India’s Grand Masterchef Introduces Abu Dhabi To Mughul Royal Cuisine Revival

Chef Imtiaz Qureshi brings 200 years of royal chef pedigree to Gourmet Abu Dhabi

Born into a family of legendary chefs to India’s Mughul Emperors, tracing back to over 200 years, Chef Imtiaz Qureshi will serve up the distinctive Dum Phukt cuisine his family is renowned for reviving during Gourmet Abu Dhabi – the annual haute cuisine festival running 5-20 February across the UAE capital’s leading restaurants.

Chef Qureshi will be guest chef at the five-star Beach Rotana Abu Dhabi’s Indigo restaurant from 16-19 February, and he will also host an intimate culinary demonstration and luncheon for 12 privileged guests on 18 February where he will demonstrate several creative but easily produced tandoor recipes in the Dum Phukt tradition.

“Dum Phukt is classed as a ‘heritage cuisine’ of India, and its origins are steeped in history,” explains Chef Qureshi, “Originally a rugged frontier cuisine of the nomadic tribes of the Great Himalayas, it was brought to the royal Mughal capital, which is current day Uttar Pradesh in the Ayadh region, in the 1800s in response to a famine which was ravaging the state. With enormous containers of rice, meat, vegetables and spices slowly and continuously cooking over charcoal to be available day and night to feed the masses, a new cuisine was born with astonishing results and the splendid aromas attracted royal attention.”

‘Dum’, meaning to ‘breathe in’, and ‘Pukht’, meaning ‘to cook’, was adapted and perfected into a fine dining cuisine for the royal table by the Qureshi family of chefs. It lived and breathed as the most fashionable haute cuisine of the Indian aristocracy and nobility throughout the royal courts of Hyderabad, Delhi, Kashmir, Rampur, and Bhopal until falling into decline following India’s independence.

“Many of the chefs and recipes of the Dum Pukht cuisine were forgotten or lost,” continues Chef Qureshi, who has made it a personal mission over his 60 year career to initiate the revival of this historic cuisine. “While I was working as executive chef of the five-star Sheraton Hotels in India, I was encouraged to research the Qureshi family annals to rediscover this forgotten cuisine of the Mughal’s.”

Refining and evolving the Dum Pukht tradition for modern centuries, Chef Qureshi re-introduced the world to the incredible flavours and intensity of the slow cooking tandoor method with the opening of the Dum Pukht restaurant in New Delhi’s ITC Maurya Sheraton hotel in 1985. The rest is culinary history, and with his two sons following in his footsteps to become grand masters of Indian cuisine in their own rights, Dum Pukht cuisine has not only been revived but flourishes across the globe.

“My brother Irfan and I have both worked in five-star hotels throughout the world, and we have introduced hundreds of thousands of people around the world to this unique and historic cuisine,” says Chef Ashfaque Qureshi.

“My father finds this development astounding – from the tables of the Mughal emperors, to nearly completely forgotten to history, and then revived into becoming a global cuisine, the lineage of the Quereshi family and Dum Pukht cuisine are intricately intertwined.”

Coming to Abu Dhabi for the first time, Chef Imtiaz Qureshi and his sons are looking forward to sharing their views on food as artistic and cultural expression, and exploring the links between Emirati and Indian cuisine.

“Traditional Emirati recipes such as biryani could be said to have originated from India, through interaction between the nationalities on the ancient sailing trade routes, although it can also be said that Emiratis have transformed the cuisine into something truly unique to their culture,” states Ashfaque.

“While the cooking methods may be borrowed from India, most of the Indian-influenced cuisine of the United Arab Emirates has actually been enhanced and reclaimed with distinctive Arabic flavours – this is something to be proud of and to share with the world.”

For an intimate introduction to Dum Pukht cuisine and an opportunity to listen to the fascinating family tales of the Mughuls, reserve your ticket to the ‘Culinary Demo & Luncheon with Chef Imtiaz Qureshi’ on 18 February at Indigo restarant, Beach Rotana Abu Dhabi from 10am to 2pm. Tickets are AED200 per person. Seats are limited so please call +971 2 418 1401 to make your reservation. To taste the much talked about Dum Pukht cuisine, Chef Qureshi will also be having his restaurant promotions at Indigo, Beach Rotana Abu Dhabi from 16 to 19 Feb. For reservations, please call +971 2 6979011

For more information visit HYPERLINK "http://www.gourmetabudhabi.ae" www.gourmetabudhabi.ae  

Emirate:  Abu Dhabi

Date: Jan 30, 2013

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