🌟Ajam Emba, Ranchi - YouTube

Hello, Mrinal here.

We should try the local food of Jharkhand as we are in the state.

This is fried Dhooska.

There is something called Paniyaram in Tamilnadu, made with Idli batter.

This is very similar to that and it looks like Unniyappam.

But they have used chickpea instead of urad dal.

This is curry with potato and tomato.

That's tasty with potato, tomato, and its basic masala gravy.

Its better to use hands.

They have this combination here like we have puttu-kadala in Kerala.

That is the largest hotel in the largest city of Jharkhand.

The place around this hotel is called Hindpiri.

I have heard that we could see some strange things happening here at midnight 1 am.

I won't be able to shoot that as there will be no street lights

and there is Covid curfew as well.

It won't be appropriate as well as it's their pathetic condition.

People take up shifts from 6 pm to 1 am and 1 am to 9 am, for sleeping in their homes.

As we can see in many labour camps and accommodations in many places,

there are double-decker beds to use maximum space.

Even triple-decker beds are not enough for everyone in a home to sleep together.

They sleep in shifts such that family members take turns to sleep.

We can see this pathetic condition in cities even though space is available.

But this might not be a surprise for people living in Mumbai.

Now we are going to Ajam Emba Restaurant. I heard they are amazing.

This is used to wash the feet. This is our customary welcome.

Do you do this for every customer? -Yes.

We have traditional soft drinks with mint, lemon, and Brahmi.

I have only heard Brahmi in the advertisements of Chavanaprasha.

I haven't ever thought that I would have something with Brahmi.

It's Jharkhandi Dal with nutrient and medicinal properties.

This tastes similar to spinach and it's spicy as well. 32 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:09,000 -What makes its consistency thick? -We had added red rice starch to the soup.

So it's a soup with rice gruel and spinach.

Its consistency is also similar to that of rice gruel.

They would have used good quality rice as well.

It's not like basmati rice? -It's a traditional variety called Usna rice.

Its more like a typical Kerala lunch.

Let me finish the soup first.

You put chilly in it? -It has garlic, tomato, and green chilly in it.

Its like a basic curry in Kerala.

Let's mix the rice with soup and have that.

This rice and soup(which is more like a curry) will be the only food in a common Jharkhand home.

Roti and Dhuska with the chutney. What's this chutney made of?

It's made with a big seasonal leaf called Hutkal.

It will only be available for 1 month from Feb 15 every year.

-Can you show that? -Right now, we have only the dried leaves.

It looks very similar to Neriya Dosa with a different colour.

That's another chutney and its made with Brahmi.

Locally, we call this the bhengsa chutney.

This chutney is made of dried hutkal leaf and it's the pickled version of that leaf.

Pickle is made of fresh hutkal leaf.

All products are forest produced.

How did you get all this?

I used to collect from interior rural areas. I used to do that with the community too.

This time I just identified the women in communities who collect these.

So what are these? -That's a very popular flower in Jharkhand called Mahua.

They have dried those and they even bake cakes with them.

They even make an intoxicating drink from mahua, like mahua dharu.

Hadiya is the local drink that's available in Jharkhand.

Its actually customary rice beer.

We are fermenting it here and it will be ready by tomorrow.

We provide it to every customer if they demand. We have it on our menu board.

The soup is made of this dried leaf.

These are fresh and dry varieties of the leaf and me made green chutney with the fresh one.

This is a dried Jirul flower and they are prominent in the Saranda forest.

So all these are from the forests and they have lots of nutrient properties

But nobody is here eating this and

so that means nobody in Ranchi is really caring about all these.

She wants to place the local Jharkhandi food on the mainstream.

She wants to brings these Jharkhand delicacies to people who are oblivious of these.

Her idea is to bring products from forests and farms to the plate.

But I don't see anything farmed, it's almost all from the forest.

The dal and mutton are from the farm.

There is a lot of diversification in our tribal food.

We have 4 to 5 methods of cooking like roasting, boiling, and steaming.

We generally use that method to cook food.

We mashed these chutney using the traditional grinder.

-Where are you from? -I am from the Ranchi district.

She came to know these from her family recipes.

My father knew much about traditional food and

they only used to collect these seasonal wise. I learned all these from my parents.

And is this mutton from your family recipe? -Yeah.

She wouldn't approve of it as she is a vegetarian.

This mutton is cooked traditionally with fire wood.

It's very much like having Neriya Dosa and chutney.

But it feels like a different taste and it's much better for our health.

It has a deep sour taste.

It tastes and smells entirely different from what we have in Kerala.

This is exactly like Neriya DOsa.

We could taste the forest.

That mutton curry is fabulous.

We can't match anything from the forest as everything started from the forests.

I had bamboo shoots last time when I was in Coorg.

But this has a umexplainable flavour.

While I had it in Coorg, I knew that the pandas had bamboo shoots as their food.

I even thought that how would they survive on this as it was not so tasty.

But after having these bamboo shoots, it feels really good.

Mutton can also be had with Dhooska.

I have tried Dhooska almost 3-4 times while I am in Ranchi.

But this is really different and fabulous.

They gave me potato as a combination with Dhooska, at the hotel.

I never knew mutton and dhooska were the better combinations.

I would have been so mistaken if I haven't met her.

This looks very similar to the rice in Kerala.

Is this mutton different from the rest of the mutton you had? -Yeah.

Cooking this mutton takes almost 2 hours in total.

It's all about the quality of the meat. Where do you get the meat from?

I used to buy from the local markets. The local mutton is called Khassi.

The cooking is also so perfect. It's slow-cooked and tastes amazing.

Be it forest area or urban area, the perfect combination is mutton and rice.

What variety of rice is this?

Earlier it used to be consumed by people but

since its now a lost forgotten food of Jharkhand,

people grow this as fodder for cattle in certain areas of Jharkhand.

The biggest positive is that it's not too sweet.

This is used to crush the dal used in food.

Here, a woman from Jharkhand's tribal community is serving their local food for us.

I ate a lot of variety of foods, even something that's not shown in this video.

It just cost me Rs.700 including that mutton.

Their menu is really big.

I would love it if people like these are gaining popularity.

This is their restaurant in Ranchi.

Let there be similar restaurants worldwide.