Experience the flavours of Pakistan in India: Peshawari Food Festival

There has been quite a subtle change in my palate, ever since the time I have started writing about food. As I have been trying out quite a few European cuisines, my palate profile has slowly but steadily heightened from a few select, spicy flavours. Before the days of writing, I wouldn’t have enjoyed the taste of food from the North Western Frontier of the subcontinent so much, all thanks to it’s subtelity. But now, food from Afghanistan and North Western Pakistan tastes so much interesting. So when Crowne Plaza Okhla was organising a food festival from Peshawar, we definitely headed over.

Let’s start with the reason behind the difference between the food of North India and the North West of Pakistan. Well, the primary one seems to be the fertile Punjab valley which lies on both sides of the border and produced crops by the bounty. On the other hand, mountains dominate the North West Frontier including Afghanistan and the North Western parts of Pakistan, specially Peshawar. This means that meat becomes a dominant staple in these regions with exclusively Vegetarian dishes lacking quite a bit.

So when Executive Chef Swaminandan got in touch with his counterpart from across the border in Peshawar to curate the menu, the dearth of vegetarian dishes meant that he had to improvise creating his own Paneer Begam mah, Baluchi paneer, Multani dal Tadka and Kandhari rajma. One of the major reasons I enjoyed the food so much was the subtle flavours of the spices and marination that I found on the Kebabs. This allows the taste of the meat to shine through quite ebulliently. The Chapli Kebab and even the Seelh Kebab are quite a testament to the fact. There is minimal use of spice and masala which predominates North Indian especially Punjabi food.

Another thing that charachterises the food from this region is the use of flavourful breads. With the meat being flavoured subtly, these sweet breads add a sense of completion to the dishes. Most of these are available in Baking shops from where each family buys it’s daily quota, all freshly made. One of these is the Biscuit Bread which can be easily combined with the decadently flavoured Mardaana Murgh or the Paaya Qorma. These different subtly flavoured meats makes the Peshawari food festival one of the quite interesting ones I have attended in recent years.