How Kashmiri Chefs Cook A 25-Course Wazwan Wedding Dinner | Big Batches | Insider Food

These chefs are preparing a traditional Kashmiri feast known as a thwazwan for 700 wedding guests in Srinagar, Kashmir. The 25-course meal takes two days to prepare and uses 125 pots to cook 1,000 kilograms of meat. That's Muhammad Sharif Khan, the head chef, known as the Wusta Waza. We visited Srinagar to see how a thwazwan is made in such big batches. The first day begins with chopping fresh vegetables, unwrapping spices, peeling chilies, and cleaning all of the pots known as dags. Outside, truckloads of wood are unloaded to fuel the hundreds of pots. Once the pots are set, it's time to start preparing the meat. Among the 25 courses the kitchen prepares, the mutton dishes, gosh taba, tabak maaz, and risda are some of the most important. To make these dishes, fresh cuts of mutton are trimmed and divided into separate parts. The boneless pieces are then pounded flat with these wooden hammers, known as gosh bares. After the fat is added, the waza, at the end, dips his hand in water and rolls the meat into balls. By the end of the day, the team will prepare 700 kilograms of mutton. The last dish to be served at the wazwan is gosh taba. To make it, waza cook the mutton meatballs in a curd gravy known as yakni. They pour the curd into a pot with a bit of water and let it boil before adding fennel, cardamom, clove, ginger paste, garlic paste, and mint powder. After an hour of cooking, the meatballs, mutton stock, desi ghee, and fried shallot paste are added into the gravy. Because it's a curd-based gravy, it needs to be constantly stirred so it doesn't burn or curdle. The gosh taba takes about three hours to cook and is finished with a topping of more curd. Rista is also made with meatballs, but instead of curd, it's cooked in a water-based gravy and seasoned with local chilies and spices. Waza cook the meatballs in a bit of water and oil before seasoning them with Kashmiri chili water, turmeric, cardamom, clove, saffron, and Kashmiri coxcomb flour for color. After this, garlic, fried onion paste, and lamb stock are added into the pot. Similar to gosh taba, rista takes about three hours to cook. Another popular dish is tabakmaz, a twice-cooked mutton rib dish. First, the ribs are boiled in water and seasoned with turmeric. Once boiled, they're seasoned with cloves, cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, fennel, dried ginger, and desi ghee. Once the ribs are cooked, they're taken out, chopped into smaller pieces, and then braised in ghee to give them a brown and crispy crust. When all of the food is ready, guests are seated in groups of four and wash their hands in a basin called a tashtenari. The meal is always served on large copper plates known as taramis. Every tarami is loaded with rice and carefully topped with mounds of meat in a specific order. Ustad should be the one to make the tarami. He knows what to put on what, like seekh kebab, and he knows how to put five or six items on it. So, if someone forgets one item, the ustad is there to remind them that they've put the right item on the tarami. Over the weekend, the wasban is served four times. In a tarami, you need at least four kilos of mutton, While this might seem like a lot of food, none of it goes to waste. Instead, guests are expected to save some and take it home. The wedding also doesn't have assigned seating. That is the uniqueness of this wasban, because we don't know each other for that matter. We don't know them, but when we just eat together over there, so that way we come to know about each other. Yes, the four persons, unknown persons, sometimes they just come together and eat together over there. That's my favorite thing. And you will not find that anywhere in the world. That's only in Kashmir you find it. It's believed that the Mongol ruler Timur brought chefs and recipes from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, to Kashmir in the 14th century. Once in Kashmir, the recipe began to evolve and incorporate local ingredients that would form the modern wasban. The final dish served at each wasban is goshtaba. My favorite dish is goshtaba only. It's totally different from other dishes like that. It's wholly and solely made in milk. And that way, no chilies over there. It has a totally different taste for that matter.