Noon Chai (Kashmiri Tea) Recipe Card

Kashmiri food carries with it a delicious nip of all things hot and spicy.  It is a rich tapestry of Indian, Iranian, Afghani and Central Asian styles of cooking. 
Kashmiri cuisine has some vantage ingredients: that is dry ginger, fennel, red chillies, curds and mustard oil. Even though it is dominated by non-vegetarian fare, the vegetarian delicacies manage to carve a niche for themselves.  One of the typical ingredients in a lot of Kashmiri delicacies is the Kashmiri ver which is a doughnut-shaped cake of ground spices with a strong and pungent aroma. And yes how can one forget the scent of saffron, which forms an important part of this cuisine. 
Riffling through the books of history one discovers that it was the invasion by Timur in 15th century that left a legacy of Kashmiri cuisine. With time there was an influx of skilled workers as also cooks from Samarkand whose descendants came to be known as Wazas or the master chefs of Kashmir. Wazwan is a unique concept in the world of Kashmiri cooking. Other influences are that of the Muslim and Rajput styles of cooking. A fantastic blend of all these is witnessed in the ultimate formal Muslim banquet called the Wazwan.