Why sweet and sour makes the world go yum

The ubiquitous aloo tikki chaat believes Delhibased chef Manish Mehrotra is one of the most balanced dishes in panIndian cuisine It is an unexpected if not a puzzling description of this commoner among Indian street snack options Itrsquos a potato tikki fried on a tava with silky yogurt and grainy masala Itrsquos khatta meetha and a shade bitter around the charred corners of the tikki mdash itrsquos a complete dish waxes MehrotraA contemporary Indian take on the sweetandsour BBQ chef Manish Mehrotrarsquos meetha achaar Canadian spare ribs come with a sundried mango glaze and toasted kalonji fennel seeds PicAmit PasrichaKhattameetha has been teasing tastebuds since humankind has been foraging and hunting And now a flavour profile once identified with street food and supplements such as chutneys and pickles has found centrestage maincourse presence and a lipsmacking audience in fine and casual dining setups This not just on home turf but internationally as wellA spinoff on the aam panna chef Manu Chandrarsquos Mangaa which has green mango puree and cumin for the balance of khatta and meetha Cocktails says Chandra have seen a lot of innovation with Indian sweetandsour PicKunal ChandraOn his travels across the world whether Helsinki or Sao Paulo Mehrotra routinely comes across a coveted entreacutee mdash poppadums with chutney made of ripe mangoes spiced with onion seeds or fennel Mehrotra named one of Indiarsquos best chefs by awardconferrers and food critics executes contemporary desi cuisine at his Delhibased restaurant Indian Accent He conceptualised meetha char Canadian spare ribs coated with a tangy mango pickle glaze exploiting two emotions at once mdash a primordial love for memorable pork ribs and nostalgia Mango pickle is full of childhood nostalgia and ribs are a classic says Mehrotra of his simple formulaRegional sweetness and sournessThe chef grew up in a Bihar family of strict vegetarians mdash no onion no garlic mdash where the element of sweetandsour found a perennial presence Popular was the aam ki launji a raw mango side dish with achari masala and an imli ki kadi that his grandmother made from jaggery and tamarind Generations of Indians have grown up with khattameetha memories at home in the hardboiled candies they bought or pushcarts stacked on with berries and starfruits that parked temptingly outside schoolsIf the regional thali is a mix of flavours then khatta meetha finds its presence across cuisines through a variety of ingredientsThe sour usually comes from tamarind curd and lemon and the sweet addition from sugar honey or jaggery But regions in India innovate Kashmiri bom chount wagan a green apple and brinjal fry is a festival food The sour leaves of the gongura are used to make chutney across south and east India and the Assamese use orange peel as sweetener Khatta meetha is a blanket term says Dr Pushpesh Pant food critic and historian From pomegranate seeds to palm date jaggery India has regional sweetness and sourness unlike the standard vinegar and sugar influenced sweetandsour that we see across Chinese cuisineTaking street food to the next level Vada Pav Inside Out top at Zorawar Kalrarsquos Masala Library where the pav is in a vada shell with a tangy green chutney and Dahi Wada above by chef Aditya Gupta at SpiceKlub where the vada caviar is served with a curd spherification The khattameetha flavour ubiquitously found in chaat has found its patrons in finedining as well PicDatta KumbharItrsquos in our genesBut Pant goes so far as to say that khattameetha finds its avatars in varying proportions and changes with season Itrsquos not just in the usual chaat and chutneys alone that make use of this taste Sambhar for instance has a dash of sticky jaggery and the basic amti dal is sweet rather than savoury Even something as basic as Oral Rehydration Solution ORS is essentially khattameetha he explains If you are caught longing for khattameetha chaat the answer lies in what Pant calls the atlas of taste on our tongues and the biological need for sweet and sour A balance of polarised flavours is what khattameetha is Itrsquos elementary AyurvedaKurush Dalal an archaeologist food enthusiast and caterer says that it is little wonder that India the sugar capital of the world mastered the art of balancing this flavour While 17th century European alchemists peddled sugar to their customers folks in the Indian subcontinent were liberally munching away on sugarcanes Sweetness felt on the tip of your tongue makes sourness more palatableKurush DalalAdd salt to this and you get what we call that chatpata zing in a dish says Dalal citing the examples of the Maharashtrian puran poli accompanied by potato bhaji and the muchreplicated kala khatta gola Khattameetha is funk mdash an unexpected mongrel borne of sweet and sour mdash and restaurateur Zorawar Kalra attributes its delight to the sophisticated culinary philosophy of the country Khattameetha has amazing oomph It stimulates various parts of the brain at once and if you were to put it on a graph it would have valleys and troughs he saysZorawar KalraThe pairing goes placesDalal also points out to how hardwired diabetes prone Indians went in search of cheap quick carbfixes In a predominantly vegetarian country what else would you expect Potato sugar and bread he says That explains the wildfire popularity of chaat literally meaning lsquoa lickrsquo originally a winter snack from the North in Mumbai Khattameetha became the Bombay bhelrsquos conjoined twinAt BandraKurla Complexrsquos noveauIndian Masala Library Kalra sees how the flavour can woo the fine splurging diner In Bombay Bhel II moist bhel puri becomes tangy dust with the use of liquid nitrogen Sprinkled on a papdi the bhel powder promises a whole new sensation of khattameethaSimilarly the restaurantrsquos Vada Pav Inside Out with pav in a vada shell is a take on the sweetsour relishes of the street snack And Kalra believes in sticking with traditional ingredients unless you go the molecular way where substances like lemon extract make an appearanceMobar caramelised ribs at Khar lounge Monkey Bar is glazed with tamarind chutney mdash a desi comeback to the American sweetandsour BBQ Khattameetha is instant gratification with its extreme flavours says chef Manu Chandra partner at Monkey Bar and Fatty Bao So how do you give this potent powerpacked flavour known to be a welcome assault on the senses its due sophistication Chandra recommends using it in palate cleansers like in the light tamarind sorbet with champagne and rosemary that he designs for special dinners His cocktails do very well in this department such as Mangaa an aam panna cocktail spiced with cuminIndians do it differentlyThe khattameetha though widely popular in its various avatars is by noway an Indian innovation of course Thai cuisine is built extensively on sweetandsour and Dalal asks us to consider a combination such as strawberries dipped in balsamic vinegar It canrsquot get more Italian or khattameetha than that he argues But most agree that Indians make maximum and innovative use of the flavour pairing Barring the BBQ for the Americans sweet is sweet and sour is sour Khattameetha is definitely an acquired taste says Kalra However the West has opened up considerably to the khattameetha punch says chef Aditya Gupta of Lower Parelrsquos contemporary Indian SpiceKlub It does have an international appeal which is obvious from the way Indian restaurants have done well in Dubai and London While itrsquos a milder version that is served abroad the essence remains the same he says Plus it is only us Indians who would attribute an Akshay Kumar flick to the flavour