Episode 5 Rick Stein's India

In my search for the perfect curry, I've read quite a bit about India,

and I've noticed that the most consistently over-used phrase

from travel writers has been "a land of contrasts".

Well, indeed it is,

and sometimes I find the contrasts quite mind-boggling.

In a country where it seems to me

that a good chunk of the population doesn't even have a roof over its head,

a politician from Lucknow builds this.

Acres upon acres of huge stone-carved elephants,

along with a memorial featuring her proudly clutching a designer handbag.

When I asked some local people about this,

they just shrugged good-humouredly and said,

"Well, that's just how it is here."

And indeed there's no getting away from it.

India really is a land of contrasts.

THEY SING

MAN: That's a mind-blasting curry, Ricky!

This is Mayo College.

It's known as the Eton of the East.

It was built by the British in 1870,

by the then Viceroy of India, Lord Mayo,

purely and simply to educate the sons of the landed gentry,

the Rajputs and the Maharajas.

When you think about it, it's rather a clever move,

because these boys will grow up to be powerful rulers,

and hopefully will have ingrained in them

a love and understanding of the ways of the British,

which means, of course, having allies in high places.

BELL RINGS

We thank God for what we have received. Amen.

ALL: Amen.

Well, today we've got Western food.

We're starting with cream of vegetable soup,

then we've got carrot and green pea saute,

followed by cauliflower and white sauce, veg fried rice,

grilled paneer, veg cutlet, cabbage salad,

a dinner roll, bread, butter and sauce - not quite sure what the sauce is -

and cake and custard for a pudding.

I've been talking to one or two of the chefs here,

through an interpreter of course, and I've discovered that

many of them go back two or three generations of cooking here,

and I really like that about a lot of Indian kitchens I've been in,

that people hand over the jobs.

Would it were thus back in Padstow, is all I have to say.

But none of them, sadly, go back to 1875

when the college opened, and when the first student arrived.

And naturally he arrived with a whole entourage of servants,

tutors, guards

and 150 elephants.

Well, it's been a long time since I've had a school dinner -

probably too long a time, to be honest -

but I'm really enjoying this.

It's nicely cooked, it's nicely seasoned.

They've just given me some chopped liver, which is apparently the school...

This is a school favourite, isn't it?

The chopped liver on toast

dates back from the Raj days, I guess,

so well pleased.

Truth to tell, I was a bit surprised

not to have a luxuriant curry sauce or a spicy biryani,

but I was more interested in what the pupils felt about food,

because if Mayo School is anything like our Eton,

the future rulers could well come from here and - who knows? -

that might have some significant bearing on India's culinary future.

Well, I need to explain to you, the reason I'm here

is I make programmes about food. I'm a chef back in England.

And I'm very keen to talk to you, because...

First of all, hands up who likes pizzas?

Well, there you go.

I mean, it's a bit of a sort of litmus test because, I feel if I'm asking you,

it's sort of giving me an idea of the way the country's going,

the younger people, about what you might be eating in the future.

I mean, how do you feel about your traditional food, then?

If you go out for pizzas on a dinner, that's not a dinner.

Going for a dinner means going to a proper Indian restaurant

and having a proper meal.

Indian food is what gives us, like, real satisfaction,

and that's when we feel that...

-we have had something.

-It's filling, it's filling.

But how do you see the food of India changing in the next 20, 30 years?

There's a thing in India, every ten kilometres you go,

the dialect changes, the water changes, and the food habit changes.

So, you know, we have got a very diverse, very diverse country,

so it will take some time to change.

But, you know, the franchises, they're coming.

We have McDonald's, you know, who's adjusting to our country,

and they put up a vegetarian restaurant,

which is like the first veg restaurant...

first veg McDonald's in the whole world.

The thing is, we really value our traditional food.

We really love it, and that's one thing that we're going to hold onto,

because given a choice between a pizza and a normal Indian filling meal,

I would go for an Indian meal any time, anywhere.

Fantastic!

I've just been watching some polo ponies over at Mayo School

and just came by here, and just thought, well, I've got to show this

cos it just shows the complete contrast there is in India

between the rich and the poor.

I mean, this looks dreadful to anybody's view,

and over here, we've got a brand-new cinema complex nearing completion.

But that's India, I mean, there's nothing you can do about it.

Interestingly, I was re-reading a book by Mark Tully

called No Full Stops In India, which I've always enjoyed,

and right at the beginning he says people go to his apartment in Delhi

and say, "How do you cope with the poverty?"

And he just replies, "I don't have to. The poor do."

Rajasthan is the land of the rajahs, the land of the kings.

It's so different from the lush south.

This is mostly desert -

mile after mile of sand and scrub, goats and shacks.

HORN BLARES

When I had the idea of doing a series about India,

I thought it'd be really nice to drive around India myself.

I'm not sure that the crew would've been

so wholeheartedly in approval of that.

In some of the past series,

maybe my driving skills aren't so wonderful,

but in India it's a total no-no.

I believe there's some sort of order,

but when you see an enormous truck laden with sacks

or bales of wood or bales of straw coming straight at you,

and at the last minute it goes off in one direction,

-you just go...

-HORN BLARES

As a passenger it is truly scary at times.

Wherever I go in the world,

I always try to stop at a motorway service station,

because I think the food there is a sort of culinary litmus test,

and sometimes it's a lot better than posh restaurants.

Well, I think I'll go for the... tarka dhal.

I just want dhal and roti really, and a cup of masala chai.

Sweet spiced tea will be perfect just for a light lunch.

This, I think I'm right in saying, is your average trucker's lunch,

a vegetable dhal with bread or roti.

Certain members of the film crew were wondering

if they did two sausages, baked beans, fried eggs, at least three rashers,

hash browns and a cup of tea.

Great!

I told them not to be so silly.

Like when we're filming in places like France or Spain,

we like to stop where the truck drivers stop cos you get the best meal.

I'm thinking the same is probably true here in India.

I must say this is really good, this dhal.

As is the roti.

I've just chosen a very simple salad of onion and chillies, which I love.

Very simple, wholesome food.

Lovely.

I really like these standard salads in India,

which is basically onion and chilli, but because I'm European

they normally just give me a tomato and cucumber salad

and I have to say, "No, no, no, I want the chilli."

HORNS TOOT

As soon as I saw this, I thought of that all-powerful Mogul emperor

immortalised by Coleridge in his famous unfinished poem.

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree,

"Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,

"Through caverns measureless to man,

"Down to a sunless sea."

Now, I know that's about a place in China,

but it's all about the fact that these Mogul rulers,

who dominated Northern India, could do pretty much as they liked.

And this, the Amer Fort, epitomises all that power.

But the reason I'm here is that there's a restaurant just opened

by an extremely wealthy man,

who reminds me of what a Mogul emperor was probably like,

Sanjiv Bali.

You must be Sanjiv.

How are you?

Wow! I'm very well. I mean, this is amazing!

They told me it was going to be quite something,

but I had no idea how incredibly...

-Great to have you here.

-Thank you very much.

He fought tooth and nail with the local authorities

to open his prize restaurant within the fort.

He's really proud of his kitchen,

recreating long-forgotten local recipes.

I asked him to cook his favourite one, jungli maas.

Jungli meaning jungle, and maas meaning meat - jungle meat.

-I think it's called jungle maas.

-Jungle maas.

When you went on a hunt

and you basically did only five things to make this dish.

Very simple in the jungle, and it was more fun because you did it yourself.

It used to be the game meat, but now we're using lamb.

So I'm told hunting's banned now in India.

-Yeah.

-Why is that, then?

It was basically because

people were just killing animals left, right and centre,

and there was no balance left.

And earlier it was done for a sport,

when you went out hunting and you killed what you like to eat,

and to serve your guests and enjoy with the family.

But suddenly people were not bothered,

they would just go randomly killing across the board.

That's why you see the tigers vanishing from our country.

-The tiger?

-The tiger. The population of the tigers were going down.

Because there was nothing for them to eat.

Nothing for them to eat. And hunting was banned across the country.

I can understand that.

It's only got five ingredients -

meat, water, ghee, salt and dried chillies.

Then what we do is we take these chillies,

which come in from a place called Mathania.

While putting the chillies, we de-seed them

so they don't get extra spicy.

So we put the chillies, and now what we do is, there's water in there,

so we keep on adding water and ghee simultaneously, slowly.

It's really simple, but, I mean, I like it for that.

So what would you say was the essentials of Rajasthan cuisine?

Where's it all come from?

The recipes were actually created by doctors in those days.

It had to have certain Ayurveda medicines

which were added to the food.

So the Ayurveda, excuse my pronunciation,

that really means that the chefs and doctors are working...

Working together to make it perfect for your digestion,

for your eyesight, for everything, for the whole body is good.

And the chefs would make it into something...very tasty to eat,

because indulgence used to be huge in those days.

So they had to balance it out some way or the other.

So you virtually had to have a doctor as part of your team?

-Part of the kitchen team.

-How interesting!

Now this is a real genuine lesson in less is definitely more.

It was splendid, and would be right up there in my top ten.

That's really good.

Yeah, thank you.

I mean, the chilli makes it, of course.

To tell you the truth, what I like about it is it is so simple.

I mean, I've been tasting so much food, Indian dishes,

that actually just having the chilli and nothing else,

and tasting the mutton, is...

Oh, and a lassi, too.

At times they don't believe that there are not many ingredients,

spices go into it, and it would be that simple as...

No, I think that's really nice.

-Thanks a lot.

-I'm enjoying it a great deal.

One of the other dishes I really liked at Sanjiv's restaurant was this -

curried lamb cutlets.

And I know that people watching will love them, too.

So back at my lovely bungalow on the lagoon, it was time to cook.

They were lamb cutlets, but first of all, the lamb was poached in milk.

So I'm just going to put a large amount of milk into this pan,

bring that to the boil, and I'm going to infuse the milk

with some whole spices.

First of all, just bruising a few cardamoms to put in there,

and then we've got these other whole spices as well.

Fennel seeds, bruised cardamoms, black peppercorns,

cinnamon and Indian bay leaves, and some ground ginger.

So all that goes in like that.

Give that a bit of a stir, and infuse the milk.

Then I'm going to use that infused milk

as the liquid in the batter that's going to go on the lamb chops.

I'm not going to cook them for too long.

I want them to be a bit pink in the middle

because I'm then going to fry them.

They need to be in there so they absorb the flavours,

say around five minutes.

They're just about ready now,

so just lift 'em out with my trusty tongs.

You'll see they look a bit dishevelled.

Trust me, it almost adds to the look of the final dish.

So just let this infused milk cool down,

because I'm going to use it in the batter.

So, first of all we can start making up the batter.

I've got some flour in here and I'm going to add some cornflour

and whisk that together a little bit.

And then, virtually the same spices as went into the infusion -

peppercorns ground up, fennel seed ground up,

ground ginger and cardamom seeds ground up

and then I'm just going to put some salt in here.

Quite a lot actually, a sort of heaped teaspoon.

There we go, just those things all together.

And finally, and I do think this is the real best thing about this batter,

quite a lot of green chillies.

Three or four green chillies, seeds and all, into the batter.

Next I'm just going to whisk up a couple of duck-egg whites.

So...

get a little bit of...

..a bit of foam happening with these egg whites.

Just make a little well in the middle of there, just add the egg whites.

And now to add the infused milk,

which should have cooled down enough by now.

A few tablespoons of this delicious infused milk.

I'm looking for the consistency

of single cream, double cream, something like that.

Perfick!

Now then, we'll just get some hot oil happening.

And now I'm going to dip my chops. So first of all...conveniently...

handle these chops in the batter, and then in the oil.

Probably get about four or five in at a time, cos they're only little.

OIL SIZZLES

So just leave those to brown, and then I'll turn them over.

Actually, Rajasthan is a very big meat-eating region of India,

a country largely made up of vegetarians.

So those are getting very nicely coloured now.

I mean, that looks really lovely.

And, as I said, I like the knobbliness of them.

I'm enjoying this.

I mean, I do like cooking, you see?

People say, "You cook every day, you must get tired of it." I don't!

I think the real reason I don't is cos you're always hungry,

and I'm always hungry.

I'm always anticipating yet another lovely meal,

and I must say these chops are doing just that for me.

So there we go, those are now cooked.

So we will serve 'em up

and I just... When I dish them all up,

I'm just going to sprinkle a little chat masala over them,

which is basically a simple garam masala

with the important addition of some amchur, which is dried green mango,

and some black Indian sea salt.

Good.

Let us proceed.

Mm.

They're very nice, I must say.

A hint of chilli from those green chillies

and the lovely taste of fennel, which I love.

Back taste of sort of general curry flavours,

but, you know, very convenient little bit of finger food.

It's crying out for a glass of beer, actually.

I stayed at some memorable places in Rajasthan,

breathtaking and so full of history.

Take this place in Devgarh, a Rajput's palace and now a hotel.

It was perfect in every way...

except I kept getting lost!

Well, as places to stay go, this is pretty exceptional.

I mean, this is only part of it.

The bedroom, the bathroom is twice as big as this is.

I think actually it's where the Rajput lived himself.

It must be, because it's so grand

and there's all these pictures of ancestors here,

all with their hands on a dagger or a sword.

I mean, just look at this, it is just fabulous.

I just love the way the light comes through all that coloured glass

and all the lovely mirrors and the silveriness of it.

And now I've started thinking, "I wonder what this room was used for?"

And, well, over there is the Rajput's harem,

so I was sort of slightly naughtily thinking,

"Maybe this is where he entertained his concubines."

I got up at five in the morning to see the local farmers pick cauliflowers.

This Northern European vegetable

seems so out of place amongst the palm trees,

like hummingbirds on Bodmin Moor.

And of course it was the British who introduced them,

along with the cabbage,

presumably to go with their roast beef and Yorkshire puddings.

However, the good old cauli has acclimatised well

and is a key player in all the wonderful vegetable curries here.

TRADERS CALL

I must say, after so many days of being in busy Indian cities,

it's really nice coming to a market like this.

Very simple, not a lot of produce,

but everything straight out of the fields.

And I was talking to the guy that owns the hotel I'm staying in,

and he said that quite a lot of Europeans come here

to rural Rajasthan not to eat meat,

and I'm sort of quite in tune with them,

cos I've probably had enough mutton curries to shake quite a few sticks at.

But vegetarian food is what they've come for,

and things like cauliflower, aloo gobi, which is just potato and cauliflower

with a bit of masala and just a tiny bit of chilli,

is very good for the stomach.

I always find something in a market like this to interest me.

It's methi or fenugreek,

and I've never seen this as a vegetable or a herb, either/or.

I've just seen it as those little brown seeds you get back in the UK.

First time.

It's absolutely gloriously savoury.

It's sort of like, would be the centre of a vegetarian dish.

It's just got lots and lots of almost legume-like, you know,

peas and beans flavour.

No wonder they all adore it so much.

ENGINE SPLUTTERS

Yeah!

I wanted to see how the locals made the famous aloo gobi -

potato and cauliflower curry.

They start off by frying garlic and onion in ghee,

and cook it until it softens.

The masala, now that's made from salt, chillies,

turmeric, cumin, onion seeds and coriander.

I'm thinking back home, you go to your local Indian,

and you order, as ever, too much.

You know, probably two or three curries between two of you

and you think, "I'd better have some veg."

So you think, "Well, I'll have some rice

"and some poppadoms and some naan bread.

"Oh, and throw in an aloo gobi too," you know?

It's almost like an afterthought.

But here it's like a main course, and quite rightly so.

That's all I'd want for a main course.

I mean, I am becoming vegetarian!

Rajasthan isn't a rice-growing area,

so traditionally they accompany a curry with roti,

a flatbread made from either wheat or cornflour.

It's an unleavened flatbread, without yeast.

Now she puts in some tomatoes for a little touch of sourness.

I've just been thinking while she's been making that,

and having come from that market this morning,

I can tell you this dish, enough for at least three people,

would cost less than 10p.

I feel very close and personal to this dish,

because I was up about five o'clock this morning

watching them pick the cauliflowers that's gone into it,

and then I saw the rest of the ingredients in the market.

So this is aloo gobi with a cornflour roti.

It's absolutely wonderful!

It's very nicely seasoned, it's quite spicy,

but I'd be quite happy to eat this anywhere.

Incidentally, when I was in the market

I noticed the cauliflowers were fetching only three rupees each,

which is about three and a half pence.

Talking via an interpreter to the auctioneer there,

and he was saying to vegetarians cauliflower is like meat,

and to me it's like the sort of fillet steak of the vegetarian world.

Go anywhere in the Middle East and rose-water will be a distinct flavour,

as it is here in Rajasthan,

whose dishes still hark back to the days of the Mogul Empire.

I love rose-water. To me, it's a lovely, exotic backdrop

to many a biryani, pulao or Indian pudding.

This family in Pushkar have been making it for generations

in exactly the same way that the Arabs and Persians did

over 2,000 years ago.

Watching the women painstakingly pulling the petals away from the bud

made me feel I was on a film set for a commercial for Turkish Delight.

Sometimes when you're in India the smells aren't so good,

but it's more than offset by this.

So all the whole roses are going into this still to make the rose-water.

The petals they're going to make the jam from,

and the smell is overpowering.

But it's the simplest still I've ever seen,

and actually, if you wanted to make your own moonshine,

you could have one of those in your back garden.

I was joking, constable!

And the way they extracted the essence from the damask rose petals

was indeed timeless.

They boil the petals in water in sealed copper pots.

The heavenly steam rises and escapes from the pot,

but the cold water from the pond turns it into pure essence.

A perfumed rain falling into the pot beneath the surface.

No doubt there'll be a modern, computerised,

stainless steel version of this somewhere in the world,

but this'll do for me.

I've been waiting for this all morning,

so charmed have I been by the smell of rose petals.

I was just thinking, actually,

I don't think I could ever get tired of that scent - it is just perfection.

And this is the jam, so I'm just going to taste it.

It's just made with sugar and rose petals.

It's there, the scent of roses is right there.

I'm told it's really good with chapattis.

I'd like to take some home and have it with toast.

But this is what I came to see, and to take back to my kitchen by the lagoon,

because the subtle background hint of rose-water

is the key to India's most popular rice dish.

Biryani. I think quite difficult to get right.

I think it's the hardest dish to make in Indian cookery, really.

But I think the most important thing about a biryani is keep it simple.

A lot of them have got far too many ingredients, far too many stages.

This one is simple.

When you're frying onions like this,

even when they've got to the right stage,

they'll feel soft until you take them out and put them on a plate,

and then they'll crisp up.

I'm just going to marinate my chicken.

First of all some ginger and garlic,

then a couple of chillies thinly sliced.

And finally some yoghurt, about 200 ml of yoghurt.

There we go.

And I'm just going to leave that for about half an hour.

It's a very important thing to do, because chicken can be a bit dry,

but with all this yoghurt in there it's going to be exceedingly moist.

And now to temper my spices.

First of all a few cardamoms

and then a nice piece of cinnamon

and then some cloves.

And then a teaspoon of... popping a bit...

..cumin.

And finally, a couple of Indian bay leaves.

Now then, I'm just going to add my ground spices now.

First of all, half to three-quarters of turmeric

and then chilli powder

and finally some ground coriander and some salt.

Just stir that in.

Now immediately I'm going to add my marinated chicken.

And now I'm going to add just a tiny bit of water,

cos it is still slightly catching on the bottom.

Looking lovely, I must say.

I think it's very important in a biryani

that the chicken should be absolutely encased in unctuous,

very flavourful masala.

Now some tomato.

I want this chicken to be cooked almost dry

so that the masala really clings to it.

But never pre-cook it, let it go cold.

I cook the chicken and make the biryani.

Now that's coming down very nicely.

Do you see? It's almost as dry as something like a beef rendang.

By dry, I mean everything's clinging to the chicken.

So I'm just going to put that out of the way while I cook my rice.

I cook the rice with cardamom, cloves and salt,

but I only cook it halfway through.

It's important the rice is still hard in the centre,

because the next stage is cooking it again with the chicken,

and no-one likes mushy rice.

Right, so now to layer up my biryani.

First of all, a fair bit of ghee in the bottom of the pan.

That's to stop it sticking.

A little bit of water, too,

just to induce the steam right at the beginning.

First of all, a layer of rice.

So, here we go, nicely cooked.

Flick some saffron over the rice.

There we go.

And now rose-water.

And on top of that, I'm going to put some of my chicken.

There we go, half the chicken.

Crisp fried onions on top of that.

Very exciting to me, this.

I love making a biryani. It's quite tricky, but very rewarding.

So it's layer after layer of rice,

saffron-infused milk

and the splendid rose-water.

Fried onions, chicken,

and you keep repeating it till all the ingredients are used up.

I'm putting a little bit of ghee right round the sides

so it doesn't stick,

so the rice doesn't stick to the side of the pan.

And now for the lid.

So now I wait for about 30 minutes, and serve it up.

I'm exceptionally keen on biryani,

and I can tell you that this dish, 500 years ago,

would have pride of place at many a banquet table.

Finally, I adorn the dish with more fried onions,

toasted pistachios and cashew nuts.

I think that's fit for a Mogul emperor.

I met lots of tourists while making these films in India,

and nearly all of them had been here to the famous palace in Jaipur,

the capital of Rajasthan.

I think it must be the second most popular tourist attraction

after the Taj Mahal.

This is the Hawa Mahal, or the Palace of Winds.

It's actually not a palace at all.

It's actually quite a narrow building, more of a gallery.

It's where the Rajput's wives - many wives -

and many concubines used to go,

used to wear a veil

and go and look through the myriad of windows there, or lattices,

to the processions in the street below.

The Rajput's entourage could not be seen.

Part of being a Rajput was you were a meat-eater,

and meat-eaters were held to be strong

and you needed to be strong to be a hunter and a warrior.

And somebody virile of course

would have a large number of wives and concubines.

Indeed, a harem, I suppose.

No matter where I am here,

I seem to spend quite a bit of time gazing out from forts or palaces

to a more mundane and prosaic world beyond.

Everywhere, you see glimpses of poverty,

not far away from a picture of utter opulence.

That's India for you.

Take this village in rural Rajasthan.

It's called Kanota.

This might well be perfection in someone's eyes,

but to me it's like 1,000 villages here.

A dusty main street, concrete shop selling everything from saris,

motorcycle bits, cooking pots.

There's the usual sort of chaos about it.

HORNS BLARE

And yet drive through this gate, and you enter a totally different world.

The world of the Rajput.

A sort of English country squire meets military ruler.

This estate once belonged to a polo-playing Indian general

in the British Army, Amar Singh.

His passion was collecting recipes from the world over and he said,

"Well-cooked English food is just as much to my taste as the Indian.

"I might say that if there is Indian food,

"and one has to eat it with knives and forks, there is no fun.

"In the same way, if there is English food,

"and one has to eat it without knives and forks,

"then it loses its enjoyment."

The estate is now run by his grandson, Thakur Man Singh,

a Rajput and a real foodie.

This is fabulous!

Just looking at these, I thought,

"They're railway lines, aren't they?"

It just says Darlington there. They must be British railway lines.

Thakur Man Singh.

-Welcome, Rick.

-Very, very nice to meet you.

How are you?

Much looking forward to you cooking us some of your...

Yeah, yeah. I'm cooking some special dish for you.

Thank you very much.

-Rick, this is my family room.

-Wow!

This is our old ancestors and all.

This is Amar Singh out here with his nephew.

-This is your grandfather?

-Yeah.

So, he travelled all over the world in the British Army?

Wherever he went, he collected the recipes.

-Did he cook the recipes?

-Did he like cooking, or he had his...?

His man used to cook, but he used to sit there and supervise.

-Did he?

-Yeah.

He didn't cook himself.

Thakur Man Singh is going to cook keema dhai vada.

Keema means mince, and this is minced mutton,

just simmered and ground by Thakur Man Singh's faithful servant.

Not much change there, then!

-So, what's going in there first then?

-Onion paste.

OK. Now we've got garlic.

-Salt?

-Then the salt.

-Yeah. Chilli powder?

-And then the red chillies.

-This is the favourite one for Indians.

-Yes.

-I really like it.

-I love red chilli.

We'll see that now, when this finishes. You might go red.

-What's that?

-Ginger. Dry ginger.

-Dry ginger.

-Coriander, is it?

-No. Fennel.

-OK, fennel.

Now, I'm sure that's garam masala.

Have you got the recipe?

Or is it a secret? It's lovely.

You have to smell it and find out.

Oh, gosh!

Cumin?

-Coriander.

-Yes.

Cinnamon?

You're wrong somewhere.

Oh, you're not going to tell me?

Maybe.

-Maybe!

-RICK LAUGHS

The secret garam masala.

Secret. Never get the recipe, I'm sure.

Well, that meat with those spices is fine as silk.

And now he adds coriander...

..and we roll it into little balls the size of walnuts.

I haven't quite got the technique of getting the perfect...

You have to roll your hand like this.

Here.

And now they're ready to fry.

-So now this is the frying.

-That's a really nice-looking karahi.

What are you going to use then? Ghee or...?

I said ghee. She said oil.

OK. So which are you going to use?

There's still an argument going on. I said ghee, she says oil.

-Can I give you a bit of advice?

-Yeah.

-Make it oil.

-Make it oil?

-They always win.

-More healthier.

-Healthier in many ways.

Clear butter, doctor says no.

Thank you.

This dish came from his grandfather's recipe collection,

so it could go back hundreds of years.

He covers the kofta, the balls of spiced mince, with a creamy yoghurt...

..and adorns that with a variety of ground spices.

Chilli,

cumin,

salt, some black pepper,

and strands of saffron.

Finally, splashes of rose-water.

It looks like something befitting the tables of the powerful Rajputs

in the days when their word was law.

Do you want to help yourself first?

Well, you do it because I'm not sure which goes where.

I appreciate you using a fork for us Westerners.

Mm.

It's lovely, I love the yoghurt.

So, this would be a typical lunch, or...?

Yeah. We prefer chapattis also in it, with lunch.

Sandhyo, what's it like being married to a Rajput?

I'm also a Rajput, and don't believe in inter-caste marriage.

But what's it like being married to...?

He knows how to cook first of all, so I am free.

That's the only quality in me?

No, no, but first I said.

Oh, it's the first quality. And which is the second one?

I can just be a guest to him, eat away, and go.

Only?

So that helps me, cos I don't have to cook then.

That quality you found in me.

How does it feel in these modern times in India to be a Rajput?

What does it mean now?

Now they're like a tamed tiger.

Really?

Because they don't have any powers any more.

They have no more powers, so they are like a tamed tiger in a circus.

I think you prefer talking than eating.

Well, I'll get on with it. Sorry!

It's very nice.

It was a lovely lunch,

and it reminded me of something I'd read about British Raj.

One thing that really put the British nose out of joint

was that the Indians do posh rather better than we do. So there!

And as luck would have it,

my next stop on my curry quest is the state of Himachal Pradesh.

The perfect antidote to all that cream, yoghurt and meat.

Lovely!

This is Kangra Fort,

a castle belonging to one of the oldest families in the world,

the Katoch family.

The name "Katoch" means "best in swordsmanship",

and apparently these people can trace their lineage right back

to the days of Alexander the Great.

This place reminds me of scenes from old movies

about derring-do in the North West Frontier, starring Errol Flynn,

and usually an English actor, blacked up, wearing a turban

and playing somebody deeply untrustworthy.

The Katoches own pretty much all the land round here,

and today is an auspicious one

because it heralds a visit by the family matriarch, Mrs Katoch.

Her son Ash - that's him in the patterned shirt -

is greeting guests arriving for a special feast

because his mother is seriously into Indian politics.

That must be Ash's mum.

This is the day for thanking all supporters and retainers

on the family estates, so it's a curry picnic for about 2,000.

The men cooking this feast are Brahmins,

the highest caste in India,

and they're strictly vegetarian.

They take their role here seriously.

All the spices, herbs and various condiments

are measured out on leaves - saves on washing up -

and tipped into these big copper cooking pots.

I have to content myself that I'm at the hub of where it's all at,

because to formulate a recipe is utterly impossible.

However, it's given me a really good idea

on how to go about cooking an authentic dish from Himachal Pradesh.

Right, well, I'm just going to run through five of the eight dishes.

First of all, here we have madras, and there's lots and lots of ghee in there,

and I notice lots of asafoetida,

and lots of that dried milk which really richens it up.

It's almost like milk powder in there called khoya.

Over here, chaps, before they move it off...it's khatta.

And now this is a black lentil dhal.

I'm particularly fond of this one, I've cooked it already for myself,

and it's flavoured with amchur, which is dried green mango,

which gives it a very, very tart taste.

Now I'm not going to tell you what those yellow things are at the top

cos they're over there, too.

Next here we have just a very simple yellow dhal.

I lost count of the different spices that had gone in there,

and it's finished with what I think is celery seed,

but Dave, the director, doesn't agree.

But I know I'm right because I've tasted it before in Bloody Marys.

Over here, this is a chickpea curry,

and this is finished with those little yellow things,

which are actually puffed chickpeas, so like puffed wheat.

And over here, it's sweet rice,

sweetened with sugar with lots of coconut and raisins in it.

A real banquet dish.

And the thing about all this food, there's no garlic and onion in it.

The gods don't like garlic and onion because it heats the blood,

and it encourages intemperance, lust,

wantonness, that sort of thing.

This is the first sitting,

and there'll probably be about ten more of them

before the afternoon is over.

It's very easy and comfortable

for those used to sitting cross-legged for hours at a time,

but I haven't done this since I was at the village school about 60 years ago.

-Do you want a green chilli?

-Yes, please, I love chillies.

-Oh, you want a green chilli?

-Yeah, I like them.

It's very nice food.

Take it in your three fingers, and with your thumb just push it in your mouth.

OK.

Now if you can try that, three fingers and then...

Flick it into your mouth.

It's not flicking, it's just... pushing it in.

Got it.

But in Himachal when you sit like this,

there is no difference between the rich, the poor, the caste or anything.

Everybody's equal.

And the food is only served by Brahmins.

It is cooked by the Brahmins and only served by the Brahmins,

so there's a sense of equality here.

Well, there's something very convivial about it,

and would they feel nervous with you around, or are they...?

Well, with my mother around, yes, definitely they'd be nervous, but...

But not you?

Well, not with me, no.

Most of them have seen me grow as a little kid from here, so...

And half of our boys are the ones I used to play cricket with.

You were saying you think you might be the oldest family in the world?

Well, the historical records date us back to Alexander's war records.

A war hero known as King Porus, from him we descend.

We fought every invader who came into the country,

from the Moguls to the British,

and you are being welcomed here, so...

People always want to know whether the caste system is continuing.

Is it dying out?

In many states it's very, very prevalent, especially in Haryana.

Inter-caste marriages are not accepted in the villages.

Oh.

There's certainly a lot of problems for young people who fall in love.

But the bigger cities like Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay,

Lucknow and all these areas, bigger cities,

it has become...it's dying out.

Cor, I found that a bit hard getting up.

I'm not used to sitting cross-legged for so long.

I must say it was, in a way, quite moving

because there is a great sort of levelling sense

when people sit down to eat together.

And I think Ash is right - it's a tradition that he should maintain

because you're all as one in a situation like this, eating together.

Ooh! Bloody hell!

One of the meals cooked that afternoon was a lovely dish,

rather like a chunky bean curry.

And it's one of the most popular vegetarian dishes

in the whole of India.

And once the beans have cooked, it takes no time at all.

Oh, they seem to be about ready.

I'm about to finish cooking a rajma,

which is a red kidney bean curry

from Himachal Pradesh right up in northern India.

I've been cooking these beans just with a bit of turmeric

for about an hour and a half. They really do take...

I soaked them overnight and I've been cooking them,

and they're still...

Well, they're soft now, but it's certainly taken a long time.

Actually, when we came over

right at the beginning of filming some months ago,

on the plane they served rajma

and I was thinking at the time it's a bit like comfort food,

like cassoulet without the meat.

So to those frying onions I put in a garlic and ginger paste,

very common here.

It's very easy to make back home in a food processor.

Then chilli powder.

Now, you can tell that's just freshly ground because it's all fluffy.

And now, to reinforce those curry flavours, garam masala.

Now I'm going to add quite a lot of yoghurt,

because yoghurt is incredibly important in northern India

cos they're a lot sharper in India.

But if you use an ordinary yoghurt - not a low-fat one, my gosh no -

because there's certainly plenty of fat in Indian yoghurt.

But you'll get approximately the same thing, not quite so sour.

And now I'm going to add my beans.

There we go.

To help thicken it, crush a few of the beans

against the side of the saucepan with the back of a spoon, and that's it.

The last thing is to squeeze a bit of lime over the top, and there we go.

Just serve that with some fluffy basmati rice.

Brilliant!

This is the town of McLeod Ganj in the foothills of the Himalayas.

The Indians refer to this area as the abode of the gods,

and actually, this is where, talking of gods, the Dalai Lama lives.

Consequently there are many of his followers living here,

and so, naturally, the restaurants serve many varieties of Tibetan food.

I'd never heard of these before I came here, but I've been told

that their popularity is spreading all over India.

They're little steamed dumplings called momos.

Gosh, these are good! They really are good.

What I love about 'em is they're steamed, so they're very moist.

You've got lots of nice-tasting minced lamb in there,

and lots of onion, only slightly cooked, so almost a bit sharp.

They are so lovely. No wonder...

I mean, this is such a relief to me after so many curries,

just to come and have some Tibetan food which is so different.

But as I was saying, no wonder they're catching on through the whole of India

because they are truly, truly lovely.

I wanted to come here to meet the Dalai Lama.

I know it sounds a bit lame or stupid,

but I wanted to talk to him about food, what it means to him.

It's as simple as that.

I sensed his aides were a trifle bemused at my request.

"Food? Just food?" they'd say.

"Yes, I'd really like to know His Holiness's thoughts about food."

Hello.

-Hello.

-Rick Stein to meet you.

-Your Holiness.

Very nice to meet you, Your Holiness.

I must say, I'm a bit nervous.

No, no, no, no, don't be nervous.

This is David Pritchard, the director.

Great honour to meet you, Your Holiness.

Ready? Ready?

-DAVID: Yes, Your Holiness.

-Going?

-Yes.

Just... Obviously as a monk, that food doesn't feature now in your life,

but when you were young, when you were little, did it matter to you, food?

Traditionally, as a young sort of student, including monk student,

it's not eating eggs, porks and fish.

Then my own parent, my father,

very much fond of pork.

So occasionally, when I visit my own family's house...

..then my father used to enjoy porks,

and then I'd just sit beside him like dog,

waiting some piece from that.

So that, anyway, quite illegal,

young Dalai Lama should not allow you to eat pork.

But then also, egg.

My mother quietly cooked egg

and then give me.

So one day I enjoy porks and eggs,

which supposed to say not allow the Dalai Lama.

Then one official, monk official, used to come while I enjoyed these things,

so then I burst, "Go away! Go away!"

So that shows, as a young boy very much fond these food,

which not allowed in my official kitchen like that, just one thing.

-Good stuff!

-One thing.

Then...

Then, of course, see, I am Buddhist fully ordained monk,

-so afternoon, no dinner.

-Right.

Only breakfast...and lunch.

After that, it's no solid meal,

but occasionally when I feel very hungry,

then we'd salute to Buddha, just a few biscuits.

That's the way that I feel, a Buddha will understand.

My healthy body is more important than just to see...

one small rule.

So really you have to teach yourself to think of other people,

to be compassionate to other people,

and sharing of food to me is part of that compassion, really.

As a chef, I think actually the most pleasure I get from it

is cooking for other people and making them...

and seeing the happiness in their faces.

I think we should promote awareness,

oneness of humanity.

Once that sort of concept has become strong,

then a lot of world problem can reduce.

Now we too much stress, different religious faith,

different nationality, different nations' own sort of interest,

don't care about others,

so therefore I think your programme about food,

I think through that way you can teach people, basically we are same.

King, queen, also loves food.

Beggar, AIDS patients, these also, you see, loves food.

On that level we are same.

You're so right. I mean, that's what it's all about to me, really,

and I'd just like to thank you so much for being so open with me.

Because, as I said, I was really nervous before,

and now I'm overwhelmed.

OK, thank you. Thank you. Thank you much.

-OK now?

-DAVID: Bravo.

You satisfied? Our boss, satisfied now?

DAVID: I'm very satisfied.

Oh, that's good, that's good, that's good!

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