The secret element

Some of the leading chefs of the country pick their favourite ingredient and showcase their talent through a plethora of dishes. Follow their lead, suggests Sharmila Chand

The lockdown has sure brought the good out of all of us and we are working towards finding the best ingredient to battle the ennui of the pandemic. Here are some leading chefs who help us find that one ingredient/vegetable from our kitchen staples to rustle up something new. Read on...

With their individual cooking style shining through, interesting dishes range from a classic French dish — Mousse aux trois oignons, croustillant aux oignons and a traditional Gond & Millet Halwa to a more adventurous ‘Pumpkin Bharta & Curried Tomato Achaar with Ragi Crisp and a rather unusual — Linguini with Black Garlic, fresh Water Shrimp and Vermouth.

Pumpkin all the way

Chef Anurudh Khanna specialises in modern European dishes and enjoys giving his dishes a healthy spin. His plating techniques involve playing with textures, foams, and sauces to make the dish look more interesting by using contrasting colours to create visual appeal. With a unique blend of creative flair, Chef Anurudh
finds his culinary passion in the humble pumpkin and has been intrigued since childhood as to why this superfood is so underrated and not so popular
with guests, and conceived to be boring. Pumpkin is rich in beta-carotene, packed with antioxidants, high in Vitamin C, fibre, potassium etc. making it a healthy addition to any dish, he believes.

Chef Anurudh Khanna

Chef Khanna’s Pumpkin Bharta with Curried Tomato Achaar & Ragi Crisp is a spin on bharta, which is a very common dish made in almost every household with roasted eggplant cooked with spices. “I wanted to use the same technique to make my dish, and enhance the punch of spices in the pumpkin pulp and make it super interesting — common yet uncommon. The ragi crisp adds extra fibre to the dish along with a healthy aspect and most importantly gives a contrasting crispy texture to the soft pumpkin bharta. Tomato achaar adds that tang and sweetness to the spicy bharta making it a wholesome tongue-tickling mélange of flavours.”

Chef Vikas Singh

Onion, the hidden hero

Chef Vikas Singh began his career in bakery and confectionery and soon forayed into European cuisine where he specialised in French and Italian cuisine. For Chef Vikas Singh, onion is the hidden hero of every cuisine. “For me, onion is the hidden hero in every dish and in every cuisine, from Indian, regional to French, Italian or Asian. It comes in various forms and types and has a very peculiar taste. From eaten raw in a simple salad to stir fry or in any stew dish, onion always plays an important role. The best part about onion is you can cook it in different textures and forms. Also, it is endowed with various health benefits and nutritional sources.” Talking about his personal pick amongst onion variety, ie., Bermuda Onion, he says, “It comes out well whether roasted, braised, sautéed, stewed, or grilled.” He loves to prepare a French Dish —

Mousse aux trois oignons, croustillant aux oignons

— which is a creamy, smooth onion mousse served with chips of onion. He explains, “It is made with three styles of onions — onion chips, onion roast and onion mousse. Onion chips — French onion sliced and dehydrated in the oven overnight with Maldon salt, castor sugar and butter spray. Onion roast — onion cooked into a Parmesan water for 20 min and roasted in the oven with cinnamon and star anise spice. Onion mousse — thin sliced French onion, cooked till brown along with Madeira — fortified wine, later with egg white and cream cheese — served with 2 min poached yolk.”

Chef Simran Singh Thapar

Gond is a star

Executive Chef Simran Singh Thapar’s forte lies in crafting innovative creations and successfully infusing different cuisines to create the perfect blend of unique flavours in conventional dishes. His signature dish, Gond & Millet Halwa is a perfect example of his creative thought in staying true to his roots. “This recipe uses my favourite star ingredient, Gond, an edible gum which acts as an immunity-booster. It also helps to eliminate cough and cold in winters. Millets also provide protein and dietary
fibre that enhances the nutritive value of this halwa. I add ginger powder/ saunth as the warming spice that makes it perfect to consume in winter months. Nuts
provide good energy as well.”

Beetroot Kanji

Glory of beetroot

Head Chef Manish Uniyal has been extensively trained in Western kitchens with Italian cooking as his subject of pursuit. He also takes pride in promoting regional Indian cuisine and working with various home chefs.

Beetroot has its moments of glory in the hands of Chef Manish Uniyal. He says, “beetroot is one of the most underrated vegetables and also my favourite. Its versatility gives a chef plenty of options to use it. Served as a salad or a drink in the form of soups or desserts, raw, boiled, baked or squeezed, beetroot provides endless opportunities when it comes to putting it on the menu. Beetroots are packed with a wide variety of nutrients,
vitamins and minerals. Of late, beetroot powder has emerged as a dietary supplement and superfood.”

Chef Uniyal presents the season’s favourite drink, Kanji. “Fermenting beetroot to make Kanji counteracts its natural sugar content and makes it a highly probiotic drink. It has an acquired taste but surely hits the right notes with true ferment fanatics. A popular trick to give it more satiety is dunking a vada into it. Kanji aids in digestion and is good for gut health.”

Get your fill with millets

Framing, refining and enhancing Indian cuisine to suit the changing city trends is the forte of executive chef Balaji Natarajan. Chef Balaji swears by millets as his favourite ingredient and loves to prepare Pearl Millet Paniyaram, a speciality of Kongunadu cuisine. He explains, “This savoury preparation is made out of fermented pearl millet batter with dehusked black gram lentil and a few fenugreek seeds. The batter is fermented for 8-12 hours and then cooked in a traditional ancient skillet called Paniyaram Kallu (a cast iron skillet which has cavities to form a half dome-shaped dumpling). This is served typically during breakfast and also as an evening snack with different chutneys and sambar. My personal favourite accompaniment is a spicy tomato ginger chutney. Sometimes paniyarams are served with stuffings like chutneys, onion, and peanut masala.”

Executive Chef Vikram Ganpule loves to experiment with ingredients which are not so commonly used and seen. Black garlic is what one will invariably find on top of his kitchen platform.

“An ingredient that I have recently stumbled upon is fast becoming my favourite — black garlic,” he says. “This is a sort of cured/fermented form of garlic which is black in colour. The flavour is smooth and almost sweetish which is why it pairs very well with the dish that I make with it — Linguini with black garlic, freshwater shrimp and vermouth. I use a puree of black garlic with a velvety smooth sauce and finish it with a dash of vermouth which offsets the sweetness of garlic and shrimps perfectly. It is also unusual to find black garlic and that too cured and ready to use. Further, garlic is an immunity-booster and in these times this is what we need more of.”