Trek Himachal

Branj

eaten in various farming communities of Himachal Pradesh

As I start on the first piece in this section, let me forewarn the readers to not always expect the exotic here. Of course, exotic will be there but with it will also be the common food, for common food is what is had most commonly by the common man. Exotic food is like icing on the cake and thats how it would be here as well. Let me first bake the cake and then I will put the icing on it.

The reason for the long preamble above is that Branj is something very common place. It is actually not a dish, it is a class of dishes eaten extensively by the farming class in many regions of Himachal Pradesh. Over the last 3 months, I have seen various kinds of Branj being eaten in villages from Kadaun in Kullu to Kuvarasi in Chamba to Parashar in Mandi. Simply put, Branj is rice and an accompaniment cooked/steamed together with salt, fresh/dried chillies, turmeric, chilli powder and sometimes had with a generous helping of ghee. A typical Branj would be cooked by roasting a few sliced onions in refined oil for sometime, then adding salt, chilli, turmeric, dried or fresh chillies. Let this concoction fry a little, add rice and and an accompaniment e.g. diced potatoes or pulses (lentil, grams) or beans (Rajmah or Green beans). Let the mix fry a little more, add water and then close the lid of the pressure cooker. Leave the dish to cook and eat with lots of ghee.

Traditionally, Branj has been eaten by the farming community for years and the choice of accompaniment has been governed by season, availability and affordability. So, just after a Rajmah crop is off the farms, a lot of Rajmah Branj will be eaten. Similarly for potatoes or green beans. During the winters, as the rations exhaust, potatoes, which are cheaper and have better keeping quality become the accompaniment. During times of insufficient produce or in poorer families, the Branj variant might only have fried onions as the addition. Apart from the fact that Branj makes a whole meal in itself, farming families traditionally often had less time on their hands during harvest season. So, instead of wasting time preparing a cereal and an accompaniment, as is the case with most Indian meals, they would put everything together, leave it to cook, attend to other chores and have a single hot, wholesome meal.

All in all, it is similar to a Pulao/Pilau but is different in the sense that it normally has just one main addition to rice and is far less elaborate.

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