deeply influenced by more than just one region. The food has been shaped by their semi-nomadic travels.
Traditionally a Mercantile community, the Memons spread out from Gujarat, settling in port cities like Mumbai and Kochi, with a significant population in places like Bengaluru. Along the way, flavours overlapped. Now, you will find that Memon dishes are as diverse as they are unique.
FLAVOURS ROOTED IN HISTORY
Faiziya Soomar, who runs The Cutchi Memon Table in Mumbai, a catering and delivery kitchen, says a lot of Memon food involves slow cooking, using techniques like bhuna and dum. Meats are marinated well in advance for khichda, a popular dish of slow-cooked chunks of meat with lentils like chana and masoor dal. It comes together as a spicy, thick mixture which is then topped with fried onion or birista.
Also read: The secret sauce of Kochi's Luso-Indians
“The way Memon food differs is that it is not as heavy on spices. The focus instead is on extracting enough flavour by slow cooking the meats and marinating them for a day or two," she says. “We also use ingredients like saffron, red masalas (more for the colour), and fried onions."
Bengaluru-based Muneer Fazal, who runs his own catering business, M. Fazal Caterers, points out that some of his best-selling dishes during Ramzan include warqi samosas, which are labour-intensive, given that they require several layers of handmade puff pastry dough, stuffed with delicately spiced minced meat or chicken.
“The samosas Memons make are typically smaller in size and not as spicy," he says. Other hits he serves include boti kebabs, haleem, mawa samosas and Kutchi dum biryani featuring generous chunks of potatoes, as well as a dish called khajoori. These are small, diamond-shaped pieces of wheat and jaggery dough that are deep-fried and topped with a dusting of poppy or sesame seeds.
According to Bengaluru-based food scholar and writer Zoya Naaz Rehman, one interesting aspect about Memon cuisine is that many dishes are one-pot meals. “This might have to do with the fact that back in the day, the women engaged in work outside their homes, likely alongside the men," she says.
Single-dish meals were a go-to, such as hareesa and whole raan simmered in mild spices. “Women didn’t have elaborate recipes, where they could spend time leisurely cooking an assortment of dishes. Instead, they leaned on slow-cooking and one-pot meals that allowed for a mixture of protein, fat and carbs for both nourishment and flavour," she says.
Explaining some of the nuances of Cutchi Memon fare, Rehman says that warqi samosas are fried on low heat to allow the layers to fully bloom and they are blonder in colour than regular samosas. Similarly, one interesting characteristic of Memon food is the assimilation of ingredients like gum Arabic (in gond ke laddoo) and moringa (in tangy dal as well as dal gosht) over time, thanks to the travels of the community.
While the foods of the Halai Memons don’t differ vastly, some unique plates that you will find in their kitchens during Ramzan include fukni batate or spicy, tangy potatoes, chana batata and halisa, which is essentially hareesa. According to Mumbai-based Heena Yusuf Maklai, who runs a footwear design studio in Bandra, some favourites in the Halai Memon community include charcoal-smoked mutton or chicken samosas with dry roasted spices like cumin, cloves, nutmeg and peppercorns, baida roti (mutton or chicken filled paratha) and sweets like malpua.
Mumbai-based Rafat Adil, who runs a home linen brand and is a Halai Memon, says bajra atta (pearl millet) kebabs blended with mutton kheema are another speciality, as well as fish pulao, which finds its origins in Veraval in Gujarat.
While traditional dishes of the Memons are steeped in nostalgia, you’d be hard pressed to find these recipes or dishes outside of homes. The fact is that younger generations prefer quick, fuss-free recipes and global flavours, such as an Arabic mandi (a rice and meat dish) to the khichda, or samosas made with ready-to-use pastry dough over the warqi samosas which are inherently heavier.
According to Rehman, one should try to retain the essence of the dish without the time-consuming process or too many indulgent ingredients. “That’s how the cuisine can continue to remain accessible."
Mutton Khichda
(Recipe courtesy: Faiziya Soomar, The Cutchi Memon Table)
Serves 5-6
Ingredients
1kg mutton
160g chadela wheat or husked wheat
80g mixed dals (chana, masoor, moong, toor)
Half cup curd
Juice of 1 lime
1 cup ghee
2 onions, finely chopped
2 onions, fried golden brown and known as birista
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 tbsp red chilli powder (coarse)
One-fourth tsp turmeric powder
Salt to taste
1 large tomato, finely chopped
1 fistful each of mint and coriander leaves
1 tsp garam masala powder
Method
Marinate the mutton overnight in curd, 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste, salt and lime juice.
Fry the chopped onions in ghee, until golden brown. Add the remaining ginger-garlic paste, mint leaves, tomato and dry masalas, and fry for 15 minutes. Add the mutton and fry for 25-30 minutes.
Cook on slow heat for around 50 minutes, until the mutton is tender and remove the ghee from the top of the gravy and set aside.
Pressure cook the dals and wheat separately, with a cup of water each, for 20 minutes on a slow flame.
In a big vessel, pour the wheat and beat it into a coarse paste with a whisk, add the dals and mutton gravy, mix in salt and coriander and cook on slow flame, for the flavours to infuse.
Serve the khichda in a bowl with birista, garnished with mint leaves and pour the ghee kept aside from the gravy over the top.
Arzoo Dina is a Mumbai-based food and travel writer.
