Saturday, August 24, 2013


Lifting the lid off her passion

Swati Thakur, TNN | Aug 24, 2013, 06.16 AM IST
READ MORE Italian try-outs|healthy food|Chinese poha
LUDHIANA: For most of us, cooking is something we do because we have to. But Jyotsana Jain enjoys doing it and looks forward to opportunities that hone her culinary skills. Without her realizing, slowly yet surely, the smart chef carved her way out into this creative zone. What really makes her different from others is her ability of creating wonders from small things.

'Cooking is not just about exotic spices and expensive ingredients. A good cook is the one who knows how to effectively use those little things in your kitchen to make something that you have never tasted before,' she says. The thought is supported by the recipe book she has in her hand. 'I have maintained this diary for a very long time and every time I create something new, I write it down in there,' she adds.

Conceptualization is Jyotsana's forte and her dishes are a fine example of her creativity. 'From Chinese poha and poha kheer to Italian try-outs, I try to make ordinary healthy food into delicious cuisines,' she says. Unlike many who develop a taste towards this skill while helping out their mothers in the kitchen, Jyotsana inherited her passion for cooking from her father, who, she says, is still a pro at making cocktail drinks and jams. For someone who has such an expertise in cooking, it is easy to assume that it is a childhood passion. However, Jyotsana was inclined towards cooking only after marriage.

Married to a senior police official, Anil Prabhat Jain, Jyotsana says her husband's transferable job acted as a catalyst to discover her passion. 'When we moved to Jammu, many friends and relatives would come to visit us. As I was unfamiliar with the markets, I used to find it difficult to shop. One day when a friend visited us, I tried my hands at a new recipe with the things available at home. I haven't looked back since then.' Appreciation and compliments, she says, have helped her reach this position.

However, pride comes from the fact that her children never insist on eating out. 'I avoid ordering stuff from outside. I think the biggest challenge these days is to help your kids stick to healthy food and not get swayed by the junk available in the market', she says.
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Saturday, August 10, 2013


Global Goa: The world on a plate

Vivek Menezes, TNN | Aug 10, 2013, 01.18 AM IST
READ MORE South America|Octavio Paz
PANAJI: Try to imagine Indian food without chilies. We produce, consume and export far more than any other country — more than 30% of global supply — but the fact is chilies were unknown in the subcontinent until they first introduced from South America just over four centuries ago. Entering via Goa along with potatoes, corn, guavas, chickoos, in a stream of dozens of other plants and fruits from the "New World" of the Americas, these imports created a revolutionary and permanent shift in Indian diets and palates.

Another example: British colonialists annexed Upper Assam specifically in order to replaced its fabled old-growth forests with vast tea plantations. Up to that point, the only Indians familiar with the beverage were a few tribals in what is now Arunachal Pradesh. But it took just 100 years for chai to become our national drink, today Assam alone produces 11% of the world's tea crop.

These and myriad other examples demonstrate that whatever its attendant complications, there can be no doubt globalization has always delivered a culinary bonanza. Besides ingredients, there's also been a profound dispersal of new techniques, that led to entirely new ways of thinking about food.

In Bengal, the Portuguese first horrified locals by splitting milk to make cottage cheese (there called 'chhana'). But what was first considered an abomination immediately became the central ingredient of a whole range of sweets, including sandesh and rossogulla. Today, these are the very epitome of Bengali culinary identity. The process works in both directions equally effectively: the brilliant Mexican Nobel Prize winner, Octavio Paz has recounted how a nun from India wound up inventing one of Mexico's most iconic dishes, Mole Poblano.

Even more than other places, Goan food has greatly benefited from our homeland's historic role as a melting pot of cultures. After all, we experienced one of the earliest crucibles of what is now touted as globalization.

So it is impossible to imagine our most cherished dishes without the influence of the outside world, even while remembering the great Goan artist and gourmand, Francis Newton Souza's constant refrain - "our versions are always better than the originals!"

Thus, our sorpotel is a much more soulful, fiery version of the Portuguese original. Our bebinca is a considerably more sophisticated confection than the South East Asian sweet it is based on. And no Brazilian has ever distilled anything nearly as fine as feni from the cashew, despite the plant being native to that country (the word 'caju' is itself an import from an Amazonian language).

Despite attendant pressures and anxieties, we must note that Goa still remains one of India's most profound cultural crossroads. We now host tens of thousands of permanently resident neo-Goans from across the world, as well as unending numbers of Indian migrants. Many of our villages are every bit as multinational as Bangalore, with even small schools often including dozens of nationalities in their student bodies.

This 21st century churn has just as much foodie excitement as centuries past. Goa might be a fraction of the size of its neighbours, our population laughably tiny when compared the cities sprawling within an hour or two's flying distance. But very few places feature such an extraordinary variety of food available in our markets and restaurants, globalized demand has delivered the world onto our plates.

It is notable that much of the best "international food" available in Goa is made from local ingredients, right here in-state. Italians are making mozzarella, Frenchmen bake baguettes and croissants. The famous British butcher of Arpora turns out hundreds of kilos of what food guru Karen Anand (herself a Goan) describes as the "best bangers in India".

Today, the village of Anjuna by itself produces yummy Mexican corn chips, silken Russian-style sour cream, and truly superb French Dijon mustard, among a huge range of other artisanal produce. You can expect these fine proucts to go nationwide in short order, you simply can't beat the quality anywhere in India.

Goa's burgeoning food revolution has nothing to do with government efforts. In fact, mamy entrepreneurs and chefs who contribute efforts in this sector report harassment and extortion. And like everyone else in the state, they suffer from astronomical inflation, and an extraordinarily poor supply chain.

But make no mistake, huge changes to what we eat in Goa are underway again, just as in the 16th and 17th centuries. The results may be unpredictable, but I am certain they will be delicious.
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Saturday, August 3, 2013


Macaroons edge cupcakes out of the plate

, TNN | Aug 4, 2013, 06.20 AM IST
READ MORE YES|Monkey|champagne|cake|wispy confectionary
Dainty, crispy, delicate, elegant - these are just some of the adjectives used to describe macarons. And these fragile bits of wispy confectionary are edging out another faddy dessert that was responsible for floating a thousand home-bakers' careers - the cupcake.

Yes, the with-it turn up their noses at cupcakes these days while taking tiny bites out of this biscuit-like product that belongs to the meringue family. A macaron (also spelt as 'macaroon' ) is a crisp meringue shell made essentially with three things: almond flour, egg white and icing sugar. Usually, two macaron shells are sandwiched together with a filling, which can range from the humble buttercream to exotic concoctions such as wasabi-and-white chocolate.

"The meringue does lend itself to a lot of experimentation with the fillings. We are even creating some savoury macarons that will be more salty than sweet," says chef Tanmoy Savardekar of The Winking Macaron on Mosque Road. Savardekar used to be pastry chef at Olive Beach and Monkey Bar before he quit to start his own patisserie, and his macarons have created quite a buzz. Savardekar does macarons with several exciting fillings such as dark chocolate and star anise, peanut butter, vanilla caviar and salted caramel. The Winking Macaron also serves up other desserts but the macarons are the go-to option for most customers. The patisserie sells around 150 macarons every day.

Chef Girish Nayak, the current pastry chef at Olive Beach, is quite sure that macarons are poised to become the latest sweet craze. "At Olive, we have been doing macarons for four to five years and the demand is definitely growing. It is a versatile confection that can be consumed by itself, with a variety of fillings, with plated desserts as a substitute for biscuits, or with ice-cream," says Nayak. He has experimented with savoury macarons as well, filling them with foie gras and creating an especially la-di-dah one with a vanilla and champagne filling.

Venkatesh Raghu and Prasanth Shadakshari are so convinced of the macaron's imminent superstardom in the world of desserts that they have set up a factory to churn them out in large numbers in Basavangudi. Their venture, Amande Patisserie, is a year old and the two are set to open their first retail outlet at Hypercity in Brookefield, though they have been supplying macarons and other desserts to restaurants and bakeries. Why macarons? "My co-owner Prasanth is a Le Cordon Blue-trained chef and we were flatmates in Sydney. When we decided start our own venture in Bangalore, the macaron craze was just taking off in the West and we thought we would make it our primary product as well," says Venkatesh, who fell in love with macarons during his honeymoon in Paris. Amande also plans to introduce Bangalore to other delicate French confections such as profiteroles and millefeuilles, which are mainly available at fivestar cake shops today.
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