All that glitters is saffron Saffron may not be an essential ingredient, but its versatility and distinctive flavour make it as precious as gold in the kitchen

All that glitters is saffron

Saffron may not be an essential ingredient, but its versatility and distinctive flavour make it as precious as gold in the kitchen

Few foods have the kind of effect saffron does:Even before the first bite of a saffron-infused preparation, there’s a synchronised assault on your visual and olfactory senses. Seated comfortably at Soma, the Indian restaurant at Mumbai’s Grand Hyatt hotel, as the waiter opens a pot of steaming saffron-infused biryani, a private battle rages in my mind — should I heed the years of conditioning, or give in to my baser instincts and devour the food in front of me? One tentative bite of the golden yellow rice preparation, and my mind is made up. I will savour this meal. Saffron is, after all, as precious as gold. “Saffron, or kesar, is the most expensive of all spices,” says Pushpendru Sen, chef de cuisine at the Grand Hyatt, as he brings in the first course during the saffron festival at Soma. We start with a paneer ka sheekh, murgh zafrani kebab and macchi tukda. Saffron flavouring works well with the milder paneer and chicken, lending them a rich yellow colour and a distinctive sweet flavour. The taste of fish, on the other hand, overpowers the saffron. “To be able to bring out the saffron, the fish is marinated thrice. It is first washed with saffron, then marinated with it, and finally, before the fish is put into the tandoor, it has to be brushed with saffron again,” says Sen. That’s a rich meal if you ever had one. In India, saffron grows only in Kashmir, and therefore sells at a very high price. It is allegedly a more lucrative commodity for smugglers than gold because it is more difficult to detect. Only a few cultures have adopted saffron into their cuisines. North-Indian, Iranian and Spanish cooking involves the use of saffron. Incidentally, these are also the largest saffron producing countries in the world. The menu — dishes from the northwestern frontier — has been chosen to highlight the versatility and unique flavour of saffron. Sen says he learnt to cook most of the dishes during his stint as a chef at a hotel in Kashmir. “Saffron is used in almost every dish in Kashmiri cuisines — in the rich and spicy dishes the Muslims make, as well as vegetarian food of the Hindus,” he says. “It is used more sparingly in the Mughal-inspired Avadhi cuisine, and even the way that saffron is used is different,” he adds. In Kashmiri preparations, the meat is cooked along with saffron. “For example, aab gosht, boneless mutton in an onion gravy, is cooked in saffron water. In Avadhi dishes, on the other hand, saffron is added after the dish is cooked, mostly for the colour it lends the gravy,” says Sen. Besides its colour, Saffron’s distinctive flavour gels well with the flavour of meat. Instead of adding saffron only as a garnish, when it is cooked with mutton, it enhances the flavour of the meat. However, cooking with saffron requires constant monitoring. “It has to be cooked at the right temperature, and for the right amount of time. If overcooked, the saffron won’t give off its flavour. Slow cooking on low heat is the best way to bring out saffron’s flavour,” he adds. The Spanish use saffron in some preparations of paella, but usually only as a garnish. Sen says he is inspired by the way Kashmiris cook food. “Take gustava for instance. The chef personally chooses the goat and watches it get butchered, making sure it’s done right so the muscles don’t go rigid. There’s a kitchen help whose only job is to pound and tenderise the meat for 6-8 hours. This kind of dedication is something I haven’t seen in any kitchen outside of Kashmir. I’d have liked to include gustava in the menu here, but to make sure it tastes authentic, I’d need the right kind of meat cooked at the correct temperature.” Instead, he chose to make aab gosht. There’s a rogan josh on the menu too, but aab gosht requires fewer spices, so the flavour of both the meat and the saffron stand out. “In rogan josh, with all the other spices that go into the recipe, the flavour of saffron is much milder,” says Sen. The aab gosht arrives, along with a handi of chicken biryani. The food is only lightly flavoured, and the natural flavours of the meat stand out. The highlight of the meal is undoubtedly the laban ke kofte, curd croquettes stuffed with figs. The sourness of the curd is offset with the sweet figs, and the ingredients blend well with a saffron-infused gravy. That’s the thing about saffron: It could be a garnish for a dish or it could be the ingredient that holds the other ingredients together. And while it’s not an absolutely necessary ingredient, once you’ve had biryani, or meat, or even fig koftas cooked in saffron, no other version of these preparations will ever taste the same. As a substitute for saffron, cinnamon comes close, and can be used in most dishes, sweet or savoury. We end this rather royal meal with a warm kheer. Saffron has a sort of natural affinity with desserts. It lends the otherwise bland-looking kheer a rich, pale yellow colour, and even just two pieces of the thread-like spice breaks the visual monotony of the dessert. The real clincher, however, is the taste. Just two strips of saffron can instantly transform a dessert, thus changing the way you experience food.