Mother-daughter duo to promote Pachkalshi cuisine in Alibaug

The Pachkalshi thaali

In a kitchen set up on her ancestral property in Alibaug, Naina Goregaonkar is busy instructing her four-member staff: "Extract milk from freshly grated coconut, soak a mound of tamarind and stuff pomfret with coconut-onion filling and coriander chutney to make puranachi paaplet".

Her daughter Dhani, 20, is cooking ananasachi aamti - a tangy-spicy curry with chunks of pineapple. It's part of the wedding feasts in her community, the Somvanshi Kshatriya Pathare (SKP), considered to be one of the original inhabitants of Mumbai.

Naina Goregaonkar and her daughter Dhani hope to promote their community's cuisine with fortnightly pop-ups at their ancestral home in Alibaug. Pics/Bipin Kokate

Naina tackles a variety of flatbread called khoi chapati. "If my grandmother-in-law were here, she'd be shocked to see that I'm revealing these recipes. We've safeguarded some of them from our cooks too," she says, while wrapping a palm-sized ball of steamed rice flour dough with an equal amount of wheat flour dough. She rolls out the layered flatbread, slaps it on the tawa and cooks till it's crisp and flaky.

Starting March 10, these dishes will feature in fortnightly lunch pop-ups of The Paisley Kitchen, a two-month-old delivery service that the mother-daughter duo launched in Alibaug to highlight their community's cuisine. With a menu of around 10 items, they will be priced at R1,500. "We don't eat such elaborate meals on a daily basis, nor have they been documented. We wanted to share them with others before they disappear completely," says Dhani, a student at the Institute of Hotel Management in Dadar.

The SKPs, also referred to as Pachkalshis, share links of history and cuisine with the Pathare Prabhus. "But our use of spices and cooking techniques differ," says Naina, 45. The distinguishing star is the SKP or pachkalshi masala - a crimson, aromatic spice mix that includes red chillies, coriander seeds, cinnamon, mustard seeds and lentils like urad dal (split black gram) and chana dal (split chickpea). It's used to infuse flavour in most dishes. Just a pinch brings out the delicate flavours of kolambi bhaat or prawn pulao. An entire spoonful goes into the pungent paaplet che kalwan or pomfret curry.

Cooking techniques include deftly stirring the pomfret curry without using a ladle and being nimble-fingered to make nital or chincheche saar, an uncooked sweet-and-sour concoction of tamarind pulp, jaggery and spices.

The traditional techniques and recipes, including that of the spice mix, have been passed down to Naina (hailing from a Rajput family) from her in-laws. The lineage of the Goregaonkar family goes back to Harishchandra Goregaonkar, a civil contractor to the British who shifted base from Goregaon to Gamdevi in the 1820s. The Goregaonkars also owned Sea View in Juhu, an unpretentious beach-view restaurant with its fair share of loyalists.

Around 52 years ago, a wedlock between a member of the Goregaonkar and the illustrious Mhatre family (also SKPs) - that owns Shivaji Park's Prabhat Poultry, one of the oldest cold storage shops in Mumbai - resulted in them becoming partners in the business. It also gave Naina access to Mhatre family's recipes and their property in Alibaug.

It's from here that NK Mhatre started the poultry business in 1963. The site of the pop-up was once used to breed chickens. It's now refurbished with lamp shades upcycled from chicken feeders. The meat, fish and ingredients like kokum, yam and turmeric will be sourced from the processing units, fish breeding pond and vegetable farms that exist on the premises. "NK Mhatre started the business in Alibaug to provide employment to the locals," says Naina. "Our aim is to carry his legacy forward."

WHERE: Mandwa, Alibaug
PRICE: Rs 1,500
CALL: 9821016711/9833013015

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