Sindhi Cuisine

SINDHI CUISINE : SWEET, SAVORY & SPICY AFFAIR

THE GASTONOMICAL HERITAGE

Food Secrets and Culinary Wonders of Sindhi Cuisine...

Food often defines the character of a community, which is especially true when it comes to niche culinary traditions such as the delectable Sindhi cuisine. Sindhi cuisine is excellent in taste, tich in flavour, and infused with choicest aromatic spices.  The food is wholesome; a pleasure to the taste buds, good on health, and is scrumptiously heavenly.  Sindhi food has a variety of delicacies, and its elaborate spread is a great culinary experience.

For the people of Sindh, a community uprooted and dispersed by Partition, cooking provides a vital connection to their homeland.  Their kitchens, with their distinct recipes and ingredients, helped identify and anchor them in the places they adopted as their new homes.
What adds to the distinct flavours of the Sindhi cuisine are three things: slow cooking, layering of garam masala, and a penchant for combining sweet and savory flavours.  A love for amchoor (dry mango powder) and basar (onions that have been sautéed white instead of brown) are some other features of this rustic and robust cuisine.

Unsurprisingly, in recent years, Sindhi food has been subtly making its way up the regional food charts.
As quoted by the chef, Vicky Ratnani, frugality lies at the heart of modern Sindhi food.  He points out that Sindhis were a displaced community with many moving away from their home in Sindh in modern Pakistan to India and countries across the world.  Having to rebuild their lives from scratch led to them valuing and treasuring what was available to them in their new hometown.
An example of this, Chef Vicky points out, is the lotus plant. Sindhis use every part of the plant – the flower, the stem, the bud, pods and even the seeds within them – in various dishes.  Not just this, Sindhis use an abundance of vegetables in their food ranging from ridge-gourd to root vegetables such as carrot.

A signature Sindhi breakfast packed with flavours, dal pakwan is a culinary couple made in heaven. It`s lightly spiced yellow lentils served with deliciously crips and thick deep-fried flatbread.  A perfect bite of dal pakwan also included a topping of finely chopped onions and fiery chill-coriander chutney.

Dal Pakwan is the most famous Sindhi food. Dal Pakwan to Sindhis is what Tandoori Chicken is to Punjabis, Machher Jhol to Bengalis and Dhansak to Parsis.