Lucknow: Under saffron-clad Yogi Adityanath, even the sewai on Eid is also saffronised. Savour ‘Yogi Ji Maharaj Saffron’ and ‘Modi Modern India’ sewais this Eid in Lucknow.
If Ghujiyas are for Diwali, Eid is incomplete without sewai. The traditional Eid recipe is cooked and savoured in all Muslim household across country. Though Sheer Khurma and Qimami Sewai are the signature dishes every Eid over the years, the traditional recipes are often tinkered with by food experts to get new variants.
A restaurant in Lucknow has organized a two-day ‘Sewai Festival’ offering mouth-watering 50 varieties of sewais. Among its different varieties, ‘Yogi Ji Maharaj Special Saffron Sewai’ and ‘Modi Modern India Sewai’ are drawing big crowd.
While the special variety of sewai named after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanah is laced with special Kashmiri saffron to give it a saffron hue and is being sold at a price of Rs 1200 a kg and Rs 100 a cup, the one branded after Prime Minister Narendra Modi is white-coloured and rabri-flavoured.
It is prepared with condensed milk, malai, pure desi ghee and ‘Khoya’. ‘Modi Modern India Sewai’ is priced at Rs 800 a kilo and a cup is being sold for Rs 60. To enrich the taste buds, both special varieties of sewais are full of crunchy roasted pistachios, almonds, cashew nuts and walnuts. No traditional sweet in the ‘City of Nawabs’ is complete without decorating it with a layer of silver foil on top of it. The saffronised Yogi and Milky Modi sewais are topped with a layer of silver foil to give it a special majestic look.
Besides these two special varieties, the restaurant is also offering Qimami Sewai, Zarda Seai, Sewai Kheer, Mango Sewai, Sewai Kheer, Banarsi Paan-flavoured Sewai etc. “About a month ago, our chefs had planned to come up with new varieties of traditional sewai this Eid. We experimented and developed a few which were hitherto unknown to Lucknowites. We named two best among them after Modi ji and Yogi Ji while other were named after their flavours,” said Shameel Shamsi, the owner of the restaurant and the organizer of the ‘Sewai Festival