Srinagar Farmer Dries Cockscomb Flowers That Give Kashmiri Dishes Their Ruby-Red Colour

News In Frames: Velvety crimson is Kashmir’s treasure

Inside his house in Srinagar, farmer Bashir Ahmad arranges freshly harvested cockscomb flowers for drying, a step in preparing the blossoms that give traditional Kashmiri dishes their signature ruby-red colour.

The flower, Celosia cristata, is recognisable by its velvety, fan-shaped crest, which resembles a rooster’s comb. Its rich crimson pigment is concentrated in the blossom’s dense, highly textured folds, and the petals are harvested and dried for use in the kitchen.

Known locally as mawal once dried, the flowers connect cultivation in Kashmir’s fertile valleys with the preparation of its celebrated wazwan, the multi-course royal feast made by master chefs known as wazas.

From full bloom to dried petals

The flowers are carefully handpicked at peak bloom, when they are harvested for their red pigment. Farmers harvest cockscomb on the outskirts of Srinagar, while another frame captures a butterfly feeding on nectar from a blossom.

After harvesting, the flowers are sun-dried to preserve their intense natural pigments and stored for year-round culinary use. The process makes the colour of the fresh bloom available to cooks long after the petals have been dried.

The frames follow this preparation through several stages: flowers being cut for their petals, red blooms being dehydrated, and workers sifting through petals to ready them for the market. Another shows a farmer holding the dry petals, now a prized ingredient for rich gravies and sumptuous dishes.

Once dehydrated, the blooms can be ground into powder or used to extract natural colouring for Kashmiri food. Mawal is usually sold in Srinagar’s traditional markets, where the dried flower becomes a culinary ingredient rather than simply a vivid blossom.

Bringing crimson to the gravy

To draw out the signature colour, cooks steep either the dried petals or mawal powder in hot water. The resulting ruby extract is strained directly into simmering gravies, carrying the flower’s concentrated pigment into the dish.

Mawal is indispensable to rogan josh, the meat curry whose famed gravy receives both colour and flavour from the flower alongside mild Kashmiri red chillies. Its contribution is not limited to appearance: it imparts a subtle, earthy undertone that complements heavy spices without overpowering them.

The ingredient also goes into rista, a spiced meatball curry; mirchi korma, a chillies curry; and vegetarian specialities such as dum aloo, a potato curry. Across these preparations, the dried flower provides the natural colouring for which it is harvested and preserved.

A place in the wazwan

Mawal holds a sacred status in wazwan and is described as an irreplaceable part of Kashmir’s gastronomic identity. The preparation frames show a chef pressing the essence of powdered cockscomb flower into a dish for the traditional multi-course banquet, and a Kashmiri master chef adding mawal essence during cooking.

Its use reflects Kashmir’s deep-rooted heritage of drawing on local flora for natural, organic cooking. In traditional medicine, mawal is valued for soothing and cooling properties and for making rich, meat-heavy wazwan courses easier to digest.

From petals dried and stored for year-round use to the extract added to a simmering gravy, mawal’s preparation preserves the crimson hue that distinguishes dishes such as rogan josh and rista.

Source: The Hindu