A Virtual Walk Through Mumbai’s Spiciest Lane
Photographed by Aman Deshmukh for LBB
Lalbaug’s mirchi galli is a spice souk where red chillies stand tall and strong, the drift of kitchen smells make noses itch and quaver, and despite the odds against the element, passers-by wander in. On Shri Ganesh Nagar, shopkeepers line sacks of chillies from light red to deep burgundies outside their shops.
Popular Kashmiri chillies overpower, giving a semblance of heat but lending only a rich red colour to food. Byadigi chillies, deeper in colour and more shrivelled, hail from Karnataka, while the pandi mirchi from Andhra Pradesh have the most heat in them. Others varieties like the reshampatti and sankeshwari come and go with the season.
“And when the spices are right here, can the makers be far behind? ”
All spices, seeds and condiments are sold here, including household favourites like cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, cumin, peppercorns, turmeric and star anise.
And when the spices are right here, can the makers be far behind?
Further exploration takes us around a right turn behind the temple, where a new process begins. The spices bought from the mirchi galli are now being combined beautifully to make the roasted masalas for cooking.
In deep frying vessels, shopkeepers roast a combination of ingredients to make classic spices such as the garam masala. Tavas splutter, spit and smoke the flavours of the red chillies into the oil, creating clouds of unruly vapour which make even the most resilient witnesses to the process cough up.
Credits: Aman Deshmukh
With a deft, almost careless hand, they toss coriander powder, cloves, peppercorns and cinnamon into the fast-shrivelling chillies. These newly roasted spices are then taken inside shops where large grinding machines begin stomping on the roasted spices. After over an hour of thumping and grinding and indiscernible questions yelled over the loud sound, the mixtures are flattened into a powder, ready to be passed through a sieve and packed for sale.
In this lane, shops sell odd combinations of the different masala powders. They have all been roasted and ground in similar ways to the garam masala, but in varying degrees of heat and ingredients. One can buy a small packet of garam masala, malwani masala, konkani masala, machi masala, kashmiri chilli powder, bhaji masala, kolapuri masala and even a special Sunday masala, each adding a different flavour to a dish.
In this market, the spices from far-reaching corners of India come together to be made into countless masalas – not indispensable but to the best of Indian cooks, all necessary.
First published on Little Black Book, Mumbai here. All photographs are by Aman Deshmukh for LBB.
Credits: Aman Deshmukh