Indian
Sub‑ContinentTales of the Subcontinent — Theme Night

The story

Shorba takes its name from the Persian courts that once ruled much of the subcontinent — the word is a cousin of the Arabic shurba, carried east along trade routes and settled into Mughlai kitchens centuries ago. It began as a refined broth fit for emperors.

The tomato itself is a much later arrival — a New World fruit brought by Portuguese traders that Indian cooks folded into everything they touched. Simmered with cumin, coriander and ginger, it turned an imperial soup into the warm, everyday bowl found from Delhi to Lucknow tonight.

The story

Skipjack tuna, caught, dried and worked into everything from breakfast to broth, is the quiet backbone of Maldivian cooking. With no real agriculture to speak of, the ocean has always provided almost everything else on the plate.

Kavaabu — fritters of spiced, flaked fish — belong to a tradition the Maldivians call hedhika, "short eats," the snacks that appear the moment the tea is poured. Simple, portable and different in every household, they're less a recipe than an excuse to sit down together for a few unhurried minutes.

The story

Long before borders hardened, Newar merchants from Kathmandu's Lhasa trading houses carried more than silk and salt across the Himalaya — they carried recipes. During Nepal's Licchavi golden age, they returned from Tibet with a simple folded dumpling and made it their own, working in native cumin, garlic and coriander.

The exchange thrived for centuries, until the 1960s closed the old caravan routes for good. The dumpling stayed behind — and folding momos together, never a solitary job, remains one of Nepal's great small acts of togetherness.

The story

Most believe the name comes from the Pashto word for "flat"; a rival story insists it's named for its resemblance to the sole of a chappal, a sandal. Either way, the kebab comes from Peshawar, gateway to the Khyber Pass, where minced lamb is loosened with a little flour and citrus, spiced hard, pressed thin, and seared over an open wood fire.

The technique is older than the name — similar spiced meat patties were already being recorded in Sanskrit texts a thousand years ago. In Pashtun tradition, a good chapli kebab is simply what you put in front of a guest to show them they're welcome.

The story

In 1951, a former Madras sheriff named A.M. Buhari opened a hotel determined to marry British-style fine dining with Indian flavour. Item 65 on his lengthy printed menu was a fierce, deep-fried starter. Military officers, pressed for time, simply pointed and said "sixty-five" — and the name outlived every fancier theory offered since, about secret spice counts or eighty-five-day marinades.

The original became Chicken 65, one of India's most-copied dishes. Tonight, the same fiery method turns its attention to king prawns, finished the way the legend began — with a sharp, sour hit of tamarind.

The story

Maluwa simply means curry in Sinhala — what sets this one apart from its mainland neighbours is technique. Whole spices are roasted hard, almost to the point of scorching, until they turn a deep, near-black brown, then ground and simmered into coconut milk with chicken.

That patient roasting is the signature of Sri Lankan curry-making, trading the brighter, wetter spicing of India for something smokier and rounder — built to be ladled generously over rice, exactly as it arrives at your table tonight.

The story

Kulfi began in the 16th-century courts of the Mughal Empire, where ice was a luxury hauled down in relays from the Himalaya and packed in salt to keep it frozen long enough to matter. Milk was reduced for hours over a low flame until thick and caramel-sweet, sealed into metal cones, and buried in that ice to set.

There's no churning involved — which is exactly why kulfi is denser and richer than the ice cream that arrived from the West much later. A dessert once found only behind palace walls now turns up at every wedding, festival and street corner from Lahore to Kolkata.

The story

This one starts a long way from Bengal, in a 10th-century Persian cookbook, where a syrup-soaked coil called zulbiya was served during Ramadan. Traders and travellers carried it east over the centuries until it settled into Indian kitchens as jalebi, and every region eventually made it their own.

Nowhere more so than West Bengal, home to the subcontinent's most obsessive cheesemakers. There, the classic batter gave way to chana, the fresh-pressed cottage cheese behind rasgulla and sandesh — kneaded into a firmer dough, coiled, fried, and plunged into the same sugar syrup that has bound this dessert together for a thousand years. Tonight's journey ends, fittingly, back where so much of it began.