Chefs at Ranchi Ashok prepare ethnic dishes. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Ranchi, Oct. 29: Come November, ethnic food varieties, not the continental ones, would rule the menu at Hotel Ranchi Ashok for three days.

Maar soup, snail kebabs, sekha mans, fried fish, haku, dhushka, ghugni, pittha, moonga saag, anarsa — all ethnic cuisine — would be spread out during “Kutumbari”, the three-day food festival starting November 2.

Interestingly, recipes for all these ethnic dishes were sent by housewives from across the state weeks after the hotel brought out an advertisement inviting so.

“The response to the advertisement was overwhelming. We have received around 50-60 recipes among which the common recipe was dhushka, which is prepared with dal and rice,” said S. Srivastav, the general manager of Ranchi Ashok. Dhushka is prepared by mixing rice and lentils, which are soaked overnight and then fermented. After a little fry, it is served with chutney and ghugni, which are made out of grams mixed with masalas.

Maar soup is prepared initially by blending garlic with ginger with boiled tomatoes being added to maar. Before serving to guests, it is blanched with leafy vegetables and seasoned with salt, garlic and black pepper.The recipes would be improvised by chefs at the hotel as well as from other experts. “We have around three to four chefs who are trying to bring little bit of change sans spoiling the original flavour,” added Srivastav.

For instance, the chefs were seen busy preparing a recipe with vegetables like chakurkura, moonga, kanuar flower which are quite common in rural areas. “Besides, we also have roasted mutton referred as, sekha mans, popular with the villages,” he said.

Everyday, 15 items would be on display at the first-of-its-kind festival organised jointly by the state tourism department and India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC).

“Every state has its own distinct recipe but Jharkhand doesn’t have any ethnic cuisine to offer to a guest. The unique food fest is one of the ways to promote our local food which would be brought straight from the tribal heartland,” said tourism department director Deepak Singh.

Incidentally, even after the food festival, these ethnic delicacies would be available at the hotel’s multi-cuisine restaurant, Mithila.