Tanvi Singh Bhatia’s Sultanpuri Bhuna Murg from the Riyasat of Deara

 At Goya, celebrating home cooks and recipes have always been at the heart of our work. Through our series, #1000Kitchens, we document recipes from kitchens across the country, building a living library of heirloom recipes that have been in the family for 3 generations or more. In this edition, Anubhuti Krishna talks to Tanvi Singh Bhatia about a mutton dish from the royal family of Deara state, slow-cooked with onions and Mathania chilli.

This season’s stories are produced in partnership with the Samagata Foundation—a non-profit that champions meaningful projects.

“I love to cook for people and fuss over every little detail when I host friends at home,” Tanvi Singh Bhatia tells us as she sets up her kitchen. It is a cold December day, but her home, which opens up to a large banyan tree, is filled with the warmth of her hospitality.

A brand advisor by profession, Bhatia is known for her cultural curations and hosts beautiful and intimate musical baithaks across India under her IP, Ibtida-ek Mehfil. Music, like food, is a passion she inherited from her family, especially her mother who is trained in Hindustani classical. “I cannot sing but I knew I had to do something with music. I decided to revive the dying culture of musical baithaks in our cities,” she explains. Food, incidentally, is always an integral part of these gatherings and Tanvi handpicks every dish.

Tanvi's home is a reflection of her love for everything Indian, including art and crafts. A large art piece, with a series of traditional Indian windows and jharokhas embroidered in golden zari, dominates the main wall of the living room. Smaller pieces — a large portrait, a set of water colour paintings — adorn other walls. Rustic earthen pots, custom-made dining table, urlis filled with rose petals and glistening brass vessels set up for the lunch, all tell tales of her fondness for everything Indian. I am seated on a pista-green couch that matches the art in the background.

Tanvi's kitchen has an assortment of cookware, serve ware, spices and ingredients. Brought from across the world, they seem right at home in the kitchen. Tanvi moves about her kitchen with the ease of a seasoned cook. “Even though I do not cook daily, I do it when I host at home,” she tells us while squeezing up the large soaked red chillies. “My nani belonged to the royal family of Deara state [in Sultanpur district of Uttar Pradesh]. My mother spent her holidays in the aura of the riyasat (princely state) of Deara, a village in the quiet surroundings with orchards, farms, the family temple and the palace. She imbibed the culture, which she passed on to me.”

There is a glint in her eyes and a broad smile on her face as shares memories from her childhood.

Tanvi grew up in Hyderabad, studied in Pune and lives in Delhi, but always found herself gravitating towards the flavours of eastern Uttar Pradesh. It isn’t surprising then that she has chosen to cook a recipe from the state — something she grew up eating in the home of her grandmother and then her mother. “I have beautiful memories of eating this Sultanpuri Bhuna Murg. It was something my nani made every week when we visited her in the summer. Sitting together with my cousins, licking the plates clean, and fighting for the masala left at the bottom of the pressure cooker added so much more swaad to the whole experience,” she says.

“My mother comes from a Rajput family in Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh and the state’s nuanced and subtle food was a big part of my childhood,” she says. Contrary to popular belief, the state has a large population of Rajputs who have their own micro cuisine that marries both local and native flavours. This, she explains, includes an array of meat-based dishes (including game, back in the day) and the simplest of vegetarian fare.

The recipe originally called for mutton. Over the years, as the the recipe evolved and changed hands, chicken became the meat of choice. “It is quicker to cook and healthier than mutton so we often made this version at home in Delhi. Mutton took several hours to cook and once you ate that you could not move for the rest of the day!”

Like many home recipes, this one is made with simple ingredients, the most important of which is time. “One thing I learned early on was that you cannot rush a good bhuna murg. It has to cook very slowly in its own juices. It is non-negotiable.” Tanvi is a natural in the kitchen, adding mustard oil to the pressure cooker while simultaneously posing for pictures. Mustard oil, also a staple of Uttar Pradeshi cooking, is allowed to smoke before adding roughly sliced onions, hand pounded garlic, and several whole red chillies. “Over the years, as I have reconnected to my Rajput roots, I have started using Mathania chilli in this recipe as it lends a beautiful smoky aroma and lovely colour. My mother still uses the regular whole chillies in her version,” she explains.

She sautés the onions and chillies before adding the meat and salt and leaving it to cook in its own juices. “The trick is in the large flat vessel, it allows each piece to get nice and brown outside, and succulent inside.” The aroma of browning onions mixed with the golden garlic and slow-roasting chicken wafts through her house. It is about forty minutes later that we finally get to sample the dish.

The dish is best eaten with just steamed rice but Bhatia has laid out a buffet: stir-fried lady finger, arhar ki daal tempered with garlic and chilli, freshly cut salad, soft petite rotis and steaming hot rice. The bhuna murg is definitely the star — the sweetness of caramelised onions, the slight heat of the chillies and the depth of flavour imparted from the slow cooking comes through in each bite. As a fellow UP girl, the simplicity and the flavours of the meal takes me back to flavours of my own homeland.  

RECIPE FOR SULTANPURI BHUNA MURG

Ingredients

1 kilo chicken, medium sized pieces on the bone
800 g onions, thickly sliced
8-10 pods of garlic, nicely pounded in a mortar
4-5 tablespoons raw mustard oil
7-8 whole red chillies, can be of any variety
Salt, to taste

Method

Add the mustard oil in a wide, heavy bottom pan or a wide pressure cooker and let it smoke.
Once smoked, add the onions, sauté for about 2-3 minutes on medium flame.
 Note: you can soak the chillies in warm water for 15 minutes if you want to reduce their heat and enhance colour. Add the chillies next and stir for another five minutes until the onion turn translucent and chilies are fried.
Now add the chicken, stir well.
Stir slowly until its coated well with oil, take care to not break the pieces of meat.
Add salt and mix once.
Reduce the flame and leave it to cook in its own juices - do not cover it.
Keep stirring it every 5-7 minutes to ensure the meat does not stick to the bottom or burn, you can flip each piece individually.
The meat will cook through in about 40 minutes on medium flame — you can check by inserting a fork or a skewer.
Once done, turn the flame off, serve hot with steamed rice.

Words by Anubhuti Krishna. Images by Sanskriti Bist. Artwork by Mithra Kamalam.
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