Today, Bon Appétit joins chef Meherwan Irani in Mumbai at Hotel Theresa to try the city’s most famous biryani. Hotel Theresa has been serving biryani to the locals for fifteen years, growing from a small lunch service next to a tea stall to a full-blown street food operation, now able to serve 300 people from one pot.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Oh my God.
00:05We're in Bombay, one of the greatest food cities on the planet.
00:07One of the most densely populated places.
00:10And here, we're in Dharavi, where there's more than 1 million people per square mile.
00:14Hotel Teresa, where the chef here is going to feed 300 people in 2 hours, making 80 pounds
00:20of biryani in that big pot over there.
00:22Alright, this is the ceremonial lighting of the fire.
00:26This is sesame oil?
00:27Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28Oh, this is fantastic.
00:30I've never seen it done with sesame oil before.
00:31Pure cow's milk ghee, in addition to the sesame oil.
00:34The sesame oil is going to give a beautiful nuttiness to the biryani.
00:37And there's the masala.
00:38You've got cinnamon, really classic.
00:40You've got your bay leaves, really classic.
00:43This is rock lichen.
00:44Dagar phool.
00:45Dagar phool.
00:46Dagar phool.
00:47That's amazing.
00:48Dagar phool means stone flower.
00:49Literally, you scrape off rocks.
00:50And the reason the spices are whole is because it's going to flavor the oil.
00:53And the oil is going to transport that flavor into the rice, into the biryani.
00:57He's tempering the spices in the oil, not using powders, but whole spices,
01:01so that the oil is flavored with the aromatics.
01:04I mean, it's a really brilliant technique.
01:06There can be a dry masala and a wet masala.
01:08A dry masala is a collection of spices that are powdered, usually.
01:12And then a wet masala is when those spices are cooked with onions, ginger, garlic, tomatoes,
01:17and lots of oil.
01:18Five gallons of onions, green chilies.
01:21He's not going to stop stirring for about 45 minutes.
01:24You don't want the onions to burn.
01:26The idea is to reduce the onions, get rid of all the water.
01:29The flavor of a biryani is the frying of the onions.
01:32Most people seem to think that it's the meat and the masala,
01:35but it's really those caramelized onions that are sweet,
01:38flecked throughout the biryani that's going to give the flavor.
01:40Don't skimp on the onions.
01:42It's 9.30 in the morning right now.
01:44He'll probably start serving around 11.
01:46As you can see, we're on the street,
01:48which is the only place that makes sense to cook something at this volume.
01:51There's no kitchen that can handle something this size.
01:54And it's also an advertisement for everybody going by.
01:57I would never walk into a restaurant like this
01:59if I didn't see what they were cooking up front.
02:01If they were cooking in the back, they would sketch me the f*** out.
02:04But cooking in the front, I get to see,
02:06oh yeah, that looks good, we're going in.
02:08The chef moved here from Tamil Nadu 15 years ago.
02:11When he first started, he had a tiny little tea stall,
02:14and he started doing a little lunch service on a bench next to his tea stall.
02:18Let me show you.
02:19And you can see the color.
02:20Now you've got that browning, that caramelization.
02:22It's going to continue cooking,
02:24but he's ready now to put the ginger garlic paste in.
02:26And this is the art where both of these are going to cook together
02:29where it gets to the final product.
02:33This is an alchemy to ginger garlic paste that is quite unique.
02:38If it doesn't get on your clothes,
02:40garlic by itself burns,
02:42ginger by itself gets really fibrous.
02:44When we mix them both together in a 50-50 paste,
02:46just grind ginger and garlic together and add it,
02:49it creates this incredible caramelized fond without burning.
02:53You can see the hot spot on the pot is in the middle.
02:55And what chef is doing right now is constantly bringing the paste over the hot spot,
03:00cooking it, and then taking it to the side.
03:02Given the size of the pot,
03:03he knows you can't get an equal amount of heat on the bottom.
03:06You cannot shortcut this process.
03:08The longer you cook it, the more flavor you're building.
03:11That's about two gallons of mint,
03:14so they get this beautiful aromatic from the mint,
03:16and cilantro, copious amounts of cilantro.
03:19The flavor of cilantro is actually in the stem,
03:22and it doesn't look cool in a salad,
03:24but when you're putting it into a great curry like this,
03:26you want to make sure you've got the stem in it.
03:27There's intense flavor in the stem.
03:29So roughly two kilos, about four and a half pounds of yogurt went in.
03:32It essentially provides a base for the rest of the onions to continue cooking without drying out.
03:36It adds acidity to the dish.
03:38Crushed tomatoes, whole tomatoes, tomato,
03:41the single most important ingredient that was brought to India by colonialism,
03:45and it's become an essential part of Indian cuisine.
03:47So this is what they call rock salt.
03:49It's not refined. It's not the fine table salt.
03:51And there's no measuring spoon here.
03:53I mean, there's no measuring cup.
03:55The guy just knows exactly.
03:56He's been doing this for 15 years.
03:58He knows exactly how much salt goes in here.
04:06This is really cool.
04:07He's keeping track of the colors.
04:08This is a five-color biryani,
04:10and that's part of his cooking.
04:12So there's a visual element to this
04:14that is also hugely important to the way this dish is constructed.
04:17It's all about layers.
04:18There it is, the fifth color.
04:20This biryani masala is his.
04:21He calls it a Tamil Nadu biryani masala,
04:23and the basic ingredients are red chili powder,
04:26as you can see from the color,
04:27cumin powder, jeera, roasted first,
04:29turmeric, he's got fennel seed powder,
04:31and I guarantee you he's holding back two or three items from that masala from us
04:36because he's not going to give all the secrets away.
04:38The chicken.
04:39This dish is traditionally made with either chicken or with goat meat.
04:42The chicken's been very lightly marinated in red chili powder and turmeric,
04:47both adding flavor to the chicken.
05:08This may sound a little strange to the American mind,
05:10but when you're cooking on the street,
05:11it's really important to make sure everybody here comes back to eat another day.
05:15My mouth is watering, his mouth is watering,
05:17because we're about to put lemon juice, fresh squeezed into this.
05:20He was careful to not put it too early because he doesn't want to,
05:23we call it frittata, tear, tear the masala.
05:25Essentially, the yogurt might curdle,
05:27so he's going to put that in, and that's going to take that acidity,
05:29the acid level of the dish, to the next level.
05:33So Chef Sabri has put about four gallons, maybe five gallons, of hot water.
05:38It's really important to put hot water in here
05:40so that you don't slow down the cooking process,
05:42you don't retard the cooking process.
05:44This is the water in which the rice is going to steam and cook
05:47and fluff up and turn into the biryani.
05:50Basmati rice, beautiful long grain rice.
05:52It's been soaked for probably an hour, hour and a half, it's been soaked.
06:09No salt, no lemon juice, just straight soaked rice.
06:18Forty-five pounds of rice.
06:21This particular biryani rice, it's fragrant,
06:23and each grain is separate and gets really long as you cook it,
06:27which is really an essential characteristic of a good biryani.
06:30My mom's side of the family grew rice in Dehradun,
06:33I know my Basmati, I'm excited to see what this is going to look like.
06:36To simplify this, all of that flavor,
06:38everything that's in the water is going to be absorbed into the rice,
06:41and that's what's going to give it its signature flavor.
06:44It is such an incredible evolution of idea, technique, flavor, layering.
06:50I mean, humanity's greatest achievement, the biryani.
06:53Ghee with raisins and cashews cooked in the ghee.
06:57Two things happening, the raisins and the cashews
06:59obviously have the flavor of the ghee in them,
07:01and the ghee has the flavors of the nuttiness of the raisins and the cashews.
07:04These are expensive ingredients.
07:05How do you maximize the flavor of them in the whole dish?
07:08You take a little bit, cook it in a lot of ghee,
07:10and you'll get that flavor infused in the whole dish.
07:12These banana leaves are going to go on top of the rice
07:15to kind of essentially both help create the dum on the inside
07:19and also give an incredible flavor from the oils in the banana leaf to the rice.
07:23This is unique, I've never seen this before.
07:25The front of the banana leaf is where the oils will release from,
07:29so that's the part that he's putting down.
07:30Over here, follow me, come on over.
07:32So you can see here, he's getting the dough ready
07:35to form a seal around the biryani.
07:37He's making a wet dough, he's going to make a rope out of the dough,
07:40use the rope around the lip of the biryani bowl,
07:43put the lid on it, creating a seal,
07:45and cooking the biryani under pressure.
07:47So, this is India's Instapot going back a couple thousand years.
07:52It's a team effort.
07:54The lid goes on, dabaw, press it down.
07:56It's going to get pressed, you're going to create an airtight seal.
08:01Oh wow, check this out.
08:03This lid has been in use for 15 years.
08:06You can see the holes where the lid's cracked through,
08:09and they've been putting dough to seal the holes
08:11so that none of the steam escapes.
08:13That's not a biryani technique, that's just what we call a jugada.
08:16They're MacGyvering this one.
08:18Jugada basically means to MacGyver something.
08:20This country is built on jugada.
08:21This is the magic.
08:23He gets these from Tamil Nadu, from his home state.
08:26You can tell they're literally freshly grated.
08:28To create the dham, to create the pressure,
08:30you need heat from the bottom and heat from the top.
08:32He could have used anything.
08:33He could have used charcoal, he could have used fence posts,
08:37he could have used crates, but he's using the coconut
08:40because this symbolizes where he's from.
08:43And also, the man's a bit of a showman, if you haven't told by now.
08:46And it gets all the punters in.
08:48All the crowd's going to come in because they see this happening.
08:50When he lights the sucker up, it's his smoke signal
08:53that biryani is on the fire and it's time to start lining up.
08:56Because it's literally cooking from the top, cooking from the bottom,
08:58creating pressure, and the pressure builds inside
09:01until the rice steams and becomes fluffy.
09:03The way he described it, once this is lit,
09:06don't poke at it, don't peek at it,
09:08don't lift it up to see what's happening,
09:10don't f*** with it.
09:11When it's ready, it'll unfold like a flower.
09:13His words, not mine.
09:15The gentleman over here is making papadums,
09:17which is an accompaniment to almost every South Indian-based rice dish.
09:21It's a little crunchy cracker.
09:22It puffs up like a shrimp cracker.
09:24It's made out of compressed dal, or in this case urad dal.
09:27And it's just a crunchy, delicious little snack.
09:29Think of it as the Indian potato chip.
09:31We're in the slum of Dharavi, the largest slum in the world.
09:35And most people think of a slum and they think of squalor.
09:37No, this is where migrant workers that came to Bombay
09:40essentially started squatting on open fields that were near the city
09:44and it turned into a city.
09:45It's a hub of economic activity
09:47and it's one of the most diverse parts of any city.
09:50It's really important to not think of a slum as squalor
09:53or abject poverty.
09:54Yes, there's parts of that too, but it's also just a city.
09:58A restaurant like this is a community center, especially a good one.
10:01While we've been in here, I've seen the local cops come and eat and leave.
10:04Serves breakfast for the early worker on the way in.
10:07The dough is fully cooked, and as it cooks it releases from the top
10:11so they don't have to break the seal.
10:12Now they just lift it up because all the pressure has dissipated.
10:15Wow.
10:16God, the aroma is ridiculous.
10:19You see how each grain of rice is sort of standing up?
10:23That's a visual indication that the rice is cooked.
10:26It's not laying flat, they're all sort of poking up a little bit.
10:29You can actually also see tiny holes
10:32where little steam tunnels have formed in a few places
10:35letting you know that the steam's been able to go all the way through.
10:38Sometimes there are holes, right?
10:39Yes, there are holes.
10:40Exactly.
10:41Amazing.
10:42And they're ready for service.
10:44Most of the street food are coupon systems.
10:47Because the money guy is always different from the guy that's handing you the food.
10:50The money guy is usually the owner of the business.
11:00170 rupees, that's $2, just barely.
11:05I had no idea this was happening.
11:07Every order of biryani is going to come with a piece of fried chicken also.
11:10Man, this is some serious value for money.
11:12Oh, and then don't forget the eggs.
11:14One leg piece, one egg, all for $2.
11:18I mean, this smells incredible.
11:20I can't wait.
11:21This is way more epic than I thought it would be.
11:28Thank you, thank you, thank you.
11:30Look at it, hot, ready to go.
11:31Jesus Christ, oh man, oh my God.
11:35The banana leaf aromatics just hits you right off the top.
11:39Let's go eat.
11:40Look at the size of this.
11:41Oh my God.
11:44Just the aromatics coming off of this are incredible.
11:47I get the banana leaf.
11:48It's really just adding an insane layer of aroma over and above the masala in here.
11:54You've got the chicken that's been cooked inside.
11:56And then as if that's not enough, you've got the boiled egg,
11:59which is also a very Hyderabadi-style biryani.
12:01It comes with a boiled egg.
12:02And then, you know, just for S&Gs, a whole piece of fried chicken to go with it.
12:06I'm going to go in, I'm going in.
12:12This is ridiculous.
12:14This is ridiculous.
12:15It's so freaking good.
12:17It's kind of mad.
12:18This is last meal biryani.
12:20Every grain of rice is still separate.
12:22It's covered in the masala, but it's still distinctly separate.
12:25The perfect bite, break the egg up, mix it in.
12:32And then break off some of this.
12:34The fried chicken is done perfectly.
12:37This is kind of overwhelming.
12:39To watch this come together on the street for three to four hundred people,
12:43and for it to taste this good.
12:45I mean, this is kind of what street food is all about.
12:47It's just, I mean, my hair's standing on end.
12:52This is how good this is.
12:54This is a highly personal story.
12:56I mean, this is a very personal story.
12:58I mean, this is a very personal story.
13:00I mean, this is a very personal story.
13:02I mean, this is a very personal story.
13:04This is a highly personal story for Saif.
13:07He arrived in Bombay and slept for the first three years in the railroad station.
13:11He now employs 15 people, cares about his community, gives food back,
13:16and all of that makes every bite taste more powerful
13:20because I know what went into making this.
13:23I'm sort of getting a little choked up here,
13:25just thinking of what this man went through
13:27to put this plate of food in front of me right now.
13:29There is no street food in Bombay if it wasn't for the people
13:31and their stories behind it.
13:33The street, they say, is the great unifier.
13:36This is a supreme example of how the street can unify everything.
13:42It's incredible.
13:46So, this is my favorite part.
13:49Not only is this man a chef,
13:52he plays a villain in Tamil movies,
13:55one of the largest movie industries in India.
13:57God only knows if I'm a villain or a human being.