The Indian subcontinent · Volume 15, The Trami, the Boti and a Kitchen Split Three Ways
Ambal
Jammu, Dogra tradition
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 30 minutes
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Jammu's sweet and sour pumpkin, soured with tamarind and sweetened with jaggery, a dish specifically associated with the Saant ritual before Dogra weddings and traditionally eaten alongside dal, rice and rajma at Dogra functions.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 30 minutes.
Ingredients
- 600 g pumpkin, peeled and cubed
- 2 tbsp tamarind, soaked, water reserved
- 2 tbsp jaggery
- 1 tsp turmeric
- to taste salt
- 1 tsp fenugreek seed
- 1 tbsp mustard oil
- 1 small piece of charcoal; 1 tsp mustard oil charcoal and mustard oil, for dhuni
Method
- Simmer the pumpkin, covered, in the tamarind soaking water, jaggery, turmeric and salt, until soft enough to be lightly smashed with the back of a spoon, around 20 minutes.
- In a small pan, temper the fenugreek seed in the mustard oil until it darkens, then pour over the finished pumpkin.
- Finish with dhuni exactly as for khatta meat: a small piece of burning charcoal doused with hot mustard oil under a tight cover for a few minutes.
What a modern chef changes
Roasted trim, a precise sous vide pumpkin and pumpkin chips
Builds on rung 5
Method
- Roast the trim first. Roast a portion of the pumpkin's trim in a very hot oven or on the Big Green Egg before it goes into the pan, adding a caramelised depth the simmer alone does not develop.
- Cook the main batch sous vide. Bring it to a precise, repeatable point just short of falling apart, rather than judging it by eye.
- Make pumpkin chips. Dehydrate thin pumpkin slices into crisp chips, tossed lightly in the same tamarind and jaggery mixture, as a textural garnish.
- Apply the dhuni with a smoking gun. Use it for a cleaner, more consistent infusion than the trapped-charcoal method.