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Paan

India | Saturday, February 28, 2015 | 1 photos

Ingredients
Sikkim Version:
The sweet version, as well as the tobacco version have the same basic ingredients (at least the version I saw)

- betel leaf
- Areca nuts
- other nuts
- lime paste
- local herbs
- coconut splits
- spices

 

How to prepare this recipe
Sikkim Version:
Once the ingredients are chopped, the lime paste is put onto the leaf and all ingredients are filled inside the leaf.
It is not that easy to fold the leaf, as I tried it, after unfolding it in the jeep. There are for sure different techniques,
depending on the size. It is rather easy but the chewing keeps you busy for a while.

Important to say it is for chewing, I had some parts I could not eat, because they were just to hard to break, I am not sure
if it was some kind of peel.

 

The story behind this recipe
In early September 2012 I spent one week in Sikkim, lo- cated in North India.

I have to get into greater de- tail for you to understand why this piece of paan is still in my mind.

The days before I had to leave it was raining, like there is no tomorrow. I had a tough time schedule. I had to take this jeep to get my bus in Siliguri, which in turn had to be in the morning in Kolkata in order for me to get my train to Mumbai, where my plane would leave back to Latvia. So I could not afford any delay.

When I showed up at the jeep company in the morning, it was still raining, hasn’t even stopped for a second and the shop was closed. I called them and was told that in may- be some hours there could be a jeep, but they are not sure, as the rain washed off one part of the street the day before.

Around three hours later the jeep finally showed up.

After a five-hour ride we stopped in a village some- where at the border of Sik- kim. I love food and I take
care of the things that I eat, so I wanted to find something fresh. After a time I realised that we are supposed to leave in five minutes. I found a shop and saw a guy pre- paring, what I found out was called, paan.

I never heard about it, nor did I know what it was, but it looked colourful and fresh, so I decided to buy three of them. I got two sweet paan (called mitha) and one, what I thought was salty, called saadha. But after biting in the ‘salty’ one I realised there was tobacco inside. A bit confused but still happy, I really enjoyed all three of them.

I tried to analyse what the ingredients in the sweet paan were. I found out that the paan contained Areca nuts, lime paste, other nuts, some fancy colourful sweets and different kind of spices, wrapped in a Betel leaf. I’ve never experienced that kind of snack, and I am an experi- enced traveller, trying almost everything I find.

I will always remember this little piece of something, especially after all the stress in the morning, this paan made my day.