Hello, Chef Numra from Empress Market here. If you’re new to my Substack, this is the place where I reflect on my place in the world as I write about the food I cater on the Empress Market dinner table.
My menus tell a story about who I am. I establish my backstory through my heritage cooking of Pakistani recipes, ruminating on why my nani carried some dishes from Rawalpindi all the way to Stockwell Road, while others were left behind in the place my family once called home. My food goes on to tell tales about what makes me a Londoner and how the city’s diverse flavours have added complexity to my life and my culinary style. And then there are my travels, the ways in which I try to escape the daily hustle of life. They allow me to look at things anew.
Have you dined with me before?
If you've had the pleasure of being a guest at an Empress Market dining table, you'll have heard me tell you plenty of stories. The one point I always return to is how my food has something to say about who I am, each dish revealing a little bit about where I come from and hints on the places I yearn to go to next.
I believe food should do more than just taste good. It should say something about who made it. There should be purpose in how ingredients are selected, the way they are cooked and served on a plate to eager patrons.
Every dish, every menu tells a story.
Today I am telling the story of an Empress Market menu: Baagh Baagh.
Garden Garden
Baagh Baagh hona. To be overwhelmed with joy.
Baagh Baagh is a four-course menu, thought to serve a balmy day well, a meal that champions springtime through the cooking of luminous flavours and colourful ingredients. The dishes I have designed and curated are a joy to look at (if I must say so myself!) and even greater pleasures to eat. Think fresh abundant British produce, the best of the best seasonal ingredients of May, with perky Welsh Lamb taking centre stage.
As the season finally changes from winter to spring, I want to tell you about how I drew the Baagh Baagh menu together.
The perfect Sunshine Starter
Makai ki roti tostada, fresh beet & radish pickle, popped capers, red onion & chilli in brine, sikil pak pepita spread, curry leaf oil, fresh sorrel.
For the first course of the Baagh Baagh menu, I weave nostalgia for my Lahore, the Lahore of my childhood, with vivid memories of eating my way through Mexico City on holiday.
Pairing the two cuisines seems unlikely when you think about the oceans and continents between Lahore and Mexico City. However, I am in awe, even now as I write, of how these two places that are so distant (14,298 km to be exact) have so much in common.
Sometimes, when I travel, I try to get as far away as I can from home to get some perspective (distance, let’s say) on my life. Such was the case when I escaped to Mexico in January 2023. The year prior had been an intense one in the kitchen and all I dreamt of was tacos, drinking all the Mezcal, floating in the sea and dancing down the streets of Oaxaca. And yes, I did all of that. But I also saw the Landaa Bazaar like bustle of home in the market stalls of La Merced Market, heaving with colourful piñatas and knock off designer clothes. I felt maternal care reminiscent of desi hospitality at the hands of Mexico’s tias, as they rubbed a tigerbalm like ointment on my temples and poured limonada mexicana down my throat after an uncomfortable case of heatstroke. I smelt my childhood in the charred corn on the cobs, elote kernels black and yellow, doused with chilli and lime, the warm husk peeled back and the silks catching in my teeth with each bite.
Chefs Norma and SaqibI of Masala y Maiz and now Netflix Chefs Table fame tell this very tale through their blended family recipes across India, Mexico and East Africa. “The food is a mestizaje- an organic blending of cultures over generations often in response to colonization & displacement. This is the culture in-between that happens when people come together.” I had the pleasure of eating at their restaurant during my trip, and I could taste the earthiness in our shared flavours, captured in toasted cumin and corn, drawing us close.
The starter for the Baagh Baagh menu is an expression of this union. I wanted the world map to fold over through this dish, with twin cities, Lahore and Mexico City, laying on top of one another, to overlap in history, cuisine and culture.
The starter took shape during my last meal in Mexico, at Ana and Carlos’ secret restaurant @esquinacomun. Tostada de betabel con jitomate, Heirloom y quesillo - beets and heirloom tomatoes with Oaxaca cheese on a crisp tostada. This dish lingered in my mind well after I’d eaten it. I was in Lahore and Mexico with every bite.
The crisp tostadas took me back to the methi makai ki roti eaten on winter nights in Lahore. They are traditionally served with Sarson ka Saag (more of this coming in the next course) in Punjab, but I also remember eating the rotis with the iron rich Chukandar ka Saalan. This sweet and earthy beetroot curry was the perfect match with the potent fenugreek and warming cornmeal flatbread.
Ana’s beetroot with crisp tostada shone spring sunshine on the combination. There was the heartiness of a cornmeal flatbread that felt familiar, yes, paired with the fresh pickled beetroot and heritage tomatoes that gave the dish a brightness.
A crisp Punjabi methi makai roti, served in the style of a corn tostada. Toasted pumpkin seed spread, Sikil Paak of Mayan culinary tradition, known as pepita in Mexico and Kaddu ke beej in Urdu. Oil & vinegar emulsify - freshly pickled bright baby beets & radish, popped capers, red onion & chilli brine, curry patta tadka drizzled over. Fresh sorrel leaves sprinkled on top.
The Baagh Baagh menu opens the door to the warmth of home away from home.
A Spring Green Second Course
Spring green sarson ka saag, spiced paneer courgette blossom pakoras, raw courgette ribbons, garlic chilli tadka
My Spring Green Sarson ka Saag is so delicious (how delicious is it!), when people eat it, they can’t stop talking about it. It is so delicious, a guest took leftovers home in a pint sized plastic cup at my Pakistan Day supperclub! The intoxicatingly green saag is sooo delicious, you will catch my husband bragging about how good my saag is to my family - unprompted!
I’ve served my Spring Green Sarson ka Saag at my events countless times, and in the act of repetition, I have perfected my recipe. Spring Greens wilted with fresh spinach in fiery desi spices. This is a classic Punjabi dish, one my Nani Jaan claims to have taught me. Call me arrogant, (call me my grandmother’s granddaughter!) but I refuse to fault my saag. I believe it is so good, I served it without a roti, to stand on its own as the second course on the Baagh Baagh menu. Well, almost.
This is where I entered the realm of the complete unknown. Up until this point, I had never eaten courgette blossom fritters. I’d heard a lot about them and seen plenty of pictures; my ravenous self had to get a taste too. I felt the best way to do this was to cook blossom fritters, or pakoras, on the Baagh Baagh menu.
I see my supperclub dinner table as my test kitchen to try out new ideas and techniques. Some dishes exist only on paper and in my imagination up until the day they are cooked for my guests. My courgette blossom pakoras were no exception to this way of cooking.
I ordered 50 courgette flowers from the Chiswick branch of Natoora two weeks before service. I explained to the sales assistant that I needed a sturdy variety, intended for stuffing and frying. ‘Soleil’ was the variety he recommended, and he was right. I collected the boxes of fresh flowers early in the morning.
I prepared the filling the night before, splitting 4L of whole milk and straining the whey to make a light and fresh paneer, a process that is similar to making fresh ricotta. I blended it with some cream and onion masala, and messily spooned it into a piping bag.
I’d read enough recipes online to know that it was best to pipe in the blossom filling around an hour in advance, to batter and fry seconds before service.
A classic pakora batter can be quite stodgy, which is great when frying thinly sliced onions and potatoes. In the case of my courgette blossoms, I was going more for the lightness of a tempura batter. I played around with a blend of flours, settling on two parts gram flour, and one part each of rice flour and cornflour. I seasoned it with whole coriander and cumin seeds, chilli flakes and salt, bringing the batter together with sparkling water.
I fried the pakoras on a gentle deep frying heat, a balance between cooking the batter through, without burning or damaging the pakoras.
I deliberately prepared an excess amount of flowers, knowing a novice like me would lose some petals along the way. Some would split, others would burn. But it turned out fine, with enough pakoras making it to the dinner table, light and fluffy, with a gentle heat rising in each bite from the crunch of whole spices. The paneer was a classic pairing for the perfect saag, as I knew it would be, along with the garlic chilli crisp tadka, drizzled over to round off the dish.
The Main Course
Lamb Raan, roasted grapes, herb salad, pistachio & pomegranate
Served with jaggery & cumin carrots, smoked almond & carrot top pesto and Afghani naan
Just so you know, I’m not sharing a recipe here. Not that it’s a secret or anything. It’s just that I never wrote it down. I’ve spoken about this before and I think it’s worth repeating.
Cooking is an instinctive process for me, drawing on personal taste and experience in the kitchen (I do it for a living after all). Voice notes from my mum and a couple of google searches come handy along the way. This is how I cook and how I've seen the women in my family cook. Where is the fun in following numbers and strict quantities written on paper? Paper that gets wet, stained, easy to throw away. This doesn't work for everyone, so I have typed some notes for you, which may be written down as a proper recipe on a proper piece of paper one day.
Lamb is the hearty sort of meat that can allow for excessive freepouring of big flavours.
The whole leg of lamb is scoured and stuffed with whole garam masala spices - black cardamom, peppercorn, cloves, cumin seeds, cinnamon, mace. Slices of red onions and oranges are wedged under and around the leg, with a generous drizzle of pomegranate molasses, a full carton of pomegranate juice, and a good glug of olive oil. Season with salt from a height, evenly across the whole lamb, both sides. It’s best to marinade the leg overnight. Bring it to room temperature, taking it out the fridge half hour before it’s ready to roast. The lamb is covered with foil and cooked at a high temperature, around 200℃ for 3ish hours; you can lift the foil and give the leg a flip half way if you like. By this point, the meat is so tender it will fall off the bone. Remove the foil and sprinkle over red grapes, halved and sprinkled with sea salt. Roast for another thirty minutes until the grapes caramelise and get all gooey.
The hearty lamb in the rich pomegranate marinade pairs nicely with a herby salad of dill, mint parsley and coriander with fresh lemon squeezed over, followed by handfuls of toasted pistachios and pomegranate seeds.
Serving carrots with the lamb is not groundbreaking, I know, but as you may have realised by now, if I’m cooking anything I’ll be sure to make it my own.
Dress baby heritage carrots with jaggery and cumin, a sprinkle of salt, and roast them until the thready ends crisp and caramelise. The carrot tops make a fresh, almost grassy, pesto with smoked almonds, all a wonderful balance against the sweet sweet carrots. Lay the carrots over fluffy Afghan naan, fare la scarpetta for the leftover pesto and lamb juices.
The next day, I made sandwiches with the leftover lamb. Glorious.
Something sweet and sentimental to finish
Kewra panna cotta, rose petal pink pepper, gulkhand rose jam, fennel rainbow pearls, betel leaf
The Baagh Baagh dessert is in memory of my Dadi Jaan, my dad’s late mother, a sentimental dish that celebrates my Dadi Jaan’s love for bitter paan and all things sweet.
The lady loved her desserts. My Dadi Jaan could eat a whole laddu in one sitting, her home cooked kheer was always too sweet for my liking and if there was barfi in the home, you could trust Dadi Jaan had eaten them all. I’ve cooked enough of her favourite desserts now to believe her overwhelming love for all things sweet balanced well with the bitter paans she enjoyed after a good meal.
I remember my Dadi Jaan as she sat in the middle of her bed with her legs folded under, with her trusty paan daan, a stainless steel case that never left her side. After lunch, she’d open the paan daan, the metal clanking as lifted the lid to prepare her meal snack. She would take a paan ka patha (betel leaf) and smear it with chuna (slaked lime; calcium hydroxide) and laal katha (catechu, a paste made from the extract of acacia trees) that gives paan its distinct red stain. Next, she’d sprinkle chopped chaalia (betel nut) and fold the edges of the leaf in to hold the woody chards of the nut. Dadi Jaan would stow the little parcel away in the pocket of her cheek, chewing on it slowly to release the soothing, sedative qualities. When I was younger I couldn’t understand why my Dadi loved her paan daan & its contents so much. I was unaware of the leaf’s soothing quality. The bitter taste was unlike the sweetened paan sold at night outside restaurants & at special occasions.
Later in the afternoon, when everyone would settle down for a nap, the paan daan would come out again and Dadi Jaan would begin cutting the round chaalia with her chaalia cutter. Sometimes I would assist her and she’d guide my hand to cut the smallest chunks without catching my fingers.
It was then that she revealed the secret compartment to me. She would show me old family photographs, her gold jewellery & count through her wad of money wrapped with an elastic band. Lined with a neatly folded carrier bag, this is where she would stow away her most precious belongings. Amongst the bitter paan, there was sweetness in these memories.
On one of my trips to Pakistan, I found my Daadi Jaan’s paan daan. At the time she was too senile to crave her post-lunch snack and the case sat unused amongst her belongings. The compartments were empty but stained from the pastes. And in the secret compartment, still lined with plastic, I found a small metal camel. Was this her good luck charm or totem? I wondered why she had not shown it to me before.
I inherited the paan daan when my Dadi Jaan passed away a few years ago and decided to display it at my supper club, alongside the Baagh Baagh menu. It felt important. Each compartment holds memories and if you lift the lid, and open the compartments, you will find the camel resting in the secret compartment.
It was in her honour that I wanted to recreate the contrast of sweet and bitter, crunch and creaminess that is so unique to the way desi people enjoy finishing a meal.
I wonder what she would think of the work that I do. I wonder if my Dadi Jaan would like this dessert, this menu, and relish in the flavours of her love that I have tried to capture. Would she tell me off for tampering with her classic desi recipes and cooking food that wasn’t our own. Or would her eyes sparkle like they always did when she enjoyed a good meal, with each bite of the paan panna cotta I had prepared in her honour, a dessert that has more to say about her than me. I suppose my food is not just one story that belongs to me. It shines far and wide, all the way to Mexico City, in my childhood memories of Lahore and phone calls with my mum freeballing a dish without a recipe. Baagh Baagh intends to overwhelm your heart with joy like a kaleidoscope of a spring that has finally arrived.
Enjoy the sunshine,
Numra xx
event photos by @NoorTakesPics
editing by @MargauxVialleron
Beautifully written as usual, with lots of useful info. Loved reading it. Xxx
Beautiful writing!