Nimona, A Winter Stew That Celebrates Green Peas

Nimona is a winter stew native to the Gangetic plains of India, featuring bright winter peas as the star of the dish. In its many variations, nimona represents the best of winter cooking: hearty, nourishing, and made with fresh produce.

Winter, despite being the season of dense smog, fog, frost, and bone-chilling winds, also brings with it delicious winter produce, and several beloved hearty dishes of the season.

The fertile Gangetic plains bestow upon us the freshest produce from November to February, and people, parched by the region’s deadly summer, make the most of the short season. Kitchens throughout the pains of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar & Madhya Pradesh get busy turning produce into robust, flavourful dishes. Bright red carrots become luscious gajar halwa, fat cauliflowers are stuffed into parathas, newly harvested potatoes go into tomato broths, and fresh peas are liberally dunked into everything.

Like everywhere else in the north, winter was a special time in our family home in the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh. While our large courtyard turned into a sunbathing haven, the kitchen, under the watchful eye of my grandmother, became the most important spot in the house. Throughout winter, the Srivastava family could be seen hovering around the stoves—there were two—loading their plates with hot puris, steaming tehri, aromatic gajar halwa, or fragrant chunki-matar. And then there was matar ka nimona — an iconic winter dish and my grandmother’s speciality.

As a child, I was almost certain that nimona was the alchemy of my grandmother’s hands: how could anyone turn a cup of peas into this most delectable curry, which ultimately didn’t even resemble peas? As I grew up, I understood that it was the shared culinary heritage of our land. Every family made this rich, robust, flavourful dish through winter, but no one thought it special enough to discuss in drawing rooms or at winter lunch parties. Or maybe I was too busy eating to listen.

Made across kitchens of the Hindi heartland, nimona is believed to have originated in Uttar Pradesh. It is from here that it spread to other parts of the plains. Its preparation includes thoroughly frying ground peas with spices, and simmering them until the rogan (oil) rises to the top. The result is a thick dal-like dish, with spicy wadis and soft, new potatoes nestled within.

In India we have a knack of adding a distinctive touch to everything we cook. The same recipe, when made in different homes, can, and most often does, taste different. With the same raw ingredients, nimona in every household and community is different. In some parts, it is made as a rich, spicy and robust stew; in others it is devoid of all heat. Some communities add tomato; some feel adding tomato to nimona is nothing short of sacrilege. Textures vary too—in central and western Uttar Pradesh, it is smooth and thick; in eastern parts, it is chunky, with some of the peas left in whole.

“My mother always made nimona with onion-garlic-ginger masala,” recalls Ruchi Shrivastava, food writer and producer, who has fond memories of the dish. Within her family, says Ruchi, nimoma is made in many way, depending on which part of the Hindi belt the person making it is from. “It is determined entirely by the community,” she explains. “My mother belonged to the UP Kayastha community, so her nimona was made with the onion-ginger-garlic masala. My mother-in-law is from the Khatri community, and makes it differently.” Khatris traditionally do not consume onion or garlic, so their nimona is often made without, although it sometimes includes tomatoes.”

This could possibly be the same reason the Benarasi recipe for nimona, which is often broadcasted on cooking shows, uses only ghee, cumin, and asafoetida. The city has a huge population of non onion-garlic eating community and so the satvik ‘hing-jeera’ tadka is ubiquitous in most homes.  Asafoetida replicates the umami of onion and garlic, ghee adds an additional layer of fragrance and flavour, and even without masala, this nimona is as delicious and flavourful as any other.

Ghee, in fact, remains constant throughout the sub-sets of nimona across Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and parts of Bihar. If some communities begin the recipe with ghee, others (who make it in mustard oil) end the cooking process with it. The fat not only helps absorb nutrients better, but also balances the garam masala and the vata-genic properties of peas.

Matar ka nimona might be the most popular version, but nimona is not made with only peas. In early spring, when green gram is freshly harvested and abundantly available, many families also make chane ka nimona. “The nimona made with green gram is very different in both taste and flavour. It is smoky, with almost a mock-meat feel and texture,” says UP inhabitant and prominent writer Avantika Bhuyan. Avantika grew up eating both the versions, and cooks both with lots of wadis in her own kitchen

“Nimona can refer to a preparation of any kind of legume cooked with masala,” Sangeeta Khanna, food writer and nutrition consultant, who makes a version with masoor dal and winter vegetables tells me, when we discuss the dish one winter evening. The idea of creating nimona, Sangeeta says, was to make something that kept the body warm in the biting cold of the Northern Plains. The legumes, masala and wadis together do a good job of it.

Which brings us to the wadis — much like ghee, urad dal wadi and cubed new potato are a constant in most versions of nimona. The dal and masalas of the wadi elevate the taste and texture of the dish; fragrant new potatoes add a bite.

Making nimona is a rite to passage for a girl from the Gangetic lands. It is not as simple as dal or sabzi, and needs, more than the recipe, a certain amount of experience — you need to know exactly how coarse or smooth the peas should be ground, how much the masala ought to be browned; you need to know when to add the potatoes, and when to dunk the wadis (too early, and it will be mushy; too late and it will remain uncooked). And finally, you have to know how long to simmer it, for that beautiful rogan to surface.

While all versions of the nimona come with their own history, one is often biased towards the version they grew up eating. My personal favourite therefore, will always be my grandmother’s. Made with onion-garlic masala, sautéed for hours in mustard oil, mixed with chunks of fried potatoes and wadis, and cooked until the rogan separates, it is best eaten with thick rotis and steaming basmati rice.

While I cannot say my nimona is as good as my grandmother’s, I can say that I make it rather well.  This is my recipe for nimona,

Recipe: Matar ka Nimona  

Ingredients
½ kilo shelled peas
2 large onions
3-4 garlic cloves
1-inch piece of ginger
2 green chillies
1 large potato, cubed
2-3 medium-sized urad dal wadi
¼ teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1½ teaspoon coriander powder
½ teaspoon garam masala powder
1 tbsp ghee
¼ cup mustard oil
Salt to taste

Method

Coarsely grind the freshly-peeled green peas and green chilies in a mixer or a grinding stone. Keep aside. Next, grind the onions, ginger and garlic without adding any water.
Fry the wadis and cubed potatoes one after the other and keep aside.
In a large kadai, add the mustard oil and let it heat up. Reduce the flame and add the onions-ginger-garlic paste.
Stir the masala for a few minutes until it separates from the sides of the pan.
One by one, add the turmeric, coriander, and chilli powder and a few teaspoons of water to ensure that the powders don’t burn. Stir and let it cook for 5-7 minutes or until the oil separates. Add salt and stir again.
Next, add the ground peas and mix well to combine the mixture with masala. On a medium flame, continue to cook the mixture while stirring regularly for about 8-10 minutes, adding a dash of water if required to prevent the mixture from burning.
Once the masala is fully cooked, add more water to adjust consistency of the stew, and let it simmer for 15 minutes on low flame. Gently drop in the potatoes and wadis into the nimona. Simmer again for 15-20 minutes or until the oil floats to the top. Cover and let it rest for 10 minutes.
Finish with ghee and garam masala.
Serve with hot rotis or steaming rice.

Anubhuti Krishna is a writer based in New Delhi. Passionate about travelling and eating, she finds ways to combine the two. Her work has been featured in major dailies and monthlies. She hopes someday it will find home in a book.

Banner image credit: Sinfully Spicy

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