Curry & Wine: Jammu's Kaladi Kulcha Meets Its Match In Wine

Chef Sid Chopra, owner of GOAT Restaurant in Auckland, and Wine Enthusiast Timothy Giles are pairing wines with a Jammu street snack, a regional speciality adapted for Aotearoa.

The Dish
Kaladi Kulcha – Tandoori kulcha, charred white mozzarella, onion chilli jam, coriander and chaat spice.

The Wines
Pieropan Soave Classico 2023 – $33
Trinity Hill Hawke’s Bay Syrah 2022 – $24

Sid says:
The first time I had Kaladi Kulcha was on the roadside in Jammu. Another of those unassuming shops where the aroma pulls you in before you even realise you’re hungry. At that time, I didn’t know Kaladi cheese existed. My first taste was a caramelised, stretchy, squeaky, unfamiliar cheese — and I was hooked.

Kaladi, if, like me, you don’t know, is a traditional Himalayan cheese native to Jammu. Raw, it’s got a firm bite. But when grilled or pan-tossed, it transforms — browned and crisp on the outside, gooey within, and loaded with umami. That roadside version was a complete experience: caramelised cheese, a hit of green chilli, all tied together by the soft, fluffy kulcha.

That was years ago, and all it took to transport me back was happening upon a reel celebrating this local specialty. In that moment, I knew it had to make its way to my menu.

But we didn’t just copy-paste the dish. It’s regional, local, and I’m a long way away, so had to tweak, adapt, and, I’d say, take things up a notch. Our version tucks that glorious cheese into a soft tandoori kulcha, layered with sweet-spicy onion and green chilli jaggery jam, finished with a touch of chaat masala. You can see all the elements are there — remembered and respected. A hit of sweetness, the depth from the onion, and the warming but mild burn of green chilli. The same dish, and a flavour story told with new techniques and a twist on its travels.

This dish, to me, celebrates local speciality and nostalgia for a far-away place and memory.

Timothy says:
Kaladi Kulcha is a regional speciality, so let’s find the same in wine. For white, Soave — the wine of Italy’s Veneto region. As Venetian as the canals, and Pieropan are among its finest makers. Pieropan Soave Classico 2023 is a refreshing, energetic white, which, like Sid’s streetside discovery, leads with heady aroma. Follow a mouthful of this lively white with the cheesy, onion centre of the kulcha, and the wine shows its flavoursome core. What at first seems simple is, in fact, layered and lovely — in this dish and the wine. We are fortunate in Aotearoa that so many of the world’s famous wines get here, and even more lucky that some classics, like Pieropan Soave, are still affordable.

For a red wine, let’s go to Hawke’s Bay — a region known for its distinctively perfumed Syrah. The same grape that Australia calls Shiraz and famously makes into big, jammy, often alcoholic reds. In the hands of the best producers here, like Trinity Hill, it is a far finer wine altogether — finer in body and lift, sinewy and fragrant. Trinity Hill Hawke’s Bay Syrah 2022 is also a bit of a bargain buy. Trinity Hill makes far pricier Syrah, including the $100-plus Homage, which justifies its price. This wine, their white label Syrah at a fraction of the cost, is an excellent ambassador for its grape, maker, and region. A red wine with just enough body to match both the dish’s spicy warmth and crunchy, chewy texture. Big Syrah — it adds a peppery aromatic hit that I seem to recall Sid declaring an umami match.