Because no one knows us, our Partition experience or our cuisine. Someone had to tell the story, right?” states author Sapna Ajwani, as she narrates the experiences of millions who lived through Partition — particularly the Sindhis who lost not just their homeland but also their cultural roots in the process. Sapna, who runs a supper club — SindhiGusto — in the UK since 2016, questions, “Ask people around you and see how many even know where Sindh is, or there is a group of people called Sindhis or that when India was partitioned Sindh was not unlike Punjab or Bengal?”
Now, with her book Sindh: Sindhi Recipes and Stories from a Forgotten Land, she wanted to educate readers about this community, and their cuisine.
When many Sindhis became stateless, with their displacement, much of their culinary heritage faded. The book, published by HarperCollins, was penned with the intention to “evoke a sense of pride in Sindhis across faiths and nations.” She also aims to make Sindhi cuisine more accessible and inspire more people to cook traditional home food.
To bring this book to life, Sapna travelled the “length of Sindh, literally the route of the Indus/Sindhu river,” uncovering the region’s culinary treasures. Through her extensive research and travels, she rediscovered long-forgotten recipes. In an interview with CE, Sapna shares her journey of reclaiming these lost culinary gems, the stories behind them, and the importance of preserving Sindh’s rich food heritage.
Excerpts follow:
Tell us about the cuisine in Sindh? What steps are the citizens there taking to globalise this cuisine?
In the smaller towns and villages, people are preserving the tradition and there are so many recipes in the book that I wrote because all the people who hosted me, showered so much of their love and affection in the form of food. Palli macchi (fish in green chana leaves), accho bhod (white meat), sholah mutton (mutton porridge), macchi jo bhat (fish pulao) etc. There was a restaurant I went to called Cafe Sindh started by a Sindhi there with familiar dishes such as seyal macchi ( fish stew), macchi ji mani (fish stuffed in rotis), seyal bhee (lotus stem stew).
You mention Sindhis have adapted to and integrated into societies across various countries. Have local cuisines influenced traditional Sindhi food?
Sindhis are everywhere in India now. So many have adopted vegetarianism because they were looked down upon as meat and fish eaters, that’s adaptation. Using certain ingredients like toor dal is not common in pre-Partition Sindh. In fact, it is thought of as being slightly sweet, but the use of the dal has become quite common among Sindhis who settled in Central or North India. Until today, no one in our family cooks paneer unless they have adopted vegetarianism or have to eat it to get more protein.
A few years ago, I spoke to a third-generation Sindhi living in Spain to collaborate for my Supper Club. I learnt that the large Sindhi community there can’t get access to good goats. They use local pork or beef to make the same meat dishes and have adapted the goat dishes to suit lamb which is a much more fatty meat and fish.
Your book mentions that Sindhi cooking follows Ayurvedic principles. How do these guidelines help choose and combine ingredients?
A lot of our Sindhi cooking is based on Ayurvedic principles, if you notice how the recipes are structured. The dish seyal teevan is a classic example of that. No garlic in any of the dried beans like chickpea, even lotus stem recipes because we treat them like meat. By the same token, we don’t use ginger with fish. For oily fish, the use of onion and garlic is minimal like in the case of pallah or hilsa, our favourite fish.
How would you describe the use of spices in Sindhi cuisine?
The use of spices is restrained. Less is more for us. Some of our dishes contain two spices — black pepper and green cardamom. Many a times we sprinkle spices at the end, after cooking just for the aroma. Of course, garlic, onion, or ginger are all aromatics rather than spices.
The use of garlic is balanced with onions as both are alliums and cancel each other out. For example, with meat, we tend to use very little or no garlic, as meat is a heavy ingredient. Hence if onions are already present, we don’t use garlic. Cooked onion and garlic have a large sulphur content that gives you the feeling of heaviness and bloating, and hence should never be used together.
How important are such deeply-rooted books in keeping the culture alive and passing it on to the next generations?
Gen Y and Z have grown up with so many influences around them, so there needs to be something to keep them grounded in tradition when they get tired of social media trends and narratives. That’s what I say to all my nieces and nephews, that I have written this book for them. At some point, when they miss home food, they can pick up my book and start cooking from it.
Phote Mein Gosht (One-pot green cardamom meat stew)
Ingredients (serves 6)
Fat-trimmed bone in goat/lamb (even-sized pieces of shank, shoulder, neck): 1 kg
For the marinade
Salt: 1 tsp
Coarse black pepper: ½ tbsp
For the soup
Oil: 6-8 tbsp
Green cardamom powder (45-50 green cardamom pods ground with the skins): 6 heaped tsp
Green chillies (horizontally chopped into 2cm pieces, optionally deseed ): 4-8
Spinach (finely chopped): 100 - 130 g
Green coriander leaves and soft stalks (finely chopped): 20 - 30 g
Coarse black pepper: 1 tbsp
Salt: 1 tsp + to taste
For Garnish
Green cardamom powder: ½ tsp
Coarse black pepper: ½ tsp
Fresh mint/chives (finely chopped): ½ handful
Prep
Rinse the meat in lukewarm water then pat dry. Marinate and leave overnight in the fridge, or if short on time for 3 hours at least. Bring to room temperature before cooking.
Cook
Gently heat a heavy-based pot and add oil. Add the green cardamom powder and stir until fragrant — the cardamom will start to emulsify. This needs to be done at a very low heat, or the green cardamom will turn bitter if burnt.
Add the meat and coat with the green cardamom powder. Gently sear the meat for 5-6 minutes. Toss in the green chillies, spinach, and green coriander, along with a tbsp black pepper, a tsp salt, and increase heat slightly. Stir and cook for 10 minutes — the spinach will start to release water. Reduce heat to minimum, add 300ml hot water, and cook covered for 1.5 hours. Stir every 30 minutes.
At the 1.5 hour mark add an additional 300ml hot water and mix. Cook covered on low heat for another 60 minutes, or until the meat starts falling off the bone and the oil separates. Then remove from heat and set aside for 1 hour. Taste and adjust seasoning.
The result should be an emulsion of meaty broth, spinach, chilli, and cardamom. The spinach should have broken down completely and blended with the meat juices.
Serve
Garnish with more coarse black pepper, green cardamom powder, and a sprinkling of herbs. Eat with phulkas and a side of yoghurt salad or as a soup with crusty bread.
Notes
Green chillies cannot be skipped in this dish.
The total quantity of greens should not be increased.
Tastes best after 3-4 hours, or the next day.
Ming Tang EvansSai Bhaji (Green vegetables)
Ingredients (serves 4-5)
350g finely chopped spinach (increase to 400g if sorrel isn’t available)
Fresh dill leaves and stalks (finely chopped): 40-60g
Sorrel leaves and stalks (finely chopped): 150 g
Chana dal: 75g
Salt: 1-2 tsp + to taste
Oil: 6-8 tbsp
Fat garlic cloves (finely minced): 8-9
Ginger (finely minced): 20-25g
Turmeric powder: 2 tsp
Green chillies (chopped): 3-5
250g coarsely chopped fresh/tinned tomatoes
Coriander powder: 2 heaped tbsp
Amchur (if no sorrel): 1 heaped tbsp
Prep
Clean, rinse, and soak the chana dal overnight in 250ml water, or in hot water for at least 3 hours.
Cook
Strain the water from the chana dal and rinse it again.
Heat a pressure cooker, add oil, and let it warm through. Add the ginger and garlic, and fry for 5 minutes, until the garlic starts to shrink and turns slightly golden. Add the chana dal and saute for 2-3 minutes on medium heat. Add 200ml hot water to cover the dal and bring it to a slight boil and stir. Once foam starts to form on top, scoop and remove (taking care to not throw the garlic and ginger). After removing the foam, add turmeric and 1 tsp salt and mix it well. Stir until the raw smell of the turmeric disappears.
Next add all the chopped greens, green chillies, tomatoes, powdered spices, and amchur (only if you haven’t added sorrel). Stir vigorously and mix for at least 5-6 minutes. Then add 500ml hot water and cook for 7-8 whistles in an Indian pressure cooker (about 16-18 minutes in a Western one). Whisk until smooth with a hand whisk and blend evenly for a thick and flowing consistency similar to double cream. Taste and adjust seasoning. The final flavours should carry the taste of dill, a little spice, and sourness.
For open pot cooking: always soak lentils overnight. Top up with a litre of hot water and simmer. Stir constantly until the lentils are tender and the greens have completely broken down. Mash till smooth and adjust seasoning.
Bhaapwari Macchi (Steamed fish)
Ingredients (serves 2)
500 g oily fish steaks (salmon/carp/hilsa/kingfish/sea trout)/1 whole fish (John Dory/sea bass/sea bream)
For the marinade
Salt: ½ tsp
Turmeric powder: ¼ tsp
Coarse paste
Grated shallots: 150 g
Minced green chillies/coarsely crushed dried red chillies: 1-3
Whole spices toasted and ground (1 green cardamom; 1 clove; 2 cm cassia bark; 1 black peppercorn: 2 tsp coriander seeds; ½ tsp cumin seeds]
2-3 tbsp tamarind pulp/juice of 1 lime/lemon
2-3 finely minced fat garlic cloves/4-5 green garlic shoots and bulbs
Oil: 1 tsp
Salt: ¼ -½ tsp
Temper
Kashmiri red chilli powder: 1-2 tsp
Oil: 1-2 tbsp
Garnish
2 tbsp finely chopped green coriander/1 tsp fresh dill
Prep
If using a whole fish, have it cut from the side for stuffing. Apply the marinade and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Mix all the coarse paste ingredients with your hands in a bowl and set aside to macerate for at least 30 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Cook
In a pan/wide pot, place a metal trivet and a plate on top of it. Lay the fish on it directly and apply the coarse paste all over, and inside if it's a whole fish. Pour hot water all around the trivet, about 3-4 cm from the bottom. Cover with a lid (it should have a slight opening to let steam through), and bring it to a boil first then turn down the heat to low.
Halfway through (whether using a standard steamer or a makeshift, flip the fish to ensure that both the top and bottom cook evenly. 10-15 minutes should work perfectly for a single large steak (250-300g) or 10 minutes more for a whole fish.
Check the fish for doneness - with a fork, flake the flesh just below where the bone runs through to see if it comes off easily. Remove and place onto a serving platter/tray.
Serve
Heat a small pan and add the reserved oil. Once it's hot, switch it off, immediately add the red chilli powder, and take it off the hob. Swirl the pan to mix, and pour on top of the fish. Garnish with herbs. Eat on its own as a starter or with flatbreads and a side salad.
Notes
When cooking with hilsa, use only green garlic shoots and bulbs and not garlic cloves.