'We are becoming a chef-driven society'

There are many homemakers who have been cooking much before we started cooking, yet they believe that the chef cooks better than them. We are becoming a very chef-driven society. It is very important to bring out the best of ghar ka khana and make them familiar to the world.

Any homemaker who cooks with minimum resources needs to be given the respect and appreciation. We need to bring this under the limelight and encourage the scenario,” says Ranveer Brar who was in the capital to announce the winner of ‘Del Monte Italian Escapades’ contest which invited consumers and foodies from across India to contribute their unique pasta recipes.

The campaign saw participation from over 300 top food bloggers in the country to create original, unique and innovative pasta recipes.

The recipes were shortlisted and judged by the chef, who also recreated six recipes and chose the recipe sent in by Samina Patel as the winner. 

The contest highlights the growing popularity of Italian food in India and consumers cooking at home, in particular. Pasta has emerged as a big favourite when it comes to Italian food in the country.

“Italian food has been established as the second cuisine in India. So it is very important to keep that spirit alive. And events like this inspire people to cook more and anything that inspires people to cook more is good. I am pleased to see the enthusiasm that the participants have showered. Some of the recipes were so good that I could have directly incorporated it in my restaurant’s menu. It was indeed difficult to choose the best recipe and finally one winner out of the 185 recipes that the contest received,” he adds.
The chef further emphasised on the need to make Indian food more familiar
in the West.

According to him, “Although Indian food is the fourth popular cuisine in the world, the West doesn’t know much about it. Most Indian restaurants outside have copied and pasted some fixed dishes which are more popular. So we need to understand the palate of the West and customise Indian food which they would like.”