When it comes to cooking, it’s eminently safer to be inventive than classic. Classics throw the cook into the pit of comparison!
Do we really know what to notice in an eatery and what is barely worth an insincere clap? Do we really have the wealth of culinary wisdom [and experience] that animates an unprejudiced critique? Don’t we often appreciate with a diffident heart unprepared 'to be surprised'?
Years ago I had a revelation at 'Tunday Kebab' in Koramangla, Bangalore. That was a sullen Sunday. Though the air was not conditioned to my comfort, the food was definitely poised to impress. The joint unabashedly bore all the signs of one to be rated low on the usual scale, yet didn't fail to surprise me with dishes served and cooked with rare Lukhnowi culinary sincerity [Lucknow's meaty marvels namely Galouti, Tunday, Boti and Chapli] and simplicity...specially the Tundays served with Rumali - soft, juicy, sincere and lingering.
Should I have sought in them the succulent excellence of Haji Murad Ali’s melting Tundays that had once fascinated Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh - eventually paving its way to immortality? Theoretically and going strictly by Murad Ali’s celebrated recipe, to prepare Tundays, the meat is beaten with hand [which he did with just one] into a fine paste called Sucha that, when cooked, would melt instantly in mouth making the bouquet of flavours of all the exotic ingredients [to name a few - yogurt, garam-masala, ginger, garlic, cardamom, cloves, ghee, dried mint, onions rings, vinegar, sugar and lime] implode. Prepared in batches, the kebabs are cooked in ghee under intense Dum - ensuring a definitive aftertaste cherished far and wide.
I didn’t compare as what I ate made me happy. I kept from pitting it against the superlatives and instead chose to rate it on its own merits – just asking myself honestly how it had fared as an authentic Tunday. The answer was affirmative - I enjoyed. Period!
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