Travel Diary: Chefs Cortney Burns and Manisha Bhasin in India

Founded in the 17th century, this walled city was once an enclave of wealthy noblemen, but today it’s a pandemonium of merchants, shop owners, traders, vendors, and rickshaw drivers. The neighborhood of Chandni Chowk is a maze of spindly streets packed with food vendors hawking addictive dishes that reflect the city’s multifaceted culinary heritage. “There’s a science to Indian cuisines, but also a soul,” said Burns over a milk-based dessert called rasmalai, “because the science emerged through the experimentation of cooks over hundreds, if not thousands of years. They didn’t do it for the bells and whistles or to create a new trend.”

Over lunch on the roof of the ITC Maurya, Bhasin told Burns war stories from her career of almost three decades, during which she has overcome the obstacles faced by woman chefs in India’s culinary industry to carve an impressive legacy. That includes preparing meals at Maurya for visiting heads of state like Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. Lately, she has been working with female culinary students throughout the country to preserve India’s food history. “Information from the 29 states is scattered,” she said. “I want to see it documented in one place as a resource for future generations to tap into and take pride in.”

“Remember that scene in the movie Amelie where she’s running her fingers through all of the amazing things she discovers at the market in France?” Burns asked as Bhasin poured airy, puffed lotus seeds into her hands. “I’m having my Amelie moment in India.” The two were wandering through the spice, fish, and meat stalls at Ina Market in South Delhi. Bhasin found a bag of red rose petals at one stall, where dried Himalayan morels hung from the ceiling, and told Burns she used them in a lamb dish at Bukhara, the restaurant at the ITC Maurya. “I have a farmer growing culinary roses for me in California that I use for syrups,” Burns replied, “but now I’m thinking I should also start using them in savory dishes like you do.”

“I’m going to need a bigger suitcase,” Burns said, dropping a jar of ginger honey to her already bulging canvas bag, “I’m taking this back to the restaurant to ferment it.” The women were shopping at one of the only organic markets in New Delhi, where more than 70 farmers had gathered to sell products such as mango chaat masala, hand-pounded Himalayan turmeric, and kachri, a melon seed powder used as a meat tenderizer and marinade. One vendor, a doctor named Arun Sud who runs a company called Bird Peck Organics in Himachal Pradesh in northern India, told Burns that artisanal marketplaces are a new concept in India. “People ask me to teach them how to make my products and I say to them, ‘Go back home and learn from your mother because that’s who I learned from and they have so many valuable things to share.’”

“Chickpeas are just one insurance policy Indians hold to guarantee good health,” Bhasin explained as the women took a break from shopping to share a chickpea dish called chole kulcha. It is an example of Ayurvedic cooking, a 5,000-year-old practice rooted in the belief that food is a form of medicine. “You grow up with Ayurvedic cooking,” Bhasin added. “You don’t necessarily know why this ingredient is good for one thing and this is good for another but it’s rooted in who we are as Indian home and restaurant cooks.”

Burns couldn’t stop sneezing after entering this iconic spice market in Old Delhi. The place is so perfumed with the aroma of chilies even the vendors who stand behind burlap bags overflowing with everything from frankincense and dried tamarind to black salt and licorice powder are not immune. As she filled her bag with spices, Burns fantasized about the dishes she would prepare with them back in her test kitchen. “You have to come to Bar Tartine,” Burns told Bhasin later. “I’ll have your spices waiting for you.”

After a long day of market exploration, the women retired to this storied establishment in the heart of Old Delhi, founded over a century ago to bring the royal cuisine of the Mughal Empire to the masses. It felt like a movie set, with open fires on which kebabs sizzled, men tossing naan, massive tandoor ovens, and a tangle of rooms full of noisy patrons eating with their hands. “I like knowing that Karim’s retains this important facet of our culinary history for us,” Bhasin said as she used a hunk of naan to soak up fire-colored broth from a steaming bowl of nihari, a potent, slow-cooked lamb trotter stew.

Inspired by the cooking of northwestern India, the menu at ITC Maurya’s esteemed restaurant includes dishes like sikandari raan, a whole leg of spring lamb roasted in the tandoor after marinating in a combination of papaya, ginger paste, mustard, yogurt and fenugreek. “At Bukhara, we use products from farms all over the country,” Bhasin told Burns. “We consider it a social obligation to support these farmers, and I have enjoyed establishing personal relationships with many of them over the years.” In the kitchen, she schooled Burns in the art of rolling naan dough. “The key to rolling is to keep it even on all sides,” she said, “and to keep your bottom hand flat and your top hand round throughout the entire process.”

“You have to understand how ingredients work throughout the seasons,” Bhasin said as she and Burns strolled through rows of organic vegetables at Tijara, a biodynamic farm in Rajasthan that supplies products to ITC Hotels. Tijara is guided by ancient agricultural traditions such as relying on the lunar calendar for planting and harvesting times; using fermented vegetables such as bananas, coconut, and beetroot as fertilizers; planting fenugreek between crop rows as a natural pesticide; and using ficus trees, which have an intense concentration of microorganisms in their roots, to replenish the soil. Burns knelt with Nita, who prepares meals for the farm’s 10 employees and frequent visitors, to learn how to make chapatis. “Agritourism is a new concept in India,” Bhasin said, “but special places like Tijara are fixing that problem.”

“I can’t believe it,” said Burns when a dish of sprouted lentil falafels with beetroot hummus is placed before her at an outdoor table at Tijara. “We serve a nearly identical dish at Bar Tartine. Our version is a sprouted-lentil croquette.” She and Bhasin launched into a discussion about the health benefits of fermentation. Bhasin explained that she sees the networking of organic farms throughout India and the support of restaurants like Bukhara as platform for a conversation in her country about healthier eating. “As an individual you have a small voice,” she said, “but when you work together you can become mighty.”