Battle with the Mother

The partner has spent some time in Arab land and I am a sucker for anything that promises subtle flavors and a lot of meat ;)

We had some chick peas soaked and that gave us the idea that perhaps rather than having a Punjabi chole yet again we could try making a sort of Lebanese dinner with labneh, hummus and some bread and meat.

A simple meal we thought and yet that’s when the adventure began.

We thought we could get some marinated malai tikka and grill it at home. Past experience had taught us that of all the ready made stuff available in the neighborhood shops, malai tikka or afghani chicken were the only ones which went well with the subtle tastes of hummus and labneh.

A visit to the nearest meat shop brought a nasty surprise. The predominantly vegetarian neighborhood was fasting for the Mother Goddess and therefore the meat shop was closed. Whether in fear of the wrath of the goddess or her worshippers being anybody’s guess.

We moved off a little further in search of the elusive meat. Now normally we are not such carnivores that we can’t live on greens at all. However once the thought of chicken permeates the senses it’s very difficult to go back to kaddu and lauki for company.

We thought a sure shot place for finding chicken would be the famous Chawla’s chicken about 3 kms from our place. Those who have lived in the north of the country would know about the institution called Chawlas. They started from Ludhiana and have now spread across the northern plains taking with them the taste of Punjabi chicken (very distinct from the mughal inspired recipes) and their trademark cream chicken.

The Chawla too had succumbed to the Mother. Not to mention all the other wannabes who had opened shop around it in an attempt to take away some of the excess numbers that were always found crowding the chawlas shop front.

By now hunger and disappointment were taking their toll on us and we decided to turn homewards. A few meters down the road a small shop caught our eye – kallu Meat shop, could he? Would he? We debated.

Then got down to check having decided that we wouldn’t let disappointment affect us too much.

And eureka the guy actually had a few chicken seekhs and some chicken shammis left…which we pounced on promptly. Having seen the drought we were ready to take anything the delicate matter of taste and what went best having long been forgotten.

We couldn’t resist asking how he had dared to keep his shop open when all others were closed. He sheepishly mentioned he was Muslim so religion didn’t dictate and he opened the shop partially only in the late evenings for carnivores like us who needed to eat meat overlooking the mother’s wrath.

We told him that serving mankind was the biggest religion and he was a faithful second to none.

We triumphantly returned home.....made the hummus, brought out the labneh, shallow fried the shammis and got some hot naans from the neighborhood dhaba (you guessed it - they serve only veg food) and had a bowl full of olives and salad for company.

Then we ate dinner grinning from ear to ear :)

Jai Ma!!!

(Pictures courtesy Google)