Rajasthan and Himachalpradesh | Rick Stein's India | BBC Documentary

in my search for the perfect curry I've read quite a bit about India and I've noticed that the most consistently overused phrase from travel writers has been a land of contrasts well indeed it is and sometimes I find that 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 the politician from Lucknow builds this acres upon acres of huge stone carved elephants along with a memorial featuring her proudly clutching and designer Hamburg when I are some local people about this they just shrugged good-humoredly 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 [Music] [Applause] [Music] that's a mind blasting career icky [Music] 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 in the Maharaja's when you think about it it's rather a clever move because these boys will grow up to be powerful rulers and hopefully we'll have ingrained in them a love and understanding the ways of the British which means of course having allies in high places [Music] we thank God what do I fear received amen well today we've got Western foods we starting with cream of vegetable soup then we got carrot and green peas saute followed a cauliflower and white sauce veg fried rice grilled paneer veg cutlet cabbage salad a dinner roll bread butter and sauce how much what the sources and cake in custard for a pudding I've been talking to one or two the chef's through an interpretative course and I discovered that many of them would go back two or three generations a cookie here now I really like that about a lot of Indian kitchens I've been in that people would hand over the jobs would it with us 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 shooters guards and a hundred and fifty 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 I'm really enjoying this I'm it's nicely cooked it's nicely seasoned they've just given me some chopped liver which is apparently this school this is a school favorite isn't it the chopped liver on toast dates back from the from the ROG days I guess so weld needs 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 it may our school is anything like our eaten 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 back in England and I'm very keen to talk to you because well first of all hands up who likes pizzas well there you go I mean it's a bit of a slip miss test because I feel if I'm asking you it's sort of giving me an idea of the way the country is going the younger people about what 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 the dinner means going to a proper Indian restaurant and having a properly Indian food is what gives us like a real satisfaction that's when we feel that yeah we have absolutely how do you say the food of India changing in the next twenty thirty years there's thing in India every 10 kilometers you go the dialect changes the water changes and the food habits changes so you know we've got very like diverse very diverse country so it will take some time to change but you know the franchise is there coming we have McDonald's who's you know who's just into our country and they bought up a vegetarian restaurant which is like which is like the first wedge restaurant first wage McDonald's in the whole world thing is we really value and value our traditional food we really love it and that's one thing that we're gonna hold on to because given a choice between a pizza and a normal Indian filling meal I would go for an in the middle anytime anywhere fantastic [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] 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 because it just shows a complete contrast there is an 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 cinnabar complex just nearing completion but that's India I mean you there's nothing you can do about it interestingly I was rereading a book by Mark Tully called no full stops in India which I've always enjoyed and white at the beginning he says people who 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 Rajas the land of the Kings it's so different from the lush south this is mostly desert mall after mile of sand and scrub goats and shacks [Music] when I had the idea of them doing a serious back Indian I thought it would be really nice to drive around India myself I'm not sure that the crew would have been so wholeheartedly an approval of that in some of the past series maybe my driving skills arts are 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 in the last minute it goes off in one direction you just 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 [Music] well I think I'll go for the Tucker doll I just want darling roti really and a couple masala chai sweet sweet spice tea we've perfect just for a light lunch this I think I'm right in saying is your average truckers lunch a vegetable doll with bread or roti certain members of the film crew were wondering if they did two sausages baked beans fried eggs at least three Russia's hashbrowns and a cup of tea great I told him not to be so silly like we're mirin kill me in places like France or Spain we like to stop whether the truck driver stops get the best meal thinking the same probably true here in India I must say this is really good this doll as is the roti I've just chosen a very simple salad of onion and chilies which I love very simple wholesome food lovely I really like these standard salads in India which is basically onion and chilli so because I'm European they normally just give me a tomato and cucumber salad I have to say no no no I want the kilee as soon as I saw this I thought at that all-powerful mogul Emperor immortalized by courage in his famous unfinished poem [Music] 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 mobile rulers who dominated northern India could do pretty much as they liked and this the Emir fought epitomizes 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 mobile Emperor was probably like Sanjeev barley you must be Santi how are you I'm very well I mean this is amazing I mean they told me it was gonna be quite something but I had no idea how incredible it to have you look thank you very much Wow he fought tooth and nail with the local authorities to open his prize restaurant within the port he's really proud of his kitchen recreating long-forgotten local recipes I asked him to cook his favorite one jungly mas jungly meaning jungle and mass meaning meat jungle mate Vicky it's called jungle mas jungle my video end on a hunt and you basically need only 5 things to make this dish but very simple in the jungle and was more fun because it is it yourself it used to be the game meat but now he's using lamb so I'm told hunting stands now in India yeah why 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 had bent 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 boat that's why if you see the Tigers vanishing from our country the tiger the population of the Tigers are going down this is lucky for them to eat hunting was banned I can understand that it's only got five ingredients meat water ghee salt and dried chilies what we do we take this the chilies which coming from a place called Montaigne so while putting the chilies we deceive them so they don't get to get extra spicy so if we put the chilies and now what we do is there's water in there so we keep on adding water and he simultaneously slowly it's really simple but I mean I like it for that so what would you say was this sort of essentials of Rajasthan cuisine medula where's it'll come from the recipes were actually created by doctors in those days it had to had certain are you Veda medicines which were added to the food so I invited excuse my pronunciation that really means that the chefs and doctors are working together to make it a perfect for your digestion for your for your eyesight for everything for the whole body good and the chef's would make it into something very tasty to eat because you know indulgence used to be huge in those days so they had to balance it out some way or the other so ever she had to have a doctor as part of another did you deep interesting now this is a real genuine lesson unless is definitely more it was splendid and would be right up there in my top 10 [Music] that's really good yeah thank you I mean the chili makes it of course I mean 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 they're actually just having the chili and nothing else and tasting the mutton is a lassie to that I do don't believe that they're wrong many ingredients spices go into it and would be that simple as no I think that's really nice thanks a lot enjoying it a great deal [Music] one of the other dishes I really liked at Sanji'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 there our lamb cutlets but first of all the lamb was poached in milk so just gonna put a large amount of milk into this pan bring that to the ball and I'm gonna infuse the milk with some whole spices first of all just bruising a few cardamon's to put in there and then we've got these other whole spices as well fennel seeds bruised cardamon's 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 and 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 there for too long I want them to be a bit pink in the middle because I'm then going to fry them through they need to be in there so they absorb the flavors say around five minutes they're just about ready now so just lift him out with my trusty tongs you'll see they look a bit disheveled trust me it almost adds to the look of the final dish so just let this infuse milk cool down because I'm going to use it in the butter so first of all we can start making up the batter I've got some flour in here and I'm just going to add some corn flour 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 cardamon seeds ground up and then I'm just gonna put some salt in here quite a lot actually quite a sort of heaped teaspoon there we go just those things all together and finally and I do think this is the real sort of best thing about this platter quite a lot of green chillies three or four green chillies seeds and all into the batter next I'm just gonna whisk up a couple of duck egg whites [Music] so get a little bit of them happening with these egg whites just to make a little well in the middle of there just add the egg whites and now to add the infused milk which should have pulled 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 perfect 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 butter and then in the oil only get about four or five minutes a ton they're only little so just leave those to brown and then I'll turn them over actually Rajasthan is a very big meat-eating region of of India a country largely made up of vegetarian so those are getting very nicely colored now I mean that looks really lovely and as I said I like that the noir Bolinas of them I've enjoying this I mean them I do like cooking you see people say to me you know you cook every day you must get tired of it I don't I think the real ways not don't is because you're always hungry and I'm always hungry I'm always anticipating yet another lovely meal I must say these chops are doing just that for me so there we go those are now cooked so we will stir them up and I'm just when our dish them all up I'm just going to sprinkle it all chat masala over them which is basically a simple garam masala with the important addition are some amchoor which is a green mango and some black Indian sea salt good let us proceed yeah very nice I must say the hint of chilly for most green chilies and lovely taste of fennel which I love back tastes of sort of general curry flavors apart in a very convenient little bit of finger food so crying out for a glass of beer actually [Music] I stayed at some memorable places in Rajasthan breathtaking and so full of history take this place in Dave go a Rajputs palace and now a hotel it was perfect in every way except I kept getting lost well as some places to stay go this is pretty pretty exceptional I mean this is only part of it the bedroom the bathrooms 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's just fabulous I mean I just love the way the light comes through all that colored glass and all that lovely mirrors and a silver eNOS of it and now started thinking well I wonder what this room is useful and well over there is the Rajputs harem so I sort of ignore to leave thinking maybe this is where he entertained his concubines I got up at 5 in the morning to see the local farmers pit cauliflowers this northern European vegetable seems so out of place amongst the palm trees like hummingbirds on Bodmin Moor and of course it was a British you introduced them along with the cabbage presumably to go with their roast beef and Yorkshire puddings however the good old collie is acclimatized well and is a key player in all the wonderful vegetable curries here 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 that the guy that owns a 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 because I've probably had enough mutton courage to shake quite a few sticks out but vegetarian food is what they've come for and things like cauliflower aloo Gobi which is just a potato and cauliflower a bit of masala and just a tiny bit of chilli it's very good for the stomach always find something in a market like this to interest me its Metis or fenugreek and I've never seen this as a vegetable or a herb either or I just seen it as those little brown seeds you get back in the UK first time it's absolutely gloriously savory sort of like would be the center of a vegetarian dish it's just got lots and lots of sort of almost legume like you know peas and beans flavor no wonder they all adore it so much I wanted to see how the locals made the famous aloo Gobi potato and cauliflower curry [Music] 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 sort of thinking back home you know you go to your local Indian and the order as ever too much you know probably two or three curries between two of you and you think a lot better have some veg they think we'll have some rice and some pop a glass of some naan bread oh and throwing another gobi - you know it's almost like an afterthought fit here it's like a main course and quite rightly so I mean that's all like what for a main course I mean I am becoming vegetarian Rajasthan isn't a rice growing area so traditionally their company a curry with roti a flatbread made from either wheat or corn flour it's an unleavened flat bread 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 10 P [Music] well I feel very close and personal to this dish because I was up about five o'clock this morning watching the pic but cauliflower that's gone into it and then I saw the rest of the ingredients in the market so this is a logo B with a corn flour roti it's absolutely wonderful very nicely seasoned it's quite spicy I'll be quite happy to eat this anywhere incidentally when I was in the market I noticed I mean the cauliflower that were fetching only three rupees each was about three and a half pence talking via interpreter to the the auctioneer there and he was saying to vegetarians cauliflower is like meat and to me is like sort of Philips steak with a vegetarian world [Music] go anywhere in the Middle East and rosewater will be a distinct flavor as it is here in Rajasthan whose dish is still hot back to the days of the Mughal Empire a love rosewater to me it's a lovely exotic backdrop to many a biryani pulao or Indian pudding this family and 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 injured 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 watery the petals they're going to make the jam from and the smell is overpowering but it's as simple as 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 in escape and a 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 computerized stainless steel version of this somewhere in the world but this will do for me well I've been waiting for this all morning so charmed have I been by that the smell of rose petals or just thinking actually I don't think I could ever get tired of that scent it's just perfection and this is the germ so I'm just gonna test 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 chapatis would 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 got far too many ingredients and far too many stages this one is simple when you're frying onions like this even when they 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 gonna marinate my chicken first of all some ginger and garlic then a couple of chilies thinly sliced and finally some yogurt about 200 milliliters of yogurt there we go and I'm just gonna leave that for about half an hour it's a very important thing to do this because chicken can be a bit dry but with all this yogurt in there it's gonna be exceedingly moist and now at a 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 topping 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 1/2 to 3/4 of turmeric and then chili powder and finally some ground coriander and some salt just stir that in now immediately we're going to add my marinated chicken [Music] and now I'm going to add just a tiny bit of water it is still slightly catching on the bottom looking lovely I must say I think it's very important in a very army that the chicken should be absolutely encased in unctuous very flavorful masala now some tomato I want this is 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 done very nicely just see it's almost as drier something like a beef rendang by dry I mean that everything's clinging to the chicken so I'm just gonna 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 half way through it's important the rice is still hard in the center 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 powerless to stop it sticking a little bit of water to just to induce the steam right to the beginning first of all a layer of rice so here we go nicely cooked flicks and suffering over the rice there we go and now rosewater and on top of that I'm gonna put some of my um chicken here we go half the chicken Chris fried onions on top of that very exciting to me this love making a very arnie it's quite trickier but very rewarding so it's layer after layer of rice saffron infused milk and the splendid rosewater fried onions chicken and you keep repeating it till all the ingredients are used up i'm just putting a little bit of ghee right around the side so it doesn't stick so the rice doesn't stick to the side of the park and now for the lid and i'll 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 [Music] 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 Rasch puts wives and many wives and many concubines used to go used to wear a veil and go and look through the myriad of windows they're all lattices to the processions in the street below the Rajputs entourage could not be seen part of being a Rajput was you're 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 hurry my suppose no matter where I am here I seem to spend quite a bit of time gazing out from thoughts 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 [Music] take this village in rural Rajasthan it's called connote er this might well be perfection in someone's eyes but to me is like a thousand villages here a dusty Main Street concrete shop selling everything from sarees motifs art wood bits cooking pots there's a usual sort of chaos about it and yet drive through this gate and you enter a totally different world the world of the Rajput a sort of English country squad meets military ruler this estate once belonged to a polo-playing Indian general in the British Army amar Singh [Music] 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 Rajput and a real foodie this is fabulous just looking at least I thought their railway lines on there just as Darlington there it must be British railway lines chuckle man Singh looking forward to cooking us some special dish for you thank you very much great this is my family room out here with his nephew this is your grandfather yeah so he travelled all over the world in the in the British Army and he did he cook the recipes did he like cooking or are you happy yeah he didn't cook him same Sokka Man Singh is going to cook keema Dada keema means mince and this is mince Monde just simmered and ground by Thakur man sings faithful servant not much change there then [Music] so what's going in there first time onion fish okay no garlic salt salt yeah yep this is the favorite one for Indians yes how do you like it I love red chilies I will see that now you might go red what's that ginger dry dry dry ginger coriander is it Oh No panel fan okay fennel now I'm sure that's garam masala good have you got the recipe or is it a secret you have to smell it and find out oh gosh cumin coriander yeah cinnamon yeah wrong some there are not gonna tell ray maybe the secret enemies have a secret never get the recipe I'm sure well that meet with those spices is finest silk and now he adds coriander and we roll it into little balls the size of walnuts I don't quite got a technique of getting the Pearl Angus yeah and now they're ready to fry so now this is the frame that's a really nice looking karai what are you gonna use that game I said she said okay so which you're gonna use that's a still argument going on I said G season I can I give you a bit of advice yeah make it oil they always win more a healthier in healthier in many ways no thank you [Music] 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 Lintz with a creamy yogurt and adorns that with a variety of ground spices chilli cumin salt some black pepper and strands of saffron finally splashes of rosewater it looks like something befitting the tables of the powerful Rajputs in the days when their word was law would you do it because I'm not sure where which goes where I appreciate you using a fork from us Westerners I love the yogurt so this would be a typical lunch here we prefer chapatis also in it lunch Sunday was a lot being married to a Rajput how was it I'm also Rajput and don't believe in an inter caste marriage sup it was a lot being married - he knows how to cook first of all so I am free that means that's the only quality in me no no but first I said first quality so I can just be a guest to him eat away and go only so that has me how does it feel in these modern times in India to be a Rajput what what does it mean now that nowadays they're like a tamed tiger because they don't have any powers anymore there are no more powers so they are like it tamed tiger in a circus we're talking and anything I'll get on with it sorry it's very nice it was a lovely lunch and it reminds 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 offer my curry quest is a state of Himachal Pradesh the perfect antidote to all that cream yogurt and mate lovely this is kangaroo fort a castle belonging to one of the oldest families in the world that could touch family the name could touch 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 northwest frontier starring Errol Flynn and usually an English actor black top wearing a turban and playing somebody deeply untrustworthy the katachi zone pretty much all the land around here and today is an auspicious one because it heralds a visit by the family matriarch mrs. Kitaj the son ash that's him in the patent shirt is greeting guests arriving for a special feast because his mother is seriously into Indian politics this is the day for thanking all supporters and retainers on the family estates so it's a curry picnic for about two thousand the men cooking this feast of Brahmans 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'll 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 her March or Pradesh what I'm just gonna run through five of the eight dishes first of all here we have madra and there's lots and lots of ghee in here and I noticed lots of asafoetida and lots of that dried milk which really richens it up it's almost like milk powder in there called Koya over here chaps before they move it off its cutter and now this is a black lentil dal I'm particularly fond of this when I've cooked it already for myself and it's flavored with amchoor which is um dried green mango which gives it a very very tart taste now I'm not going to tell you what those yellow things are on the top because they're over there too next here we have just a very simple yellow dal I lost count of the different spices that are gone in there and it's finished which 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 and bloody marys over here this is a chickpea curry and this is finished with those little yellow things which actually puffed chickpeas so like puff wheat and over here it's sweet rice sweetened with sugar with lots of coconuts and raisins in it a real banquet day and the thing is about all this food this is no garlic and onion in it the gods don't like garlic and onion because it encourages it heats the blood and it encourages intemperance lust wantonness that sort of thing [Music] this is the first sitting and they'll probably be about ten more of them before the afternoons over it's very easy and comfortable for those used to sitting cross-legged at a time but I haven't done this since I was at the village school about sixty years ago eventually yes please it's very nice food ticketed new three fingers and with your thumb just push it in your mouth okay if we can find out three things and then okay flick it into your mouth just pushing it in but in him I tell you when you sit like this there's no there's no difference between the rich the poor the cast and the food is only served by province it is cooked by the Brahmins and only served by the fans so there's a sense of equality here was something very convivial about it and I mean would they feel nervous in with you around or they would my mother alone yes definitely they'll be nervous but no they see me you know what most never seen me grow a little kid yeah from here so half of my boys I've been the ones I used to play cricket with so you saying you think you might be the oldest family in the world well historical records lead us back to Alexander's war records a war hero known as King Porus from whom we descend we fought every invader who came into the country from the Mughals to the British and you are you're 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 yeah especially in Haryana or vodka inter caste marriages are not accepted in the villages for young people who fall in love but because cities like Delhi Calcutta Bombay these areas bigger cities it has become it's dying out God found that a bit hard getting up I'm not used to sitting cross-legged or so long I must say it was some quite you know why quite moving because there is a great sort of leveling sense when people sit down to eat together and I think ash is right it's a tradition that he should maintain because you all you all as one in a situation like this eating together one of the meals cooked that afternoon was a lovely dish rather like a chunky being 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 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 her soak them overnight and I've been cooking them and they're still what they have soft now but it's certainly taking a long time actually when we came over right at the beginning of filming some months ago on the plane they served Raj Martin I was thinking a tums a bit like sort of comfort food like Kaz Alain 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 press then chilli powder now you can tell that's just freshly ground because it's all fluffy and now to reinforce those curry flavors garam masala and now I'm going to add quite a lot of yogurt because yoga is incredibly important in northern India there's a lot sharper in India but if you use an ordinary yogurt not us at a low fat one my gosh no because certainly plenty of fat and Indian yogurt but you'll get approximately the same thing although 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 [Applause] [Music] 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 was his we're talking of gods the Dalai Lama lives consequently there are many of his followers living here and so naturally the restaurant served many varieties of Tibetan food I've never heard of these before I came here but have been told that their popularity is spreading all over India their little steamed dumplings called Nomos gosh these are good they really are good what I love about them is their own steam so they're very moist you've got lots of nice and tasty limp minced lamb in there and lots of onion only slightly cooked see almost a bit sharp they're slow lovely no wonder I mean it's just 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 loved [Music] thank you got here 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 his thoughts about food the director just obviously as a monk that food doesn't feature now in your life as when you were young when you were little did it matter to you food so traditionally as a young sort of student including monk student so not feeding eggs box and fish then my own parent my father very much funds pork so occasionally when I visit my own sort of family house when my father is enjoy pokes and then I just sit beside him like dog waiting some piece so that anyway like that also ache my mother quietly and then give me so so one day I enjoy pox and eggs which supposed to see not allow eating that llama then one official Bank official you see come while I enjoy these things so then I burst so that that shows is a young boy very merciful fond these food which not allowed in my kitchen like that this is one thing up one day then then of course see I'm Buddhist fully ordained for a monk so afternoon no dinner right only breakfast and lunch after after that is in no solid meal but occasionally when I feel very hungry then with Sloat a Shinto Buddha with a few biscuits Buddha will understand I think my healthy body is more important than just just you see yesterday as well as the one small route so really you have to teach yourself to think of other people to be compassionate to other people and and I mean and and sharing a food to me is part as 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 this dad sort of concept to become strong then a lot of world problem can reduce now we to my sort of stress different religious faiths different nationality different nations all sort of interest don't care about other so therefore I think your program about food I still through that way you can teach people they say we have same king Quinn also loves food Becca eight patients huh this also you see loves food or that level we are same you've cell right I mean that's what it's all about to me really and I 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 okay thank you big advice okay now you said this right our boss said it's right now [Laughter] [Music] [Music]

Channel: BBC Documentary

Views: 655,920

Rating: 4.6718254 out of 5

Keywords: bbc documentary, documentary bbc, bbc, rick stein, cooking (interest), indian street food, indian food, Rick Stein's India, indian food recipes, indian food eating, street food india, indian cooking, street food indian veg, indian cooking show, Dalai Lama, biryani, Junglee Maas, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, street food indian veg recipes, himachal pradesh tourism, dalai lama interview

Id: 8durDK5OolY

Length: 58min 46sec (3526 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 02 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Visual-Salamander]

I have to downvote this video.

Something about this video rubs me the wrong way. The way he shames India for being poor (without once acknowledging that India is poor because the british plundered trillions from the land) and just his general demeanor way of speaking kind of seem to be some racist old white man going to India to laugh at the locals.

[u/Tundra_Inhabitant]

I can’t stand the BBC and it’s undertones of ‘the good old British Empire’ and rick Stein is definitely from the generation of Brits who convince themselves that Empire was good for the colonies because ‘look how little progress the have made since we left.’ Not acknowledging that any means for progress were already exploited or taken back with them.

We have been spoilt rotten by Anthony Bourdain’s travel/food shows. This flies in the face of everything that was good about Bourdain.

[u/Captainirishy]

Rick Stein is a really talented Cook but I think he talks too much.