How I Re-Created Nariyal Pak from Taste Memory

#1000Kitchens is a series that goes into kitchens all over the country, documenting heirloom recipes that tell a story. In this edition, Amrita Amesur shares the story of nariyal paak, a recipe she recreated with her mother, despite her worst fears that it was lost to time.

“The first time my mother ever made nariyal paak was with me. Driven by my desire to preserve the taste memory of it, eaten all those years ago and burned into my brain.”

When Amrita Amesur first told us about her family’s nariyal paak recipe, it was 2019, a year before the pandemic hit. She described the recipe as a family heirloom, one that her grandmother would make for her daughter as she returned to her sasuraal, from winter holidays in her mother’s home. “Wonderfully dense, it had a deep-roasted coconut flavour; bold, sharp heat from black pepper, dried ginger and mace. It warmed me from the insides, and so unlike the soft yielding ghee-soaked mound that was Mysore paak. I registered the taste memory then as extraordinary.”

But like many homes in India, there had been no tradition of documenting recipes. Nariyal paak was made in the family by women, so that their daughters could carry a grand edible gift back to their marital homes. “My mother, who despite cooking since the age of 10, never learned to make it; she was simply always handed a dabba to bring home.”

“Nani grew up in a beautiful Karachi town house with a ‘Motor’ — as cars were called.” The eldest daughter of the mayor of Karachi in 1947, she lost her mother young. Her father remarried and had several more children, one of whom was a half-sister, Krishna. “Krishna Maasi was the one whom Nani always reached out to for proportions and tips while making nariyal paak, for her eldest daughter to carry back to Bombai.”

Amrita wouldn’t know it at the time, but her last time tasting nariyal paak would be the day of her grandmother’s passing, distributed in her memory, over a decade ago. “The household was preparing to carry out her ceremonies. Amongst other things, they set about preparing her nariyal paak. I remember my aunt putting together a laundry list of prized ingredients needed to make it. Ghee, cashews, almonds, poppy seeds, several coconuts and spices — warming mace and nutmeg, loads of dried ginger powder, crushed black pepper, and large amount of green cardamom. It evoked deep winter warmth. The most curious item on that grocery list, which is now burned in my brain, was 'gum'. I was told that it is a binding ingredient that keeps all of these elements together in a neat little squares. How magical, I remember thinking.”

“I was told that it is a binding ingredient that keeps all of these elements together in a neat little squares. How magical, I remember thinking.”

— Amrita Amesur

The taste memory of nariyal paak has haunted her ever since. “My mother had never made it, and hadn't observed well enough when Nani did. I was afraid it was lost and gone, and we'd never taste that again.”

Amrita set about the task of un-earthing the recipe with the grit of someone whose very identity hinged on it. She reached out to her aunt; her mother's younger sister had always been interested in sweet and snacky home preparations. “Maasi had stood there as a teenager in the kitchen and as a newly minted bahu when Nani put this together. I hoped she’d have something for me.” Amrita meticulously quizzed her, making detailed notes of the process, going back to discuss her finding with her mother.

“My mother and I furiously compared notes on our taste memories, old conversations, visions, desperately searching for clues.” Eventually, it was another aunt that found them their first breakthrough: an ingredient list and a rough base recipe sourced from her mother-in-law. Slowly, mother and daughter collected ingredients and decided to give it a go, guided by the ultimate North Star, their taste memory.

The emotional stakes were high. “The base recipe suggested we make a chashni out of sugar and water, but I was dead against it. It seemed unlikely that a home-recipe would require such a step; to me, it sounded like the optimisation of a professional kitchen.” Against her mother’s advice, Amrita added in sugar as whole crystals, waiting for it to melt and bring the mixture together.

“It didn’t work,” she recalls, with a note of regret. There wasn’t enough liquid leaching out to bring the mixture together. “That’s when we started to fight. My mother was furious: ‘You’ve ruined it – such expensive ingredients! You’re just not willing to listen to me.’ I of course, held my ground.” To resolve the stalemate, they called her aunt. “She also yelled a fair bit. But eventually, it was she who suggested the fix that would bring it all together – a splosh of milk.”

They set a small portion in a bowl, waiting breathlessly, watching to see if it would come together, breathing a collective sigh of relief when it did. “We stopped fighting and burst into tears when we tasted it. It tasted just like Nani’s.”

Today, as she recreates the recipe for us, Amrita grins with no small degree of satisfaction. She stirs the gond over a flame in a large aluminum pot, watching the little golden beads fluff up into airy, gummy baubles.

She talks us through the recipe with a joy and ease that belies its staggeringly long ingredient list, and the emotionally fraught journey that led her here. She weighs out ingredients, and greases a thali in preparation. “Dishes like this are made more on faith.”

AMRITA AMESUR’S RECIPE FOR NARIYAL PAAK

Ingredients
2 whole coconuts (2 cups), freshly grated or scraped
10 tbsp of desi ghee
400 grams or 2 cups of regular white sugar
250 ml or 1 cup of milk
100 gm edible gum (gond or dink)
1 tbsp (30-40 whole black peppercorns)
1.5 tbsp (30-40 cloves) whole green cardamom
1 blade of mace
4-5 tbsp or about 50 grams dried ginger powder
A generous grating of nutmeg
2 tbsp poppy seeds
2 tbsp melon seeds
2 cups of cashews, almonds. Salted and roasted nuts also work.
Pinch of salt, if using unsalted nuts

Equipment needed
One large thick bottomed pot
Sturdy long handled steel spatula to stir, scrape and roast
Mixer or food processor to blend nuts, seeds, gum
A spice grinder or a mortar and pestle for pounding spices
Measuring cups and spoons
An
*Standard Measuring Cups and Spoons Used

Method
Weigh out and measure all the ingredients. Grease a 9-inch thaali (or two smaller ones) or flat dish with raised sides with ghee to set the nariyal paak.
Grind or coarsely pound the spices — black pepper, cardamom and mace — in a mortar and pestle or in a food processor. Do the same for the nuts — it should be roughly ground almond cashew powder, but not a fine paste. Add melon seeds here to blend.
In a heavy bottomed pot, heat up 5 tbsp of ghee and fry the gum until it has inflated and turned a crunchy opaque. The gum will suck in all of the ghee. Keep stirring and frying in the ghee until each crystal has fried otherwise some bits may remain raw. Add in a tablespoon more ghee in case it feels undercooked.
With a slotted spoon, remove the fried gum and decant into a food processor, mixer jar or a mortar and pestle. The idea is to process or pound down the gum to create a coarse powder. If using a blender/processor, use the pulse option to make a coarse powder, it can become pasty if over-processed. Once powdered, set it aside.
Add another 4-5 tbsp of ghee into the same heavy bottomed pot. Once warmed, add freshly ground cardamom, black pepper, mace and dry ginger powder and stir for a few seconds until aromatic.
Quickly toss in all of the grated coconut and slow roast the coconut in the spices on a medium to low heat, for about 8-10 minutes. Stir often, ensuring nothing is sticking or burning at the bottom. Keep scraping out any browning bits at the bottom of the pot, it’s all flavour.
Once the rawness and moisture of the coconut has passed substantially and as it’s starting to brown, add in the pulsed nuts and melon seeds powder, poppy seeds, the fried acacia gum and slow roast on low to medium heat stirring and roasting all the elements together.
Keep slow roasting until the coconut has lost all of its natural moisture and has turned a toasted shade of golden brown. If your nuts are unsalted, you can add in a tiny pinch of salt at this stage to enhance their nuttiness and flavour.
The whole slow roasting process should take about 45 – 60 minutes. Keep the flame on medium the whole time, while stirring often to ensure it’s all roasting evenly. It’s done roasting once the ghee starts separating from the mass and everything is golden brown and starts to become heavier when stirring.
Grate in nutmeg for aroma.
At this point you want to add in the sugar and the milk. Stir.
It’s very important to cook out all the water released from the coconut at the beginning and then the sugar and the milk later on. It should be cooked to the point of where you can no longer see the milk or any liquids otherwise the moisture can end up shortening the shelf life of the dish and may end up causing it to develop fungus.
Once all the liquid is absorbed or evaporated and the mixture is semi solid, quickly decant into the greased thaali so there’s at least about an inch of thickness to the paak.
Use the flat bottom of a measuring cup or a bowl to smoothen out the top while it’s still warm, dabbing as you go, such that it’s one even layer in the thaali.
Allow the mixture to sit a minute or so and then with a sharp knife, cut into squares. Garnish with flaked almonds or cashews and some more poppy seeds. Cool and serve.
The paak can be decanted and pieces stored in a sealed container or in the thaali itself with a lid on/plastic wrap so it doesn’t dry out. Will store in the fridge comfortably for 2-3 weeks.