The quintessential wine bar

The quintessential wine bar

So many folks have opened a wine bar in this country right before going bust that it has become the gastronomic version of the Japanese self-gutting suicide tradition of Seppuku! The fortunes of restaurateurs who have otherwise enjoyed success seem to nose-dive from the time they inaugurate their take on a ‘wine bar’. What baffles me is that how can something so simple remain so elusive? Here are a few things that do NOT constitute a wine bar: 1. A traditional wine bar focuses on wines. A solitary spirit and a few brews may be splashed on for non-oenophiles who accompany wine lovers to the bar but such people are discouraged to visit. Bigger discouragement to wine lovers is when beers and blended malts are priced cheaper than a glass of an average wine. 2. Formal dining is not needed and a wine bar is all about the sip, and tasting. Food is there to provide a palate refresher, something to accompany the wine, not vice versa. A wine bar is not a restaurant. What most establishments missed in India was that they were restaurants trying to brand themselves as wine bars. 3. Regular glassware and equipment: If it is a true wine bar, they will have a separate washing machine for glasses, special detergent, service decanters, storage equipment, et al. A visit to the cellar or the area behind the bar should be as much of a turn on a BMW. Anything to everything that can valorise a wine should be stocked, and utilised. 4. Standardised menu: While the best restaurants pride themselves on a menu that hasn’t change since it was first conceived, such can spell doom for a wine bar. To identify consumer likings and trends and then to adapt the wine list accordingly with options aplenty by-the-glass is the only way to bestow longevity upon a wine bar. Abroad many wine bars easily meet these criteria. In India, the only place I have seen so far that is getting it as-close-to-right-as-possible is the Vinoteca in Mumbai, run by Sula. The wine list appears a tad restrictive but it has enough options for a casual evening of non-ponderous sipping, the tapas-like snacks are good accompaniments, the ambience is tasteful and non-intrusive but the best part is the absolutely superb pricing! The music is fairly hip (they had Eminem on) and I didn’t mind that although my company seemed to find it too non-wine-friendly (and then they call me a wine snob!)

The single malt gets married to a spicy kebab It’s a marriage made in India, for those who have acquired a taste for single malts but still love their Indian accompaniments to whisky,

The single malt gets married to a spicy kebab

It’s a marriage made in India, for those who have acquired a taste for single malts but still love their Indian accompaniments to whisky,

For me, it was somewhat schizophrenic to begin with. One moment I was transported to the cool Scottish highlands of Inverness from where my Dalmore single malt had come, with traces of the sherry wood cask in which it had matured for 12 years. The next moment I was yanked back to my native land with the spicy aftertaste of Tala Gosht, boneless mutton marinated with ginger-garlic and roasted on a griddle. The pairing of single malt, which tends to have distinctively sharper flavours than blended whisky, with Mughlai kebabs, which can be equally attention-seeking, is not for the faint of heart. But, however counter-intuitive it might seem, this is the order of the day as Indians acquire a taste for single malts while retaining their preference for the spicy meats and paneer they like to have with their whisky. Not for them the buttery broccoli, which would be a perfectly submissive partner to a feisty malt. Pragmatic as ever, ITC Grand Central’s Kebabs & Kurries paired up whisky connoisseur Sandeep Arora with Chef Ishmeet Singh to try and make this seemingly incompatible marriage of a single malt with a spicy kebab work. The result was a meal which did have its ups and downs but nary a boring moment. The whisky progressed from a 12-year-old to a smoother 15-year-old before finishing up with the rich mellowness of the Dalmore Gran Reserva. Side by side, the food made its way from the aforementioned Tala Gosht and a Hara Kebab to the main course of Gosht Hari Mirch and Paneer Khurchan, before cooling down with a saffron and pista infused kulfi. Oh, and in between, there was the Kebabs & Kurries signature dish of Gosht Dum Pukht Biryani, which stood alone without a malt by its side. The strong aroma of rice in the biryani would overpower any whisky, and so it must remain unmarried, Arora explained to me. On Chef Ishmeet Singh’s part, the trick was to pick kebabs and dishes with a Peshawari origin, which are milder without garam masala or perfumes like ittar. Across town, another fine dining place, Oberoi’s Ziya, was playing host to a similar marriage between classy Glenfiddich single malts and some attractive Indian delicacies. Twelve, 15 and 18-year-old Glenfiddichs were followed by a 21-year-old Balvenie. Here at Ziya, sous chef Renji Raju was happy to give a European touch to some of the food pairings. So although he began with a vigorous Punjabi dhaba-style chicken masala to go with the youngest Glenfiddich, he had a whiskyed truffle for the grand old Balvenie. In between, there was a smoked bevda prawn, and yes bevda does mean ‘drunkard’, because this dish is whisky-flambéed. For the main course, there was Tandoori Raan with a difference: a Rogan Josh sauce came with it and the Raan was braised with spinach and pine nuts to make it milder than the traditional one. Here too, Chef Renji did away with the usual finishing touches of garam masala which would have upset the single malt. When pressed to admit the unnaturalness of this pairing, however much you toned down the spicing, Renji simply pointed out that people here like their food spicy, and now they like their single malts too. As for me, I had by now figured out how to manage my schizophrenic responses. I knew just how much of a gap to leave between a sip of smoky malt and a bite of spicy kebab. As long as they give each other a little space, there’s no reason they can’t live happily together ever after.

Like em white, red or fruity?’ Has never been a big fan of wine, but enjoys the drink when concocted with fruits and liquor in a chilled, refreshing glass of Sangria

Like em white, red or fruity?’

Has never been a big fan of wine, but enjoys the drink when concocted with fruits and liquor in a chilled, refreshing glass of Sangria

Wine’s always been a pain in the head for me. The bitter taste, the dry feeling it leaves in its wake and a headache every time I’ve had too much of it makes it difficult for me to go beyond the occasional glass at most places. Discovering sangria, or in other words a wine punch, was a revelation. The fruits bring about mellowness and takes away some of the wine’s bite — a taste which is more to my liking. It helps that the sangria culture is mushrooming. The Grand Hyatt’s restaurant Fifty Five East, for example, has started offering sangria as a part of the daily buffet. The number of cuisines offered alongside can result in a head-spin though, the drink coupled with everything from Thai, sushi and Lebanese to Indian and western food. What made the experience really worth it is the sangria itself. It made sense starting with white wine and then moving up. There were three white sangrias on offer: one that mixed white wine with peach, one that mixed it with pear, and the other with green apple. The red sangria, on the other hand, mixed red wine with melon. These are different from the traditional sangria, which mixes red wine with orange juice and brandy-plus-rum. “We have the traditional sangria as part of the menu, in case people want to go for the tried-and-tested, but we have our own concoctions on offer,” says Julien Lloyd, assistant director, F&B, Grand Hyatt. The number of people opting for sangria from the menu has gone up at the hotel, even though it plays second fiddle to the more traditional cocktails like margarita on Sundays, when sangria isn’t necessarily a part of the buffet. “However, sangria sales on Sundays are almost identical to wine sales. People probably take to sangria faster; wine is more acquired taste,” says Lloyd. Most restaurants, including Fifty Five East, stick to their own sangria concoctions largely. I insisted on trying my red sangria with green apple at the restaurant, and it turned out to be a concoction I enjoyed the most, much to the amusement of the bartender. “The sangria culture is still work-in-progress. There’s no one perfect concoction — it largely depends on taste,” says Lloyd. MIX AND MATCH The difference in taste between red and white sangria is more or less the difference between red and white wine itself, explains Sheldon Pereira, the bar manager at F Lounge and Diner. “Red sangria, like the wine itself, is a heavier drink. Your choice of sangria would largely depend on the kind of wine you prefer,” says Pereira, adding that red wine mixes best with apple, orange and pear, while white goes best with kiwi, litchi and pineapple. When making the drink at home, you can change the kind of red wine according to your preference too. sangria mixed with merlot, for example, will be on the fruitier side, while a cabinet sauvignon makes Sangria peppier, says Sheldon. Cecilia Oldne, head of international business at Sula Vinoteca, likes the menu to not stick to any such rule though. While listing out the essentials to make a wine punch tasty and fun, she makes it clear that the drinker “shouldn’t be afraid to experiment.” Grape, orange, pineapple, litchi and guava juices can be mixed interchangeably with both red and white sangria, she says. Oldne’s personal favourite, though, is a sparkling sangria, not a concoction available at most other places. “Sparkling wine tastes great with orange, apple, watermelon, pomegranate seeds and pear. The drink’s flavour keeps changing through the year too, with the wine being mixed with whatever fruit’s available in the season.” Oldne talks of sangrias with much passion, at one point calling it “fun and uncomplicated” like she’s affectionately referring to an old romance. My own affair with sangria is just about getting started. DO TRY THIS AT HOME Get together these elements: lA bottle of (cheap) red wine lA 7up, Sprite or another sparkling lemon drink lA glass of liquor (ideally brandy, whiskey or cointreau) lFruit punch comprising of orange, apple, pear lSugar to taste Dip the fruits in brandy overnight. Mix with red wine and a dash of Sprite. Chill and serve. Alternatively, mix and match the wine with other fruits of choice fizzy drink.

All that glitters is saffron Saffron may not be an essential ingredient, but its versatility and distinctive flavour make it as precious as gold in the kitchen

All that glitters is saffron

Saffron may not be an essential ingredient, but its versatility and distinctive flavour make it as precious as gold in the kitchen

Few foods have the kind of effect saffron does:Even before the first bite of a saffron-infused preparation, there’s a synchronised assault on your visual and olfactory senses. Seated comfortably at Soma, the Indian restaurant at Mumbai’s Grand Hyatt hotel, as the waiter opens a pot of steaming saffron-infused biryani, a private battle rages in my mind — should I heed the years of conditioning, or give in to my baser instincts and devour the food in front of me? One tentative bite of the golden yellow rice preparation, and my mind is made up. I will savour this meal. Saffron is, after all, as precious as gold. “Saffron, or kesar, is the most expensive of all spices,” says Pushpendru Sen, chef de cuisine at the Grand Hyatt, as he brings in the first course during the saffron festival at Soma. We start with a paneer ka sheekh, murgh zafrani kebab and macchi tukda. Saffron flavouring works well with the milder paneer and chicken, lending them a rich yellow colour and a distinctive sweet flavour. The taste of fish, on the other hand, overpowers the saffron. “To be able to bring out the saffron, the fish is marinated thrice. It is first washed with saffron, then marinated with it, and finally, before the fish is put into the tandoor, it has to be brushed with saffron again,” says Sen. That’s a rich meal if you ever had one. In India, saffron grows only in Kashmir, and therefore sells at a very high price. It is allegedly a more lucrative commodity for smugglers than gold because it is more difficult to detect. Only a few cultures have adopted saffron into their cuisines. North-Indian, Iranian and Spanish cooking involves the use of saffron. Incidentally, these are also the largest saffron producing countries in the world. The menu — dishes from the northwestern frontier — has been chosen to highlight the versatility and unique flavour of saffron. Sen says he learnt to cook most of the dishes during his stint as a chef at a hotel in Kashmir. “Saffron is used in almost every dish in Kashmiri cuisines — in the rich and spicy dishes the Muslims make, as well as vegetarian food of the Hindus,” he says. “It is used more sparingly in the Mughal-inspired Avadhi cuisine, and even the way that saffron is used is different,” he adds. In Kashmiri preparations, the meat is cooked along with saffron. “For example, aab gosht, boneless mutton in an onion gravy, is cooked in saffron water. In Avadhi dishes, on the other hand, saffron is added after the dish is cooked, mostly for the colour it lends the gravy,” says Sen. Besides its colour, Saffron’s distinctive flavour gels well with the flavour of meat. Instead of adding saffron only as a garnish, when it is cooked with mutton, it enhances the flavour of the meat. However, cooking with saffron requires constant monitoring. “It has to be cooked at the right temperature, and for the right amount of time. If overcooked, the saffron won’t give off its flavour. Slow cooking on low heat is the best way to bring out saffron’s flavour,” he adds. The Spanish use saffron in some preparations of paella, but usually only as a garnish. Sen says he is inspired by the way Kashmiris cook food. “Take gustava for instance. The chef personally chooses the goat and watches it get butchered, making sure it’s done right so the muscles don’t go rigid. There’s a kitchen help whose only job is to pound and tenderise the meat for 6-8 hours. This kind of dedication is something I haven’t seen in any kitchen outside of Kashmir. I’d have liked to include gustava in the menu here, but to make sure it tastes authentic, I’d need the right kind of meat cooked at the correct temperature.” Instead, he chose to make aab gosht. There’s a rogan josh on the menu too, but aab gosht requires fewer spices, so the flavour of both the meat and the saffron stand out. “In rogan josh, with all the other spices that go into the recipe, the flavour of saffron is much milder,” says Sen. The aab gosht arrives, along with a handi of chicken biryani. The food is only lightly flavoured, and the natural flavours of the meat stand out. The highlight of the meal is undoubtedly the laban ke kofte, curd croquettes stuffed with figs. The sourness of the curd is offset with the sweet figs, and the ingredients blend well with a saffron-infused gravy. That’s the thing about saffron: It could be a garnish for a dish or it could be the ingredient that holds the other ingredients together. And while it’s not an absolutely necessary ingredient, once you’ve had biryani, or meat, or even fig koftas cooked in saffron, no other version of these preparations will ever taste the same. As a substitute for saffron, cinnamon comes close, and can be used in most dishes, sweet or savoury. We end this rather royal meal with a warm kheer. Saffron has a sort of natural affinity with desserts. It lends the otherwise bland-looking kheer a rich, pale yellow colour, and even just two pieces of the thread-like spice breaks the visual monotony of the dessert. The real clincher, however, is the taste. Just two strips of saffron can instantly transform a dessert, thus changing the way you experience food.

Crustless Spinach Quiche

Colour your plate green

“Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelt as good as bacon,” said Doug Larson, the American cartoonist. However, it is important to know how good green leafy vegetables are for you. Some of the most nutritious greens are swiss chard, collard greens, spinach, mustard greens, rocket or arugula, varieties of lettuce (iceberg being the least nutritious), broccoli, cabbage, native Indian greens — methi, varieties of amaranthus, bathua and other vegetables like cauliflower, beet greens, turnip greens and radish greens. Green leafy vegetables are very low in calories. As they are rich in fibre, they fight frequent hunger pangs and help with weight loss. Fibre lowers one’s cholesterol and regulates the spikes in blood sugar post meals. Research shows that a serving of green leafy vegetables helps reduce the risk of a coronary heart disease by 23 per cent. Research published in the British Medical Journal also states that eating more green leafy vegetables can considerably reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Antioxidants found in dark green leafy vegetables protect one from certain types of breast, skin, lung and stomach cancer. Vegetables belonging to the cruciferous family (eg: cabbage, mustard, turnip)have this life-saving quality, in particular. cooking with greens lTossing cooked and separated brown rice with greens and garlic to make an Asian style fried rice lPasta with sautéed greens and a white sauce, baked to make a casserole lCooked greens with eggs, milk and cheese to make a quiche Mediterranean salad like Tabbouleh with lots of whole parsley and mint lUsing leaves as a wrap instead of a tortilla or roti that can be filled with a variety of ingredients. Crustless Spinach Quiche Ingredients 1 tsp olive oill3 cups of roughly chopped spinach, including tender stalks 1 medium onion, slicedl1 clove garlic, finely chopped 3 medium sized eggs 3/4 cup milk  1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs 1/2 cup crumbled or grated cheese or paneer 1/2 tsp salt l3/4 tsp ground pepper Handful of fresh herbs, finely chopped or 1 tbsp dried herbs (oregano and thyme) Method Preheat oven at 180 °C. Grease a 6” pie dish or a baking tin lIn a pan, heat olive oil. Add the sliced onions and garlic, lightly saute for 3-4 minutes on medium flame, until onions are softlAdd the spinach and saute for a minute until just wiltedlIn a bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, salt, pepper, herbs well and add the crumbled cheese. Transfer the spinach mix from the pan into the bowl and mix with a fork.lPour into the greased pie dish. Top with bread crumbs, more freshly ground black pepper and dried herbs and bake for 20-25 minutes until a knife comes out clean.

Taking the flour out of the cake Healthy desserts may be good for the body, but are they good for the tongue? Shikha Kumar can’t stop raving about cakes made with whole wheat and fresh fruit

Taking the flour out of the cake

Healthy desserts may be good for the body, but are they good for the tongue?  can’t stop raving about cakes made with whole wheat and fresh fruit

Desserts and health are rarely mentioned in the same breath. Think dessert and one imagines fluffy cakes with layers of butter cream icing, huge sundaes, and for the Indian at heart, gulab jamuns soaked in sugary syrup. However, the divine taste only lasts so long. The regret at having indulged in calories lingers for a longer duration. Take Divya Ranglani who has a sweet tooth. “I used to indulge in desserts, but there was always stress and guilt after eating them,” she says. Having done a course in naturopathy, Divya started thinking of alternatives to satisfy the sweet cravings. “I am against the idea of using artificial sweeteners in food. Nature has everything. We just need to explore the options,” she asserts. Today, she makes cakes, cookies and even Indian desserts by substituting traditional ingredients like refined flour with whole wheat, oatmeal and bran flour. The basic binding ingredient in all her cakes is a mixture of these three items. She uses seasonal fruits instead of sugar, and olive/canola oil instead of butter. While these do sound healthier than traditional desserts, how well do they measure up in taste? Her orange and dark chocolate muffin is moist and delicious with the right hints of orange. It’s hard to tell that the cake does not contain refined flour. The date and carrot cake is crunchy because of the assorted nuts and has a steady sweetness to it, because of the dates. “There is no sugar in the date carrot cake. Soaked dates have an inherent sweetness that needs to be neutralised with wheat,” she says. Rising incidence of lifestyle diseases and awareness about the means to deal with them is spurring people to make a conscious change in their diets. Amrita Bhoolabhai started thinking seriously about healthy alternatives to sweets when her nephew was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. Today, her cakes are made using whole wheat, raw sugar and fresh fruits. In certain cakes, she substitutes butter with buttermilk. “Some people are allergic to gluten so I use nachni (finger millet flour). Anything can taste good if you know how to do it,” she says. The cakes available in her shop include the chocolate yoghurt cake made with whole wheat, fresh yoghurt, and brown sugar, and a date and orange cake made with wheat, crushed walnuts and orange rind. Nutritionist Hira Mahajan is in favour of desserts made using wheat and oatmeal. Hira believes that for people who need to eat carbohydrates after a workout, a small piece of fruit cake is a good option. “Even for children engaged in physical activity, wheat cakes are great source of energy,” she says. Dr Manoj Chawla, a diabetologist at Lina Diabetic Centre, emphasises the importance of knowing the difference between healthy and sugar-free desserts, the latter being harmful for the body. He advises eating healthy desserts in moderation as they still add up to extra calories. “Overindulgence makes even healthy desserts an oxymoron as sometimes fresh fruits and dry fruits are high in calories,” he says. Dr Chawla recommends that people buying these desserts should know all the ingredients in detail before eating. After all, as famed cartoonist Jim Davis pointed out, ‘Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.’

Let them have clean water With 200 delicacies on offer, street food vendors in Kolkata maintain a rich tradition and provide a vital service; hence they deserve support from the municipal corporation, writes Sankar Ray

Let them have clean water

With 200 delicacies on offer, street food vendors in Kolkata maintain a rich tradition and provide a vital service; hence they deserve support from the municipal corporation

The food joints in central Kolkata, including the main commercial hub, Benoy-Badal–Dinesh Bag (erstwhile Dalhousie Square) are the symbol of city’s cosmopolitanism. Here, high-salaried executives stand in front of street food semi-kiosks alongside low-paid wage earners for one thing — the food’s mind-blowing taste. This ‘street food city’ extends over Kolkata’s south-central region along stretches of Shakespeare Sarani, Anandilal Poddar Sarani and Abanindranath Tagore Sarani. Here, you get a four or five course meal, complete with roomali rotis or tandoori rotis, scrumptious vegetarian and meat preparations for unbelievably cheap rates that fall below Rs20. Traditional meal hours are from 12pm to late afternoon. Almost 200 delicacies are laid out here to seduce foodies — chow mein, idli, dosa, uttapam, bhelpuri, golgappas, or pakodas, each available for Rs10 to Rs15. It gets cheaper still. A meal of rice, dal and vegetables can come for as little as Rs7 on the gastronomic streets of Kolkata. If you happen to find yourself somewhere near the Writers’ Buildings — the seat of the Government of West Bengal — after 5pm with a growling stomach, approach a street food hawker. He will offer you a plate of chow mein for Rs5 — something that can leave any Mumbaikar or Delhiite stunned. A few days back, I was very hungry and reluctantly (as restaurants in and around Benoy-Badal–Dinesh Bag would be crowded) ate a plate of chicken fried rice for Rs15. I casually told the hawker that people are hesitant to eat street food due to improper cleaning and the health hazards it poses. He replied, “If that’s true, could we be here for days together? There may be exceptions. But food poisoning from dishes sold by us has never been reported.” The soft-spoken street-hawker, who declined to be named, went on to refer to a study on Kolkata’s street food, undertaken by the All India Institute of Hygiene & Public Health, Kolkata in collaboration with the Rome-based UN outfit Food and Agriculture Organisation, between 1993 and 1995. The principal supervisors of the project were Professor Indira Chankravarty, former director, AIIH & PH and Dr Colette Canet, the then nutrition officer (food contamination, monitoring and control), food quality and standards service, FAO. Dr Chakravarty maintains that “it is a cottage-industry which is surprisingly nutritious, providing nearly 1,000 calories at incredibly low rates”. Dr Siddhartha Gupta, a physician, endorses the view. “Conclusions of the AIIH & PH-FAO survey are valid even today. The quality of street food is good on an average and incidences of illness among daily consumers are not high.” “Usually there is not much leftover after daily sale and hence rotten foods are not sold,” he continues. “Moreover, vendors and their food stalls thrive on the quality of food and their relationship with regular customers. So they remain conscious, too”, he explained. About 1,50,000 street food hawkers form 55 per cent of the total number of hawkers that keep the vibrant food culture of Kolkata alive. According to the Hawker Sangram Committee (HSC), a joint front for street vendors’ unions, Kolkata’s street vendors used to generate an annual business of nearly Rs8,800 crores in 2001-02. The food-sellers had over 50 per cent share in this turnover. Over 1,20,000 street-food-vendors, mostly operating during the day in make-shift stalls, could feed 7.8 million people a day. With the number of hawkers increasing by about 25 per cent and an equal rise in the number of customers, the yearly turnover has crossed Rs 10,000 crores. The HSC is, however, aware of the poor water quality in the hawking areas. “We have been asking the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to arrange potable water taps around the hawking areas,” explains HSC assistant secretary Murad Hussain. “We are ready to pay for that but ... cooperation from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and the police are missing,” he says.

Masala kapi, anyone?

Masala kapi, anyone?

India has a coffee drinking culture that runs back several hundred years. During this period, people came up with a variety of coffee-based drinks and preparations that go beyond the standard south Indian filter coffee that you get in most Udipi restaurants. I was introduced to a few at the recent South Indian Coffee festival at Taj Lands End, Mumbai. “We have several well-travelled guests who come to our hotel, and we wanted offer them something other than regular coffee on our menus,” says Aakanksha Rawal, restaurant manager, Atrium Lounge. “I started by asking our in-house south Indian chefs for ideas, and over three weeks we experimented with various coffees recipes.” In addition to this, the team brought in a large brass filter from Chennai. Coffee powder was sourced from a supplier in Tamil Nadu and for the Kumbakonam coffee, the powder was sourced specifically from the Kumbakonam region of Tamil Nadu. At the festival, apart from Kumbakonam coffee, there was Iced Chukukapi, coffee-based infusion of spices, Karp Katti, coffee that’s flavoured with palm jaggery, Ingi Kapi, coffee infused with dry ginger, and Malli Coffee, which is made with sukku powder. Chukukapi is the perfect drink to cure the most fearsome cold. Not a hot favourite, really. Hence, I was momentarily taken aback to find that the drink has worked up its way to the posh tables of Taj Lands End. “Chukukapi is made at my home to this day during winters or when somebody is down with cold,” says Chef Arathi who hails from the Chettinad region of Tamil Nadu. Preparing chukukapi is a two-step process. You first boil water, turn the flame off and add ginger, cumin seeds, peppercorns and tulsi to it. The flavours infuse overnight. The next day, you strain the spices and use the water to prepare coffee in the usual way. For the coffee festival, the team decided to give it a twist. The chukukapi that I had was a far cry from the ones served at home. Instead, what I had was a hipper version of the drink — iced, without milk and with very little sugar. It was like having a herbal coffee infusion, though I would have preferred some more coffee for that extra kick. Karp katti was interesting because it uses palm jaggery as a sweetner instead of sugar. The coffee had a richer flavour than the regular variant. But it was malli coffee that really stood out for me. The coffee is prepared with sukku powder, which is a combination of dry ginger, peppercorns, and coriander seeds. The spices are roasted and ground together, and mixed with the coffee decoction. Milk is then added to it, and after heating the mixture the powder is strained out. The flavours of ginger and coriander dominate the coffee aroma, with the pepper adding just that little zing to the taste. Taste, of course, is subjective, and not everyone may like their coffee prepared in such a manner. But it certainly is revealing to know that spices that are freely available in the market, can make coffee taste so good.

Xianing new light on China What passes for Chinese food in India is mostly Cantonese. Apoorva Dutt gets a taste of food from another region of China, and that is Xian, which gave her a few surprises, some pleasant and others dubious.

Xianing new light on China

What passes for Chinese food in India is mostly Cantonese. Apoorva Dutt gets a taste of food from another region of China, and that is Xian, which gave her a few surprises, some pleasant and others dubious.

When most people reach beyond the usual ‘Indianised’ version of Chinese food (served with lashings of soya sauce and scraggly bits of egg), for authentic Chinese, what they are usually enjoying is Cantonese food. Largely credited, both in and out of China, as being the best of the regional Chinese cuisines, Cantonese food tends to overshadow other, smaller variations: such as that of Xi’an, the capital of the Shaanxi province in the northwest. “There are three aspects which really differentiate Xi’an cuisine from other regions,” explains Hui Wei, a chef originally from the Xi’an region, who now works in Beijing. “It has adapted the best of the north and south styles of cooking of the country. It also uses a variation of different cooking styles — for example, Qiang, which is to fry quickly in hot oil, then cook the meat with sauce and water; and Zheng, which is to cook a dish by prolonged steaming. It also uses vinegar, salt, capsicum and garlic in different and exciting permutations.” Xi’an cuisine is also known for its wide variety of dumplings, which are served as pan-fried, steamed, boiled, roasted or deep-fried. Indian audiences have rarely experienced this cuisine — not many restaurants are brave enough to serve up a dumpling with a straw sticking out of it to Indian diners, as we were at the Golden Dragon restaurant at the Taj Mahal hotel last week, at their Xi’an food festival. Called the Jiaozi, this bulbous dumpling is served with a straw so that diners can slurp up its clear soup filling, right before they dive into the remains — soggy carrots, peas and corn, along with the shell of the dumpling — with a spoon. We failed abjectly at getting any soup through the straw, trying valiantly to suppress the feeling of almost certainly looking foolish, and ultimately resorted to annihilating the dumpling with a spoon and scooping the soup into our mouths. The other dumpling, a steamed chicken dumpling, was pan-seared and tasted vaguely of roti. These dumplings are Xi’an’s speciality; traditional banquets with only dumplings on the menu serve more than 20 variations of dumplings, stuffed with vegetables, meat and seafood. Once the starting point of the Silk Route, the Xi’an province boasts of food which is a mesh of Middle Eastern and Chinese foods, and has been influenced by both ‘traditional’ — that is the Tang Dynasty cuisine — and the ‘modern’, which is food from Shaanxi. Xi’an is also known for its rich variety of seafood, so our hopes were raised when the seafood chowder soup was placed in front of us. A beautifully clear, thick soup, with crunchy prawn slices and soft crab slivers, the hearty soup was filling and delicious. The next dish, the Baozi, is the “Chinese version of the burger”, as the chef informed us — two hard buns sandwiched fried lamb and chopped capsicum. The bun was too hard and coarse, and the lamb was fried with an excess of generosity when it came to the oil. The addition of capsicum also seemed haphazard, a last-minute attempt to make the Baozi interesting. The Baozi, however, is a dish with an interesting history — it is one of the many snacks served up in Xi’an’s staggeringly prominent street food culture. Mostly based in the Muslim Quarter, the street food features dishes such as the Feng Mi Liang Gao, or Honey Cold Glutinous Rice, which is a slab of glutinous rice with a dark, sweet sauce made of dates and black sesame seeds spread over it. This dish is folded in half, after which ground nuts and white sesame seeds are pressed into the surface. Cut into dainty diamond shapes, this is then served with toothpicks. At this point, we were wondering whether we were being served less-than-perfect food, or that Xi’an food itself wasn’t that good. Our doubts were assuaged somewhat with the delicious Biang Biang noodles flat, wide noodles served with minced lamb and chicken. The subtly-seasoned noodles were an example of what Chinese cuisine can get very right. The meal ended with a scoop of rich vanilla ice cream, served in a sesame-encrusted wheat shell, a surprisingly good combination. Xi’an cuisine might not be everyone’s favourite Chinese province: though the meal had more misses than hits, the dumplings are an adventure for the momo-crazy, and the Biang Biang noodles definitely worth a second helping. Maybe a visit to the Xi’an province — and to the great dumpling banquet — would turn out to be more gastronomically fulfilling, if not so easy on the wallet. d_apoorva@dnaindia.net

Food of the food gods When away from home, which restaurants do Indian chefs visit?

Food of the food gods

When away from home, which restaurants do Indian chefs visit?

Five celebrity chefs who globetrot as seekers of world cuisine, list their favourite places to dine: Sanjeev Kapoor, founder, FoodFood  I don’t eat out much in Mumbai, yet when I’m travelling abroad, I have a favourite restaurant for each city. My current favourite restaurant is a Japanese eatery in New York — Megu. With over 15,000 square feet of sheer spaciousness, it is modern in its approach to décor and food. I’m travelling to New York soon and am already thinking of sampling the assorted sushi and sashimi there that’s hard to beat. The tuna tartare with its finely chopped raw tuna manages to tantalise me every time. I also love the yellow tail carpaccio. I benchmarked it with Nobu, but found the food, service and ambience to be even more ‘wow’ here! Hemant Oberoi, corporate grand chef, Taj Luxury Hotels One of my favourites has been Per Se in New York. It’s the quality of the food that makes it especially appealing. Plus, the menu is different every time I have been there. The quality of cooking has been nearly perfect each time. Nikhil Chib, chef and owner, Busaba My all time favourite restaurant has to be Le Relais de Venise in Paris, which I stumbled upon by accident and where I’ve been at least 20 times since. It’s famous for its premium cut of beef for steak or entrecote, which is served with the most delicious sauce. Along with it, they serve a salad, French fries and house wine, which they then proceed to reinforce with a huge second helping for the most reasonable price in Paris. The only weird thing about the restaurant is that they don’t take pre-bookings and there’s always a crowd of people waiting for entry there. I went there first when I was 18 and have been taking my friends (including local Parisians) from all over the world ever since. It’s been a big hit with my friends as well. Ananda Solomon, executive chef Vivaanta by Taj — President I remember the first time I went to Le Cirque in New York was when I was travelling as part of the Indian Prime Minister’s delegation to the US. I discovered it accidentally while experimenting with New York’s restaurants along with friends. The food I had was cooked very close to the way it is cooked in France. The sauces, particularly, were outstanding in terms of technique. Though it’s been several years since I’ve had a meal there, I still remember the restaurant’s foie gras with apple sauce which was simply brilliant. The brick chicken was perfectly cooked and the memory of its sorbet and dessert is something that has stayed with me. Vikas Bagul, executive pastry chef, the Oberoi hotels and resorts Since I’m a pastry chef and chocolatier I’m usually on the lookout for exceptional pastry shops whenever I travel. I found two superb places in Paris – Pierre Marcolini and Pierre Herme – that were both high-end. Pierre Marcolini, which has all the trappings of luxury with its black and gold décor, has the best pralines that I’ve eaten. The handmade chocolates here use the finest cocoa powder that I’ve encountered. Pierre Herme, on the other hand sports a more colourful orange, white and pink décor and stocks superb macaroons. This French biscuit made with almond flour and egg-white simply melts in the mouth while the shell remains crisp.

And then there were 9 handis For the surviving heirs of the 12-handi style of cooking, letting go of some traditions is sometimes the only way to save others,

And then there were 9 handis

For the surviving heirs of the 12-handi style of cooking, letting go of some traditions is sometimes the only way to save others,

As a boy, Naeem Surti was his grandfather’s pet and thus accorded a special privilege. Every evening, his grandfather, Hafiz Ismail Surti, would put on his special sherwani, take young Naeem’s hand and the two would head to the family’s restaurant, Surti 12 Handi in Mumbai’s Bohri Mohallah. There, Naeem would sit next to his dada and watch him ladle out food to the hungry crowd waiting to eat Surti 12 Handi’s special bara handi, a dish made by mixing food from 12 handis. The entire lane would be filled with the aromas of different meats bubbling in the 12 handis in front of the shop, each of which were filled with meat — pichhota (the tail of an ox is used as a cow’s tail is too small), topa (hump), bada paya (trotters of cow and ox), chhota paya (trotters of goat and sheep) and sukha (beef with gravy). “People would stand in line so that Dada could serve them bhel (the bara handi mixture),” reminisces Naeem, 39, who is continuing his grandfather’s legacy. The bhel included some of the meat and gravies taken from each of the handis and mixed together in one plate. “The combination of those differently spiced gravies and meat would have people licking their hands in delight,” says Naeem. In Hafiz Ismail’s time, the quantities prepared were so large, the gravies served with each meat would be cooked in separate handis. Two handis were reserved for dal and tari (a type of oil mixed with red chilli powder). The meat and gravy was accompanied by freshly made khamiri roti (made with wheat flour and maida), lamba pav (a triangular naan) or loaves of bread. Ramzan would see an even bigger crowd than normal and barricades would have to be put up. Decades later, Naeem’s challenges are different — decreasing customers, changing palates, the danger of redevelopment and the loss of a few handis. The number game Surti 12 Handi was one of the first to introduce the bara handi style of cooking to Mumbai. It’s a style that Naeem still follows, though he’s been forced to reduce the number of handis; three of them had to make way for the “more necessary fridge”. He makes the masalas from 22 spices (used in different variations) for each of the dishes. The 12 handis are filled with meat and gravy and cooked together in a bhatti (a box-shaped oven). The upper part of the bhatti has cylindrical holes, in which covered handis are placed to cook for 10 to 12 hours. Slow cooking brings out the flavours of the meat and allows its natural juices to combine with the spices. These days, reduced demand has forced Naeem to use only nine handis. “People do not like mixing their meats anymore and prefer ordering individual dishes,” says Naeem with a rueful smile. The handis for nalli (bone marrow), dal and tari have been discarded and these are now cooked separately. Nalli is added to all the dishes for an added layer of taste, dal is “served like ghee on top of the chhota paya” and tari is the final garnish on all the dishes. Surti 12 Handi’s food has an artery-clogging layer of ghee and fat floating on top, but the delicately-spiced meat falls off the bone and the gravy is deliciously spicy. According to Shahid Rafi, singer Mohammed Rafi’s son and a regular at Surti 12 Handi, “The best part of the meal is that although the food is heavy, it digests easily.” Surti 12 Handi still makes pichhota, bada paya, chhota paya, nalli and sukha, but in lesser quantities. During Ramzan, nalli nihari (beef bone marrow in milky gravy), which is delicious when combined with pichhota or topa, is added to the menu. Each dish is cooked in two batches in two separate handis, one for breakfast and one for dinner. Naeem says meat cooked in larger quantities had a distinctive flavour of its own, but he’s made his own modifications to the recipes. For example, his gravies are thicker than the earlier soup-like mixture. In the beginning The Surtis had two family eating joints, one in Bohri Mohallah and the other in Crawford Market but the first, Surti 12 Handi, was Naeem’s grandfather’s pride. “He was gifted the restaurant as reward for becoming a hafiz (the title bestowed on someone who has memorised the entire Quran),” says Naeem. There is a touch of pride in Naeem’s voice when he talks about his dada.” He introduced bara handi cooking to the city,” he says. Naeem’s fight to keep his grandfather’s memory intact will take a new turn later this year when he opens a new branch of the shop in Jogeshwari. “There I am going to make sure I serve all the bara handis,” Naeem promises.

Beer and all that’s dear to Brussels Raising a finger in a Brussles bar will get you a glass of beer. But one must leave space for gourmet dishes when visiting the seductive city

Beer and all that’s dear to Brussels

Raising a finger in a Brussles bar will get you a glass of beer. But one must leave space for gourmet dishes when visiting the seductive city

Brussels wears an alluring and decadent scent. Easy to understand, when you consider that Brussels international airport is the biggest chocolate selling point in the world. And that the meals in Flanders are famously languid and always hearty. As I walk through the city’s main eat street, the narrow Rue des Bouchers, I follow my nose into a café dishing out, what to many, is Belgium’s national dish – moules or mussels. “Use a shell to scoop them out,” says an enthusiastic waiter. “Eat them with instinct. Abandon your fork.” In Belgium, fries accompany just about everything, including mussels. Legend has it that the treat was created here in the 1750s in the Mosane region, when the winters were extremely harsh. With conditions that were unfavourable for fishing, the region’s inhabitants decided to cut potatoes into slices resembling a small fish and fry them. The original, hand-cut Belgian fry is usually 1 cm thick, soft on the inside, crisp on the outside and does, in fact, resemble a very small fish. Because food and drink are big parts of the lives of people, there is an elaborately developed code around it. If you’re in a crowded pub and raise your little finger, it gets you a standard glass of the house tap beer. If you want the smooth and dark-coloured Trappist beer that has been made for centuries by the Cistercian monks, you need to call the abbey at least two weeks in advance. Now because the average age of a monk is 65 years and the number of recruits to monasteries is on the decline, you can sense the worry that people have about the fate of this popular beer. The demand created by this scarcity is reflected in the fact that people buy Trappist beer at 30 euros and are able to find a buyer for it on eBay for 300 euros. But the fate of Trappist beer notwithstanding, you’ll get every variety of beer from Gueuze to Kriek. As one local put it, monks in France might have dedicated themselves to wine-making, but in Belgium, they’re devoted to beer. A gourmet pilgrimage to Brussles is peppered with delightful dishes like a bag of speculoos — biscuits spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Or, the infamous creamy chicken-based stew called waterzooi. For the more daring and adventurous, there is bloedworst — black pudding made from pig’s blood traditionally served with applesauce. As far as food experiences go, Brussels is seductive. I could nibble off the ear of the chocolate version of the Mannekin Pis right now.

Old-world charm Shruti Haasan

 Old-world charm

Shruti Haasan

This charming café close to Pali Naka is probably one of my favourite restaurants in Mumbai. It’s great to go out there and hang out with friends. What keeps dragging me every time to this joint is its ambience. The whole rustic feeling simply makes you feel good and that warrants Pali Village Café as a pretty cool café!
The moment you enter the place it gives you a feeling of being in a time machine and entering into a different world, a contrast from the regular hustle bustle of the city. The decor is simply captivating — the cafe has a wrought-iron stair railing, a balcony seating overlooking the seating below, a cosy dining room with wooden chairs and quirky old photographs adorning its walls. It’s simply classy yet not too formal. The element that interests me the most is the big screen that always has some interesting old movie playing on it.
The menu which mainly boasts of Mediterranean flavours, is thoughtfully put up. Their dishes have a lot of interesting combinations and experiments, that mostly work. I managed to try out a couple of delicious dishes. Each of the components in the dish was fresh, flavourful and offered a whole array of texture, taste and visual appeal. From the grilled chicken to the salads — they use organic, fresh and tasty produce. My favourite dish would have to be the garlic prawns in coriander broth. It’s simply yummy — you cannot miss this dish. The broth is light and it enhances the flavours of the garlic prawns. The combination is impressive and I recommend this dish to everyone. It’s definitely a must try. Other than that, I also liked the chorizo and the phyllo pastry pouches.
Apart from the food and the ambience, the staff makes this place to stand out. They are completely efficient and do a great job. Plus it’s close to home, so that saves me a lot of travelling. The whole aura surrounding Pali Village café — quirky furniture, dim lights, dark colours, ancient walls and the subtle flavoured food — manages to bring a warm smile on your face, as you listen to the Mediterranean music.

Scones By Chef Prashsant Sabne, Renaissance Mumbai Convention Centre Hotel

Scones

By Chef Prashsant Sabne, Renaissance Mumbai Convention Centre Hotel

Ingredients for 10 portions

l 900 gms flour
l 125 gms butter
l 125 gms sugar
l 50 gms baking powder
l 1250 ml cream

Method:

Take a sanitised electric mixing bowl. Add all the dry ingredients to it. Start the machine at a low speed and slowly add melted butter to it. After butter gradually add slightly warm cream to it. Warm the cream so that the butter does not set. Mix it at a low speed for three-five minutes. Rest the dough for 10 minutes, then roll it one-inch thick. Cut with a round cutter and allow it to again rest for five minutes. Apply egg wash or milk wash and bake it at 225oC. Serve with whipped cream and strawberry jam.

Cinnamon and Honey Pancakes By Chef Suresh Thampy, Executive Chef, Courtyard by Marriott

Cinnamon and Honey Pancakes

By Chef Suresh Thampy, Executive Chef, Courtyard by Marriott

Ingredients:

l 200 gms flour
l 2 eggs
l 15 gms baking powder
l 10 ml vanilla essence
l 20 gms sugar
l 30 gms honey
l 10 gms cinnamon powder
l 2 cinnamon stick
l 70 ml milk

Method:

Mix in flour eggs baking powder and sugar and milk to create a dropping consistency batter. Now add vanilla essence honey and cinnamon powder. Let the batter rise up a little. Make thick pancakes and stack them

Asparagus and Mushroom Pancakes By Chef Chetan Washikar, Pizza by the Bay

Asparagus and Mushroom Pancakes

By Chef Chetan Washikar, Pizza by the Bay

Ingredients:
l 2 each eggs
l 3 cups all purpose flour
l 3 ½ cups skim milk
l ½ tsp salt
l 1 pinch baking soda
l ½ tsp chopped basil
l 1 tsp chopped parsley
l 1 pinch chili flakes
l 1 tbsp parmesan cheese
l To taste crushed black pepper
l 2 tbsp melted butter
l 40 ml olive oil
l 40 gms onion, chopped
l 10 gms garlic, chopped
l 1 each bay leaf
l 1 tbsp béchamel
l 2 tbsp fresh cream
l 30 gms sundried tomatoes
l 90 gms green asparagus
l 50 gms button mushrooms
l 1 pinch nutmeg
l 1 tsp chopped chives
l 1 tbsp sour cream
l Dry oregano, to taste

Method
Beat eggs lightly, add salt, flour, baking soda and half the milk. Whisk well to remove lumps. Stir in remaining milk until you get a thick consistency. Add the herbs, chili flakes, parmesan cheese. Whisk in melted butter and set aside. Wash and slice mushrooms, and asparagus. Soak sundried tomatoes in warm water for 30 minutes. Strain and set aside. Heat olive oil a thick bottom skillet.ASaute chopped onion and garlic. Add the mushrooms and asparagus. Sauté for a few minutes, add béchamel and cream. Add sundried tomatoes. Add grated parmesan, nutmeg and some chopped parsley. In another skillet, sauté asparagus tips in butter. On a moderately hot cast iron griddle or non stick pan, drop 80 to 90 gms of pancake batter. Let it cook slowly for three minutes or so, until small bubbles appear on the top and the sides start to dry. Turn over and allow the second side to cook. Assemble two golden baked pancakes in a serving dish. Top the pancakes with creamy asparagus mushroom ragout.

GUJARATI MASSAMAN CURRY

Sauté onions and garlic with one packet massaman curry paste as you would for an Indian curry. When the masala seems to be letting out its
aroma, add two small tetrapaks of coconut milk. (I use the Ayam brand, widely available in India but there are many local versions.) Stir and cook over low heat till the curry thickens. Now add half a mug of good quality chicken stock. As the curry simmers, add chunks of boiled potato and a fistful of unsalted peanuts.
Taste the curry to see when it is done (i.e. the thickness you want and no kachcha masala taste), adjust the seasoning. You may want to use Thai fish sauce, soya sauce, sugar, lemon or whatever. After you turn off the heat you can add aromatic leaves and cover. You can use kothmir/dhaniya, sweet basil, makroot leaves, etc. I usually don’t have them handy so I don’t bother, but it does improve the flavour.
Take a pork chop and cut into small pieces. Mix a paste of garlic, ground galangal (or ginger) and mashed lemongrass (you can use powder but fresh or bottled paste is better) and smear it over the pork pieces. Put aside for half an hour. In a very hot wok, add vegetable oil and wait till it is as hot as you can imagine. Throw in the pork and stir fry quickly for about two minutes or so, depending on how well done you want the meat to be. Remove from the pan, drain the oil. Taste. If it seems under-seasoned, drizzle with a little fish sauce or dark soya.

Make brown rice as normal. Cut onions, tomatoes and cucumber to make a Gujaratistyle kachumber, seasoned with nimbu. You can add chillies to the kachumber if you like the spice.
In individual dinner plates, make a pile of pork on one side and a mound of brown rice on the other. Put the kachumber somewhere in the middle. The curry goes into individual bowls.
To eat, you mix the pork, rice and kachumber and add as much of the curry as you need depending on how moist you want each mouthful to be.
Roasted papad on the side helps with the texture. (This is a Gujarati dish, after all.)
I make this to eat at home but as you can see, the presentation is suitable for dinner parties or fancy entertaining. Drink Coke or beer with it.

THE CURRYNAMA

Though found in many countries east of the sub-continent, it is hard to deny that the curry originated on Indian shores

WHO INVENTED CURRY? If you answered, “India, of course,” then you may well be right. Except that people in other countries may disagree with you. After all, curry is an Asian dish found in many countries east of the sub-continent: Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and Thailand.
Photo: DINODIA SPICE ROUTE Indian curries depend on dry spices and do not usually use coconut milk but dairy products such as ghee, dahi, etc The Japanese freely admit that their curry was inspired by ours. The Malaysians and the Indonesians are slightly more circumspect, but it is hard to deny that their curries originated on our shores. Only the Thais present a problem. They claim curry as their own and argue that their curries – as globally famous as Indian curries, these days – have nothing to do with ours. They developed independently, they say, and only the English word ‘curry’ suggests a bogus kinship with our cuisine.
The Thais point to two key differences between their curries and ours. The first is that they rely on fresh herbs while our curries depend on dry spices. The second is that an essential ingredient of their curries is coconut milk. Indian curries, on the other hand, do not usually use coconut milk but depend on dairy products: Ghee, dahi, etc.
I asked Ananda Solomon, the only chef I know who is at much at ease with both Thai and regional Indian food, what he made of the distinction. Ananda conceded the general point about spices versus herbs but argued that the Thais also used spices (ground coriander seeds, etc) and that Indians used fresh leaves like dhaniya, kadi patta. So, the differences were not as clear-cut as the Thais suggested.
But it was the use of coconut milk that intrigued me. When the Thais say that Indian curries do not use coconut milk, they refer to north Indian food. And certainly, it would be bizarre to use coconut milk in a rogan josh or a korma. But there’s much more to Indian cuisine than the food of the north. And once you go south of the Vindhyas, the Thai claim seems shaky.

Coconut is one of the mainstays of south Indian cuisine. It is used in nearly every form (flesh, oil, etc) all over the south, and in Kerala and parts of Karnataka, coconut milk is an essential ingredient in many curries.
In fact, once you compare the food of Kerala to the food of Thailand, the distinction between Thai curries and Indian curries is so slender as to be almost meaningless. The coconut milk curries of Kerala are fragrant, delicate and very different from the curries of north India.
So, did the Thais get their curries from south India? It is hard to say but we do know that the coconut appears in ancient Indian literature long before it turns up anywhere else. According to Hindu mythology, it was the creation of the sage Vishwamitra and archaeologists have found fossils all over India (including land-locked Rajasthan) which suggest that there were coconuts in India long before there were human beings.
The Thai coconut milk curries may be of more recent origin. They seem to have grown in popularity as recently as the 17th century and one theory (admittedly, not universally accepted) suggests that it was the Portuguese who encouraged the Thais to put coconut milk in their curries.
But why would the Portuguese, who use no coconut milk in their own cuisine, want the Thais to start using it? At this stage, the theory falters. Well, perhaps, they were missing the richness of dairy food, food historians suggest weakly. I have my own explanation. When the Portuguese came to Thailand, they did not take a direct flight from Lisbon to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport. They got to Thailand only as part of their general exploration of the Indian ocean, for which they used India as a base. Most Portuguese ships did not have conquistadors manning the stoves. Instead, they used Indian cooks who they had picked up in Goa and south India.
Could this be the route through which the coconut milk curry travelled from south India to Thailand? Nobody knows for sure but it is a plausible enough theory.
All cuisines develope and adapt after a while. So, while it is true that both south Indians and Thais use coconut milk, their attitudes to the ingredient are different. In Malayali cuisine, there are broadly three different strengths of coconut milk, depending on thickness. The curry is made in the usual Indian way with the masala being sautéed first and the thinner coconut milk being used as north Indians would use water in their curries. The thickest coconut milk goes in towards the end of the cooking process as a thickening agent.
For the Thais, however, the coconut milk is the point of the curry.
They begin the process by heating it till the fat begins to separate and floats to the top. Only then, do they add the curry paste.
According to Ananda, the secret of a good Thai curry is to let the coconut milk cool down a little before adding the curry paste/masala.

As much as I love Malayali food, when I do cook a curry at home, it tends to be the Thai version. It’s not because Thai curries are necessarily better but because they are so easy to make as to be virtually idiot-proof. All you need to do is to follow the instructions on the back of the packet of curry paste.
Here, for instance, is what it says, in Thai-English, on the packet of massaman curry paste that I usually use:
“Put coconut cream in a heated pan and add paste. Stir fry until oil appears on top. Add meat and continue stir fry until done. Fill the rest of the coconut milk. Boil to cook and simmer till tender. Put potato and cut onion. Add fish sauce, sugar, tamarind and seasoning as prefer. Leave it to boil until finish.”
Even in Thai-English, it is easy to follow. There is one obvious drawback in the method, though. Clearly, you are meant to add the coconut milk in two batches, one before the masala goes in and one after.
I don’t actually follow any Thai recipes myself even though I use their pastes. When I make a massaman curry, I Indianise the recipe and serve it Gujarati-style with papad and kachumber. My recipe is below.
Of course, it is completely inauthentic and they would probably cancel my Thai visa if I tried cooking it in Bangkok. But hey, what the hell!
Curry is our dish, anyway...

Lata Mangeshkar with her sister Usha & Meena traveled for 40km to visit new branch o f Goa Portuguesa / Diva Maharashtracha to enjoy hard core non veg dishes like Chicken Cafreal, Nagpur Saoji Mutton & Prawns in Mango Curry a day before onset of Veg Shravan Month at Andheri-W. For the non believers & hard core Non-veg eaters there are Grand Buffets for Lunch @ 499* + 1pt. Beer/ Wine/ Mocktail & Dinner @ 599*Nr. Ambani Hospital. Shravan food festival was launched at Goa Portuguesa / Diva Maharashtracha & It was attended by Mumbai’s who’s who enjoying a detoxifying pure Veg, Satvik food at Shivaji Park. There will be Shravan Thali for one month @ 349* Also for A-la Carte Main Course / Alcohol Dishes there is Monsoon Special offer - 50% Discount for Lunch and 25% Discount for Dinner at Andheri and Shivaji park branch.

5th December Chocolatier & Patissier, a unique name with unique palate. Specialising in 100% veg chocolate base palate which includes Premium Chocolates, Cakes, Muffins, Mousses, Brownies etc. Our unique flavors mixed with chocolate gives us excellent remarks from our clienteles. With the firm belief that we are not just about cakes, but we are a part of your celebrations. When we say this we actually mean it by offering theme based cakes, whether birthday, wedding or any other special occasions. More and more people with BIG smile is what we have always craved for, with our Midnight Deliveries anywhere in Mumbai is helping us to achieve it.

Gourmet Delight @ Goa Portuguesa

Lata Mangeshkar with her sister Usha & Meena Mangeshkar traveled for 40km to visit new branch o f Goa Portuguesa / Diva Maharashtracha to enjoy hard core non veg dishes like Chicken Cafreal, Nagpur Saoji Mutton & Prawns in Mango Curry a day before onset of Veg Shravan Month at Andheri-W. For the non believers & hard core Non-veg eaters there are Grand Buffets for Lunch @ 499* + 1pt. Beer/ Wine/ Mocktail & Dinner @ 599*Nr. Ambani Hospital. Shravan food festival was launched at Goa Portuguesa / Diva Maharashtracha & It was attended by Mumbai’s who’s who enjoying a detoxifying pure Veg, Satvik food at Shivaji Park. There will be Shravan Thali for one month @ 349* Also for A-la Carte Main Course / Alcohol Dishes there is Monsoon Special offer - 50% Discount for Lunch and 25% Discount for Dinner at Andheri and Shivaji park branch.

Keep food fresh in monsoons

KEEP THEM IN SEPARATE BOXES:

Fruits and vegetables should be kept in separate drawers of the refrigerator. Fruits give off ethylene gas which can shorten the storage life of vegetables.

WHAT NOT TO REFRIGERATE:

Don’t refrigerate potatoes. Keep them in a cool, dry place as moisture encourages sprouting. Keep onions in a well ventilated place, away from potatoes, as they can absorb moisture from the latter and get spoilt.

POULTRY ITEMS:

Fresh meat, poultry, fish and seafood should be refrigerated as soon as possible after purchase.

LEMON AND LIME:

Lemons and limes absorb odour from the fridge, so it’s best to keep them at room temperature.

DUMP PLASTIC BAGS:

Always store unwashed mushrooms and okra in a paper bag, not in plastic.

Cure for coughs Fusion tea

INGREDIENTS 

■ 5 gm fresh lemongrass
■ 5 gm dry ginger
■ 5 gm tea leaves
■ 100 ml water

METHOD

Heat the pan and pour water into it.

Mix fresh lemongrass, dry ginger and tea leaves and put into the vessel. Boil for 3 to 4 minutes.
Serve with sugar on the side.









It acts as medicinal food in the monsoon. It is also called marunnu kanji and is best eaten on an empty stomach early morning or for dinner. The main ingredient is a special kind of rice, locally called njavara. It is cooked in cow’s milk. Coconut milk is added towards the end. For taste, add black pepper, cloves, cardamom, and herbs such as tulsi and mint. It is cooked using jaggery and onions sautéed in ghee. Consume every day for 7-10 days. It is highly recommended in ayurveda and they call it a ‘therapy diet’.

Red pumpkin bhajiya

INGREDIENTS
■  1 cup grated pumpkin
■  1 large onion, chopped lengthwise
■  4 tbsp besan flour
■  2 tbsp rice flour
■  1/2 tsp (optional)
■  1 to 1.5 tsp ginger garlic paste
■  2 sprigs curry leaves
■  Salt to taste
■  Oil for deep-frying

METHOD

• In a mixing bowl, com bine the flours, chopped onions, grated pumpkin, salt, red chili powder, ginger garlic paste and curry leaves, and mix well. No need to add extra water.
• Heat oil to deep fry. Take a small portion of pumpkin mixture and drop into the hot oil.
• Deep fry the fritters until golden brown and crispy and remove from the oil.
• Serve with hot tea.