India on My Platter (12 page)

I had the chance to meet my old chef friend Pranav Joshi, who ran his own culinary academy in Ahmedabad. He explained how most restaurants in the city served only vegetarian food. He also mentioned that the Gujaratis love experimenting and have taken to loving fusion food. To pay tribute to the city I was in, I decided to make a
Spaghetti Moilee
for Pranav and his students at the academy.

S
PAGHETTI
M
OILEE

(Italian spaghetti tossed in south Indian curry.)

Ingredients

Method

1.  Bring salted water to a boil. Add the spaghetti and cook until it is tender. Drain and run it through cold water and keep it aside in a large serving bowl.

2.  Heat the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. As they splutter, add the curry leaves and sauté for a few seconds.

3.  Lower the heat and add ginger, garlic and onions. Cook until soft and translucent and the garlic turns golden; stir occasionally. Stir in the chillies, turmeric powder and the assorted vegetables.

4.  Raise the heat to high and stir for about 30 seconds to a minute. Add the stock and let it come to a boil. Now add coconut milk to this mixture. Do not over boil after adding coconut milk. It might split. Add salt to taste. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook for about six to seven minutes, stirring occasionally so it does not stick.

5.  Add spaghetti to this reduced sauce. Cook for another three minutes or till the time the sauce coats the spaghetti. Now, stir in the tomato. Finally, drizzle lots of lemon juice and Parmesan cheese and serve hot.

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Pranav suggested that after a ‘fusion’ meal, we go out and have some
paan
(betel leaves prepared and used as a stimulant). Not just any
paan
but a Volcano
paan.
The reason why it is called so is that the conical stuffed leaf is made to sit flat, like a volcano, with a single clove at the top, which is then lit up, to resemble a volcano.
Paan
is a digestive, eaten after a heavy Indian meal. However, this
paan
had more to do with showmanship, a visual and gustatory experience, wrapped into one.

D
AY
36

10 September / Ahmedabad

Today, I visited the Mahila Swashray Kendra in Ahmedabad. Here, fresh Gujarati breakfast items were made on a daily basis, by 110 strong independent working women. I met Madhav, who was overseeing the operations; he seemed very passionate about empowering women and making them self sufficient who could also support their families. I learnt how food had broken all social barriers and was a medium through which so many women were able to be proud employees of a morally-rich business endeavour.

The business was started by Madhav’s uncle, Mr. Kalyan, and his two Jain friends, in 1985. I was then introduced to a few of the main lady chefs. They explained to me that Gujarati breakfast, usually consisted of
khakra
(thin crackers made from mat bean, wheat flour and oil),
khasta kachori
(flaky crisp pastry filled with a
moong dal
mixture and deep fried),
chakri
(wheel-shaped crunchy snack),
bhakri
(round flat unleavened bread),
gatiya
(crunchy and spicy deep-fried strands made from gram flour dough),
fafra
(wafer-like thin fried crispbreads), and
sev.
I was lucky enough to sample a few of these breakfast items. I really liked the
bhakad vadi,
a spicy snack made of gram flour and refined flour. It is usually fried and looks like pinwheel cookies. I also learnt that every household had their own version of the
khakra,
but the version here, at the Mahila Swashray Kendra, was very popular because of the dry chutney served on top of the
khakra.
The chutney is made of chickpeas and peanuts. The chutney was made with sautéed gram flour, yoghurt, green chillies and black salt. Madhav also explained that they were also thinking of baking these snacks, instead of frying, as a medium of cooking.

It was a delight to see so many women together in one place, preparing the food from scratch, weighing it, packing and storing. With such tempting food around me, I took permission from the head chef, a lady called Jasodha Behen, and set up a small station to make
Raw Banana
Pakoras
(fritters)
with
Khakra
Canapés,
my own twist to this story.

R
AW
B
ANANA
P
AKORAS
WITH
K
HAKRA
C
ANAPES

(Raw banana fritter served on a bed of thin crackers.)

Ingredients

Method

1.  Wash and soak the green gram lentils for at least three to four hours so it is fluffy enough to make a
pakora.
Drain all the water out.

2.  In the blender add the green gram lentils, green chillies, ginger and asafoetida and grind them. Add a couple of tablespoons of water if required for grinding it fine.

3.  Transfer into a bowl and beat the batter well, so that air is incorporated and it gets fluffier.

4.  Mix cumin powder, garam masala and salt in the batter. Check the consistency; it should be neither too thin nor thick.

5.  Peel and chop raw bananas into small pieces. Mix it in the batter.

6.  Heat three cups of oil in a frying pan.

7.  Fry
pakora-
sized batter in this hot oil; shape them with your fingers as you drop them into the oil.

8.  Let them fry for a minute. Then, with the slotted spoon, turn the
pakoras
around and let them fry; after a minute turn them back again.

9.  Fry until they become golden brown. Take them out of the hot oil and dab the excess oil out.

10. Break the
khakra
into even bite-sized pieces. Put chutney on the
khakra.
Place a
pakora
on the chutney. Garnish with grated radish.

∼

This little twist was appreciated by both Jasodha Behen and Madhav. After thanking them and wishing everyone good luck, I left with big bags of packed breakfast for my journey ahead. I finally understood what film star Amitabh Bachchan means when he says in his advertisement, ‘Breathe in a bit of Gujarat.’ It was already late afternoon by the time we left the Kendra. It was time to make it to Surat.

D
AY
37

11 September / Surat

Also called the diamond city, Surat is known for its flyovers! A lot of people don’t realise that Surat is a hub for all things food. The cosmopolitan population and the street food culture bring together to the city, a unique combination of dishes and experiences.

The people of Surat are a fun loving, enthusiastic and energetic bunch. Interestingly, the street food culture overshadows the restaurant culture here. The celebration of eating on the streets of Surat can be experienced at Kamrej Chowk every weekend. The variety of food available on the streets makes one feel spoilt for choice. One such Surat speciality is the
lochu.
I decided that the first thing I should eat here is
lochu.
I stopped at Jalaram to try this speciality. It is a staple breakfast item and is a steamed paste made of gram flour, flavoured with garlic and other spices, served with oil and coriander chutney. It is garnished with onions and
sev.
It is a combination of warm soft textures. Most of the places that serve
lochu
run out of this delicious snack a few hours after opening!

After my delicious breakfast, I headed to the factory of Janta Ice Cream. I had heard of all the wonderful things they were doing there. Exotic ice cream flavours are what these people at Janta are famous for. This ice cream company echoes the sentiment of the people of Surat: the eagerness to innovate and use local ingredients to come up with interesting new food. It was shocking to see a green chilli ice cream and more shocking to find a okra ice cream, which was sweet and salty at once. Other flavours included ginger, coriander, lemon and mint. Before adding these flavours to the ice cream base, I was told, they were cooked in
ghee
and seasoned. I had the opportunity to try a range of flavours that were made there. I took a fancy to the ginger ice cream. I felt like I was using the creamy texture of the ice cream to experience the kick of pungent fresh ginger for the first time.

My experiences were really unique and inspiring. One common factor throughout my journey was that I was getting to meet people who fascinated me with their imagination and sometimes, made me question my own belief system.

One such person was Sanjay Shahu who ran a place called Bhai Bhai Omelette Centre at Nanpura Road. Might sound a bit unusual but this small restaurant had an interesting story behind its name. ‘It is located in between a road that connects a Hindu and a Muslim colony. Years ago, when there used to be rifts in these two colonies, this omelette centre would be a common point to meet up. Hence, Bhai Bhai
(bhai,
in Hindi, means brother),’ explained Sanjay.

This is no ordinary omelette centre; another selling point is that they have 100 dishes on their menu and each one has egg as the main ingredient. So, starting from soup to starters to main course, you can have all the ‘egg’ that you want.

A few interesting dishes at Bhai Bhai were
anda palak,
eggs with spinach and cheese. Served with buns on the side was
anda rogan josh,
the classic mutton curry with egg in it. This was absolutely drool-worthy! I have to mention here that the secret behind all these delicious egg specialities was the generous amount of butter used to cook all of them. They operated every evening between 6:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. and sold 2000 egg preparations every day. So, one could only imagine how tasty all those dishes were. The shop had only two main
tawa
counters from where main dishes were prepared; such was the precision. Technically, it meant that Sanjay took only 19 seconds to dish out a plate! Wow! Now that’s really fast. I sat down with a family to enjoy a few of Sanjay’s signature egg plates. Noteworthy was the Australian fry, which was made of half-fried eggs, green garlic and cheese. It was called ‘Australian’ because of the colour combination. I also had the egg
samosa,
which was a masala omelette stuffed with cheese. The coriander-mint chutney served with it made it special.

It was only natural that after having all this, I come up with something that could beat all ‘egg’spectations. Since they didn’t have a modern fusion dish made out of eggs,
I
helped them to add the
Indian Devilled Eggs
on their menu.

I
NDIAN
D
EVILLED
E
GGS

(Stuffed hard boiled eggs.)

Ingredients

Method

1.  Shell the boiled eggs and cut each egg into two, lengthwise. Separate the egg whites and the yolks. Reserve the yolks.

2.  Combine the mayonnaise and the yolk. Stir them together with a fork. Once the mixture is roughly combined, throw in the rest of the ingredients.

3.  Taste the mixture and then adjust salt and lime juice.

4.  Arrange the white halves on a serving platter and place or pipe spoonful of the yolk mixture into the whites.

5.  Serve chilled, or at room temperature.

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The beauty of travelling by road, without an itinerary, never knowing what’s going to happen on the next curve, who you are going to meet, especially in India where water, food and people change every 100 km, enforces a change in the way one perceives life. I like to call myself a ‘Sadak Chef.’ This incredible Indian journey has taught me to overcome all my fears. There comes a moment when you start living in the present as you relish and truly feel the air you breathe in, feel the wind chasing you. That is a sign that you’ve attained the ‘soul of a true traveller.’

Nasik, bordering Gujarat and Maharashtra, was where I was headed to next. My destination was the famous Sula Vineyards, to meet Ajoy Shaw, the chief winemaker there.