Culinary Chronicles
By Yasmin Rahul Bakshi
The Yellow Tin of Amul Cheese –
This is the same story, just told the way I would tell it if we were sitting together with chai – not perfect, just how I remember it.
People think Army glory is only about the border, medals and parades. That glory is there, of course. But for us, who lived inside those cantonment walls, there was another kind of glory. Much quieter.
I learnt it at Ferozepur cantonment. My first military station.
In Ferozepur, Tiger was Aide De Camp and his parent unit was also right there in the same station. So our house, that small married accommodation, was never empty. Officers, their wives from both sides just kept visiting. There was always someone at the door.
Very early on Tiger told me in simple words, “Yasmin, anyone who comes to our house at any hour, should be welcomed with warmth. No one should go hungry from here.”
At that time I just nodded. Later I actually understood what he meant. In the Army, all this socialising was not extra. It WAS life!
If someone was coming on posting or going out, it was not his private thing. A list would actually be made in the unit office. Properly! Who would do a welcome lunch, who would do the dinner or who would organise the farewell. So that nobody missed out, no dates clashed. Everyone got a chance.
Same for birthdays and anniversaries. Many times there was no formal invitation at all. You just knew. By evening, the entire unit would land up with wives and children at that house. If it was a bachelor, then at the Officers’ Mess because that is where bachelors reside. Someone would get a cake with a collective gift, children running in the lawn. That was it. You became family without being told.
I remember returning from a long leave. A tired train journey, house full of dust, kitchen completely cold. I would not have to worry. Soon, for lunch one big hot “dabba” would come from one house. Full meal! Then dinner would be sent from another house. Next morning breakfast by someone else. Not one “katori” from here and one from there but full meals. You felt you were home even before you unpacked.
But my favourite memory – still makes me smile, was the gate crashing.
The bachelor officers had made it a habit. 11, 12, sometimes 1 a.m. After a party or after duty. We would hear the bikes stop at the gate. Engines off. Then that suppressed laughter and a knock.
Tiger loved all of this and encouraged it. When his set of youngsters and bachelors barged in on their bikes at odd hours, he welcomed them open heartedly. He made them eat and drink lavishly. But there was one rule – they could leave only when he wanted them to. That was always just an hour prior to their morning physical training, the following day. Just enough time for them to ride back to the Mess, change and fall in for morning PT. Still full and happy from the night before.
Then my kitchen light would go on. What to make at that hour? Whatever was there.
There were fixed favourites. Always! Anda bhurji with hot paranthas was number one. I can still hear that hiss when you put the beaten eggs in ghee. Onions, green chillies and a big handful of fresh coriander. The whole kitchen would turn aromatic in two minutes. Then the cheese paranthas with Amul cheese. Oh, everyone loved those. In the Army there was never any dearth of cheese in the rations, you know. Those big yellow tins of Amul were always lying in the pantry in every house. So cheese paranthas were very common. Or the stuffed paranthas with whatever we had and maybe a humble, garam pulao.
If the vegetables were inadequate, one officer would just take the flash light and go to my little kitchen garden. Fresh radish, tomatoes, green chilies, still with that cold dew on them. And if my garden did not have enough, they would jump the small hedge and pull out a few spring onions with a handful of coriander from the neighbour’s garden also to put inside the paranthas or pulao. The neighbour never minded. Never! She would shout from her window, half asleep, “Pull those ones, they are better.”
That is how it was. Everything belonged to everyone.
They never just ate and left. They would cut onions with me, eyes watering. Grate that Amul cheese, try to make round paranthas and fail. Then help clean up the kitchen. Laughing, leg pulling. At 1 a.m. our small kitchen became the warmest place in the world. Yet maintaining dignity!
The Officer’s mess was a different world. Its menus were not just menus. They were passed down for decades through the cooks. Printed in old registers. Mulligatawny soup, railway mutton curry… For any party you could ask for whatever cuisine you wanted and they would do it with full style.
I never, not even once felt it was too much. Too many people, too many late nights, too many paranthas when the world was sleeping – never! I was overjoyed and it was never enough. I enjoyed every single bit of that culture. Every knock, every extra plate, every laugh in the kitchen.
That’s how the Army holds you. We found a family there.
It was not five-star, it was something more. A light switched on in the kitchen at midnight. A list made in the unit office so everyone belongs. A house full of people on a birthday even when you did not invite. A full hot dabba waiting when you come home tired.
Small things that we cherished more than anything else.
Ingredients:
- Whole wheat flour – 2 cups
- Amul processed cheese – 200 gms
- – according to taste
- Garlic – 6 cloves
- Onion – 1 medium
- Green chilies – 3
- Coriander leaves – handful
- Chives / garlic leaves – handful (optional)
- Cooking oil – for shallow frying (optional)
Method:
- Knead the whole wheat flour with water into a soft and smooth dough. Cover and let it rest for 45 minutes.
- Grate the cheese.
- Finely chop the garlic cloves, onion, coriander leaves, garlic leaves / chives and the green chillies.
- Mix the above with the grated cheese.
- Add salt (keep it on the lesser side as cheese contains salt).
- Make 8 equal sized balls out of the dough.
- In a dough ball fill in the cheese mixture and roll out into a flat disc with the help of a rolling pin and dry whole wheat flour.
- Cook it over a hot griddle with or without applying oil on both sides.
- Repeat the same with the other dough balls.
- Serve immediately for best taste.
(Yasmin Rahul Bakshi is an accomplished senior consultant Chef and a food historian. A widely travelled Army wife from the Mussoorie hills with exposure to international cuisines & preserving recipes with the medium of food photography and digital content creation in the form of stories.)
