By Tara Narayan

One fine afternoon I found an old favorite of my eating out days in Mumbai over 30 years and now in Goa, namely zunka-bhakar on the menu of the dormitory facility called Basseraa down town Panjim…needless to say I was overjoyed and every other day for a week now I find myself at Basseraa to relish zunka-bhakar! It’s just next door to Sweet Nation which I drop sometimes for some chaat or another, the chaat range of crunchy snacks being so popular in India, I’m surprised no one has started a series of chaat outlets across India on the lines of McDonalds or Baskin Robbins ice-creams!
Back to Basseraa. “Junka-bhakar.” What is it ? It’s a favorite meal of Maharashtrian households, both of working or professional class. Zunka is basically a nutrition-packed savory gram flour “veggie” recipe which is scooped up by one of the millet bhakri, roti, chapatti, phulka – several avatar of unleavened Indian breads. While the ubiquitous upper crust “geu ki roti” or whole wheat staple breads are easy to find everywhere, the various kinds of millet breads we have in our Indian cuisines are difficult to find and in recent times I’ve been constantly on the lookout for them.
We can make all of them at home but in my household of two, I would be the only one eating the millet roti, so it’s not cost-effective to make them, and increasingly I find I don’t mind cooking but cleaning up is a irksome, especially after the evening meal when I’m out of energy. So whenever I feel like it I just go to a trustworthy eatery around about Panjim to pick up something – be it “dahivada” from Sher-e-Punjab or “papri chaat” from Chaat Street or Sweet Nation…but these days I feel like getting “zunka-bhakar” from Basseraa. Basseraa is a dormitory establishment with a restaurant attached, I used to frequent it long ago after I discovered it with a friend during one of the IFFIs in town.
Say last week I rediscovered the Basseraa kitchen again which has introduced a Maharashtrian food section on its menu which lists such rare combos as zunka-bhakar, and I found myself savoring my first zunka-bhakar after years. I was introduced to this delectable combo dish during my 30 years in Bombay that is Mumbai today. This Maharashtra combo meal endeared itself to my palate as much as the Udupi menu of idli-dosa, etc. It’s pure vegetarian if not vegan food to live or die for, mostly to live for! I first discovered zunka-bhakar at the Servicemen’s food outlet opposite VT railway station and I’m sure it is still there, close to the Bombay Press Club…cheek by jowl is also the Kutumb Sakhi stall where after a zunka-bhakar bite one treated oneself to some of the most scrumptious “shingache ladoo” (crunchy sweet of peanuts in jaggery).

Most natives of Maharashtra are addicted to zunka-bhakar with a couple of crushed onion and maybe a side helping of “thecha” which has become so glamorous to eat nowadays. Thecha is primarily a delectable side portion of green chili, garlic, peanuts, green coriander leaves, cumin seeds. It comes along with a meal of zunka-bhakar for an afternoon or final supper meal – at once simple and absolutely filling and worth its weight to qualify as a satisfyingly nutrient-dense meal.
ALSO, contrary to popular perception, the millet roti are not as heavy duty on the gut as our range of whole wheat or mostly maida breads of roti, chapatti, naan, kulcha, roomali, etc, most made of refined white flour and highly glycemic. I can’t stomach them anymore, not even stogy deep fried puri dripping with some rubbish oil (mostly vegetarian fats like dalda and vanaspati top the list of killer ingredients).
But back to the Bassera menu. I was thrilled to find the zunka and also the bhakar offering of large rice, jowar or bajra roti (no, not ragi/nachne yet). It’s a terrific combo – the golden savory zumka of gram flour (besan), and lovely austere bhakri or roti . Only the skilled can roll or tap out these breads with the palm of the hand before putting them on a pan for cooking, dry roasting till cooked and they start blooming up — that’s the sign of being cooked and ready for serving hot and hot.
There are two kinds of gram flour preparations, the denser zunka and the lighter pitla, both are accepted in lieu of a vegetable dish in a meal. Actually, zunka, the thicker, dryer mix will have some veggies thrown in along with onion and garlic; the veggies are tempered, stir fried, the besan (gram flour) added in and the whole mass gently cooked with splashes of water till the required consistency. Pitla is more saucy and entails making a batter of the gram flour in water and pouring in to cook till you get a medium aromatic gravy, the tempering is in ghee with mustard seeds, chopped onions and garlic, sliced green chilly, pinch asafetida or hing. Be it spicy zumka or delicate pitla, garnish with lots of chopped green coriander leaves and serve with onion rounds and lemon quarter. The jowar and bajra roti at the Bassare are very good and at times I just buy them home to eat with a cup of tea or peach jam and on an angry day smeared with lots of salty Amul butter! Haven’t tried out the rice or tandulche roti yet.

Usually, a zumka-bhakar meal is rounded off with a glass of thin flavorful refreshing buttermilk or the sweetish lassi (refined industrial sugar is a killer on many counts, okay). If one is with friends and really hungry one may order a round of the various millet roti with other Maharashtrian favorites on the Bassera menu like “akha masur Kolhapuri, mugachi usal…bharli vangi, mirchi, dodkal…” There’s also “matki fry, bharli bhendi” and hey, “varan (dal) bhaat” (another beloved combo of a light flavorful dal and rice).
This is just to say if you’re a Maharashtra cuisine fan you may want to drop in at Bassera for a treat, but by the way, they also do a cloud kitchen and Swiggy or Zomato will get the stuff for you at your doorstep! For some reason since Covid-19 happened folk have taken to ordering in food to eat at home rather than venture out to local eateries or restaurants. It’s a serious fall-out which has affected the eating out business and everyone with a so called “cloud kitchen” is running all the way to the bank instead. At least the delivery boys are or so I understand! Home deliveries add up to higher billing even if the story is delivery in the vicinity is free delivery. Not at all.