Zarine Khan (then Katrak) met her future husband Sanjay Khan at the age of 14. And a mutual love for food was one of the things that brought them closer. While she was used to Parsi delicacies like dhansak and patra ni macchi at home, at Sanjay’s house Zarine would watch his mother Fatima Bibi prepare the family’s meals.
“My mother-in-law was a very Nawabi cook,” Zarine recounts. “She used to sit on a chair and have a sigree and dhechi in front of her and give precise instructions about the ingredients to be added, and what was to be done next, to her lady-in-waiting. All the cooking was done under her supervision.”
As she watched Fatima Bibi cook, Zarine meticulously jotted down the recipes. She also picked up her mother-in-law’s method of cooking and admits, “I can’t cut onions to be honest, but at the same time, I’m very particular about how my cook prepares the food.”
Zarine also admits that as her family has grown over the years, she doesn’t enter the kitchen as frequently. “I don’t go into the kitchen myself now but when my husband used to produce films, I used to personally have food cooked for 40 people and send it to the studios — of course, with help from the khansamas who would do all the chopping for me,” she tells us.
When Zarine’s daughters — Farah, Sussanne and Simone — got married, she presented each of them a small book compiling the family’s traditional recipes. But it is her son Zayed, who has turned out to be the best cook. “Zayed loves cooking and makes a wonderful lasagne. The girls love good food too but they worry a little about getting into the kitchen,” says Zarine.
Zarine has now come out with Family Secrets: The Khan Family Cookbook at Sussanne’s prompting. The cookbook contains 12 of her mother-in-law’s recipes for dishes like dum ka kheema and tomato mirchi gosht. Guests who had sampled the Khan family’s khaana felt it was a shame that the recipes were kept secret.
“That’s when Sussanne said, ‘Mom why don’t you write a book?’ I asked if she was joking,” says Zarine. “And then my other daughters said it’s a good idea, and that’s how the book came about.”
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Mutton Biryani
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Ingredients
- 3 tbsp oil
- 1 kg meat
- 2 tbsp garlic-ginger paste
- 3 tsp red chilli powder
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- ½ kg dahi
- 1½ lemons, juiced
- 1½ kg onions, sliced
- 1½ kg tomatoes, chopped
- 4 large potatoes, halved
- 4 cardamoms
- 4 cloves
- 1” cinnamon stick
- A pinch of saffron
- 1 tsp milk
- 1 tsp garam masala powder
- 1 kg cooked rice
- Salt, to taste
Method
1. Wash the meat well and marinate it with garlic-ginger paste, red chilli powder, turmeric, dahi, lemon juice, salt to taste. Let it marinate for an hour.
2. In a pan, add oil and fry the sliced onions until light golden brown along with cardamom, cloves and cinnamon for added flavour.
3. When the onions are golden brown, remove from the pan and crush by hand. Put the oil left in the pan into the marinated meat.
4. Add the chopped tomatoes and the crushed onions to the meat. Mix well and put on a high flame till the meat mixture comes to a boil. Then close the lid and leave to simmer for about 45 minutes.
5. Fry the potatoes with salt till golden brown and keep aside.
6. When the meat is cooked, add the fried potatoes (do not pour any water into the meat; allow it to cook in the tomato, yoghurt and meat juices itself).
7. In another pan, spread the cooked rice on the base, then place the meat over it and repeat the layering till all the meat and rice is used.
8. Sprinkle some garam masala and a little bit of saffron mixed in milk over the last layer and cook on slow fire for 15 minutes.
9. To serve the biryani, dig ladle right into the pan and bring out the rice in layers so that the separation is visible on the serving dish. Dig in and enjoy!
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Persian Aash Maash
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Ingredients
- 1 kg kheema
- 2 cups rice
- 6 tbsp ghee
- 1 cup channa dal
- 1 tsp haldi powder
- 2 big bunches spring onions, chopped
- 2 tbsp garlic paste
- 1 tbsp ginger paste
- 1 big bunch dill (sui bhaji)
- 2 kgs beaten dahi
- 3 tbsp coarsely ground whole black peppercorns
- 12 green chillies, chopped
- 1 small bunch mint leaves
- Salt, to taste
Method
1. Pressure cook the rice and lentils in water with turmeric and salt for approximately 4 whistles or cook in a vessel for 30 minutes till the ingredients are mixed. Mash well and set aside.
2. Wash kheema and drain out all the water.
3. Heat ghee in a pan, add only the white portion of the chopped spring onions and fry till light golden brown. Add the mince meat, along with ginger and garlic paste and a pinch of turmeric powder and salt to taste.
4. Fry all this together and when the water evaporates and the kheema is dry, add chopped dill. Then add the chopped green stems of the spring onions and mix into the mince. When the meat begins to stick to the pan, switch off the gas.
5. Take another pan and place on a medium flame. Pour in the cooked rice and dal mixture. Add the meat mixture into this and mix well.
6. Add the beaten yoghurt into this mix, stirring continuously till it begins to boil. Once the mince is cooked, add peppercorns and green chillies and cook on a low flame for 20 minutes.
7. Garnish with fried golden brown onions which have been crushed and mint leaves.
