Nani Ji Wala Namak

A Recipe Written in Bits of Everything

Nani ji wala namak (dadi wala namak) this is what we call this namak. I call it nani ji wala namak and my cousins call it dadi wala namak. Same person, same recipe, different name depending on who you are to her. But for all of us it is not an ordinary namak. It is a saviour. 

My nani ji had have been making this namak for twenty-five to thirty years. Nobody else in the family knew the recipe. When we asked she would say - just put a bit of everything. What everything, we did not know. The namak was made in batches and we would use it until the jar ran low, before it ended nani ji used to give us another batch. That was the arrangement for most of my life.

What it did to everything

I do not remember the first time I tasted it. That is the thing about something that has been on the table your whole life - there is no first time you can point to. It was just always there. My nana ji used to put it on salad, on freshly fried papad, on laiya channa ( puffed rice with roasted chickpeas). It went into curd and buttermilk and made both worth having on their own. I remember all of us reaching for this namak the moment something needed a little extra.

At some point chaat masala disappeared from our table. So did every other spice mix. This namak had replaced all of them. If something needed seasoning, this was the answer. It did not matter what - the namak worked on everything. That is not something you can say about most things.

The Chit

After a lot of convincing - the kind every grandparent requires - nani ji finally wrote the ingredients on a piece of paper. And then the piece of paper disappeared. For a long time we assumed it was gone for good. We did not need to make the namak anyway because there was always stock.

Then one day, while cleaning the bookshelves, I found a small chit folded very neatly. When I opened it the ingredients were not written in order - the kind that is not trying to be read by anyone else, just trying to remember. I went through it slowly then asked my mother " what are these ingredients for?" after she read it she realized what it was.

The ingredients mentioned in the chit were of the namak nani ji makes.

I took a photo immediately and sent it to my mother and my mama (maternal uncle). The chit had already survived long enough on luck. I was not going to let it survive on luck any longer.

Making it for the first time

As the last batch started running low, the worry set in - once this was finished, there would be no more until someone made it. That is when me and my mother decided to try. We found all the ingredients, collected everything the chit asked for, we thought we were prepared - and then when we got into the kitchen to start the making process we read the chit properly. Turns out having the ingredients and having the recipe are two different things. Most of the ingredients had no measurements next to them. Just names. Nani ji's "bit of everything" had made it onto the paper as a list but not as a recipe.

We started anyway. Roasted all the whole spices, let them cool to lukewarm, ground them, added the salts. The moment I opened the grinder I could tell something was off before I even tasted it - one spice had taken over completely. A few others had gone missing entirely. That is when we stopped trying to follow the chit and let my nose and taste buds take over instead. I could not measure what was wrong but I could smell what was too much and taste what was not enough. A little of this, pull back on that, smell again, taste again. A few rounds of adjusting until it started feeling closer to what I remembered. 

Nearly there. Not the same. But nearly.

We gave it to nani ji to taste. She did not say anything. She just smiled.

My mama (maternal uncle) told me to write down the measurements this time - every adjustment, every addition - and try again. With practice, he said, I would get there. 

The chit is saved on my phone now. The measurements from our attempt are written down in my recipe diary. At some point I will try again, get it a little closer, write that down too. That is how a recipe that lived in one person's hands for so long starts to belong to everyone.