Summer is round the corner, but give me a ladleful of neembu saan and I will never say no. Announce it in the living room, and it’s bound to light up all eyes. Serve it fresh to folks basking in the warmth of the mountain sun, and they will be grateful for the culinary blessing. A winter favourite, this dish dons several hats — main course accompaniment, standalone salad, essential mountain winter nutrient, and a heapful of nostalgia for pahadis who don’t live in the Kumaon hills anymore.
Neembu saan literally means marinated lemon, made with typical, huge hill lemons that are sometimes bigger than grapefruit. Roasted and pulverised hemp seeds — a hot favourite in Kumaoni cuisine — are the key ingredient.
Mash & marinate
The collected lemon pulp is mashed together and marinated in yoghurt, ground hemp, red chillies and jaggery, and dressed in fresh coriander leaves and horseradish. The ingredients are a tangy-sweet-fiery explosion of flavours in the mouth, with the added crunchy texture of the seeds.
Packed with vitamin C, it is also an antidote for winter flu, especially when had in the afternoon sun. My mother made it for my brother and me for this very reason, apart from, of course, its piquant flavours. She would start prepping for it mid-morning, laboriously peeling, scooping, and de-seeding the lemons while we salivated, always disappointed when there wasn’t a third helping.
Winter adventure
My earliest memories of making this dish go back to the winter holidays when school would be closed for three long, cold months, and we would visit my grandmother in the slightly warmer foothills of Nainital.
My cousin came over for a play date one day, and a neighbour joined in for an afternoon of Tom Sawyer-ness. Used to living in the cool climes of Nainital, the sun made me skittish and I had a sudden craving for neembu saan. We crept into the kitchen to meekly ask my rather imposing grandmother if she could make us some. Busy with her chores, she shooed us away.
Smarting from the reproach and determined to have our dish anyway, we made a plan to steal some of the young papayas from her kitchen garden, to substitute for the lemons we had no money to buy.
Armed with sticks, we clambered up the smooth trunk, and after multiple attempts, managed to knock some fruit down. Emboldened by our victory, I crept into the kitchen to smuggle out the rest of the ingredients, and on a big banana leaf — also from her garden — we made what was our best version of neembu saan.
We weren’t the most professional burglars, and left enough traces for my grandmother to figure it out. She broke into her toothless smile and offered to make the miffed kids a proper bowl of the dish. Our initial reluctance masked under childhood pride melted soon enough, and the apology was accepted by polishing off the bowl.
Back to the hills
The dish stands out for me for multiple reasons. To begin with, it is an unusual combination of ingredients that I have not encountered in any other cuisine. It is also an acquired taste, especially for non-pahadis; not everyone enjoys sour lemon, even if flavoured! But for those who like it, it is one of the few dishes that I know are both loved for their taste and laden with health benefits.
Neembu saan is also a dish with a very short shelf life, and needs to be consumed soon after it’s made to avoid the lemon turning bitter. This adds an additional dose of nostalgia, for eating it means preparing it from scratch, and more often than not requires a trip to the hills to get hold of hill lemons and hemp.
Going back to a place for a dish you’ve grown up eating is extra effort, but worth it and so much more valuable. (Unless it’s my aunt in Bombay who carries back giant, lolling, hill lemons in her hand baggage, much to the embarrassment of her husband.) It’s much like eating the fresh bamboo thrown into pork that you cook as a hot meal in Northeast India, as opposed to dried and stored bamboo shoot sprinkled over eastern dishes. More than anything, it’s a dish that’s special to me because being someone who is a sucker for newness, it is something for which my love hasn’t changed, much like my love for the mountains.
SUNDAY RECIPE
Neembu saan
(serves two)
Ingredients
1 whole hill lemon
3/4 cup yoghurt
3 spoons of hemp seeds
2 small horseradish
10g jaggery
1/2 bunch coriander leaves
2 spoons of red chilli powder (or freshly ground green chilli paste)
Salt as per taste
Method
1. Roast and grind the hemp seeds, and add to yoghurt. Throw in the chilli paste or powder along with finely chopped coriander leaves.
2. Powder the jaggery and add it with the salt. Mix well. (You can use a blender.)
3. Slice the horseradish and add to the sauce. The marinade is now ready.
4. Peel and deseed the lemons. (Do not start with this; hill lemon tends to turn bitter rather soon.) Dice the pulp and mix it in the marinade.
5. Garnish with coriander and whole chilli (optional). Serve fresh.
Born and brought up in the Himalayas, the writer is an adventurer who derives great joy from napping under the mountain sun.