"Did you notice that the dahi (Indian curd) in chaat is always sweet," said Manjit Gill, corporate chef of the ITC Hotels group, while we enjoyed some Delhi papdi chaat, aloo tikkiand gol gappe at the unlikely location of a 5-star resort in Manesar, far removed from the crowded lanes of old Delhi.
According to Chef Gill,chaats, the popular street food of North India, were allegedly invented about 400 years ago in old Delhi when the Mughal rulers wanted to come up with a dish that helped counter water-borne diseases. The sweetness in dahi is because adding salt to yogurt leads to acidity, explained Gill, and hence salt in dahi is a no no. Today, we go to stores and buy probiotic curd as it is said to be good for digestion. However, Indian cooking traditions always knew that curd was good for health, this is nothing new to us.
I was in Delhi for the weekend recently and it was really (really) hot and dry there. Curd came to the rescue again, as I politely refused the wine and beer offered with meals and went for the lassi instead. Lassi is Punjab's flagship drink, made with curd and water churned together as the base. After hearing Gill out, I asked for the sweet lassi and not a salted one. What I noticed about the lassi at Delhi in places such as the United Coffee House at Connaught Place and the legendary Bukhara, as well as the lassis I have had in farmhouses outside Amritsar and at dhaabas such as Kesar Dhaba, is that they tend to be lighter and frothier and less sweeter than the lassisone gets in Mumbai. And they are a lot more refreshing too.
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