What comes to your mind when I say ‘Lucknow’! Awadhi cuisine? But if your calorie-counter and fatty tissues are giving red alerts, and coming in between you and kebabs, kormas, biryani, nahari, sheermal, roomali rotis, and warqi parathas, fret not. Lucknow-based doctor-cum-chef, Dr Izzat Hussain has a solution for it.
Specialised in Awadhi cuisine, a direct descendent of the royal family of Lucknow, Dr Hussain knows the trick of preparing the aforesaid cuisine, with rich-textured gravy with minimum oil—and that too while retaining the original flavour.
How he does that?
He sprinkles his Yunani (traditional Islamic medicine) knowledge in his cooking for preparing healthier versions of these classic Awadhi dishes, and this certainly calls for a quick appreciation.
Here’s the secret straight from his kitchen
I bet, you had never thought delicious kebabs can contain goodness of health. However, if you prepare it the way Dr Hussain does, you will be able to enjoy them without any guilt. And the best part: When the feast ends, you will not feel heaviness in stomach.
So, what’s that he does differently? He adds milk to his cooking instead of water simply to cut the acidic content in the food, and thereby, aid digestion. He also adds raw papayas in kebabs as the fruit is healthy for liver and also makes the richness of the meat mild.
“People who are sick can try my kebabs. It would benefit them. The proteins of food are broken down by liver. When we add papaya to meat, it supports the liver and makes your body utilize the food value of both the meat and papaya,” says Dr Hussain.
Malai Boti Kebab, which is one of his signature dishes, contains cinnamon, tea tree and cardamom. “I add these herbs because these produce digestive enzymes that benefit the alimentary system of the body,” explains Dr Hussain.
Interestingly, while most chefs sauté spices in hot oil, Dr Hussain puts his ingredients in cold oil to retain the nutritional value of the spices.
So next time you fix your date with naharis and kormas, make sure they are prepared the way Dr Hussain recommends. This way, you can enjoy your date guilt-free, without running extra hours in gym to shed those extra calories.