Ode to the Rogan Josh

Rogan Josh is to Indian cuisine, what Fish and Chips is to Britain, or a Pizza is to the Naples. An embodiment of sorts. However, the popularity of any dish is often the beginning of the end. An end of what made the dish so great in the first place. You'll know what I am talking about if you've eaten a portion of Fish and Chips at a Turkish joint, at some unearthly hour, in the UK. Frozen fries, not chips, and soggy batter don't do the institution any justice. Same with the Pizza. Any Nepolitano would cringe at the thought of anything on a Pizza other than Plum Tomato sauce, some Mozzarella and Basil. The Rogan Josh is no different.

You can find a Rogan Josh on most meat serving restaurants' menus - if not all. And any meat dish on that menu, with a brown gravy, can pass off as a Rogan Josh. A dish that has been around for as long as Indian Cuisine itself has fallen victim to, not time, but it's popularity. The problem lies in what people have come to expect from a Rogan Josh - a basic mutton curry with a brown gravy. Just as people have come to expect a bread base with a tomato sauce, cheese and whatever else you want on it as a Pizza. Bloody ruined! Gone to the dogs.

Rogan Josh, in the UK - and I mention this here because I may have heard this dish mentioned more times in my 5 years spent there than I have in all the years spent India - has fallen prey to the 'scale of blokiness' that ranges from the 'pussy' Korma to the hairy chested 'Vindaloo'. A very clever marketing tool used by 'Indo-British' restaurants, no doubt, but not very good for the traditional, timeless, Indian curry.

I cooked what I think was pretty close to the authentic recipe a few years ago. It was by a women called Mrs. Balbir Singh, a heavy weight of India cooking in the 1960s and 70s. I can't find the recipe now and the book has become a collectors' item since it went out of print. But yours truly has managed to procure a second hand one from the UK - with a little help of course. The other recipe that I think is pretty authentic is in a cookbook called "Cooking Delights of the Maharajas" by Digvijaya Singh, The Maharaja of Sailana. This book I have. My bible of sorts. Will be pitting Mrs. Singh against Mr. Singh once the book is received from London.

Until then a little lesson in food history. The Rogan Josh was brought to India by Timur in the 1400s. Timur, a high-roller in his times, rolled with his expert cooks on his conquests - the Wazas. The Wazas were the Gods of the kitchen. Wazwan cuisine would make any opulent meal of today seem like a take-away. There were more than 30 courses back in the day. But just as the recipes have changed, so has the theatre of it all. The Kashmiri Pandits make their version strictly without onions and garlic and use asafoetida and fennel instead. I buy into the idea of there being no onion in a proper Rogan Jogh. Both Mr. and Mrs. Singh agree. Wikipedia has some interesting theories on where the name comes from, but I wouldn't take their word for it, especially because they list blogs (very much like the one you are reading) as sources. Fools.

Anyway in my attempt to uncover more about the Rogan Josh, I have come across numerous recipes. Some interesting, others not so interesting. But one thing is for certain - it would be a tall order for anyone to make the claim that they have the original recipe. However, Wazwan cuisine is not just about the food. It's about the processes which lead to the food being prepared, and consumed for that matter. So I can tell you with a certain confidence that the brown stuff you get in most restaurants in not a Rogan Josh.

Watch this space for a recipe that probably is.