Portraits on a platter

Since my school days, I was always interested in cooking and tried everything that was available at home. My mother used to scold me because I would spend a lot of my time in the kitchen.

Once I started going to college, my elder brother’s wife understood my interest and suggested that I do Hotel Management; there was no looking back since then. When I went for industrial training, I also got the award for the best trainee of the year, and that in a sense gave me wings to achieve my dream.

For me, I make food to feed someone or meet someone’s hunger. It gives me immense satisfaction when I see a smiling face.  For a chef, the ingredients are like paints for an artist; I use them to make a portrait on a plate. I have also catered for the Commonwealth Games and it was a great experience and feeling to cater to the players and officials from 71 countries. To know their culture and food was a great knowledge sharing platform.

Also, we learnt a lot as we had to work with world class standards in food processing, right from receiving of the material to the final plating of the food. Also food inspectors and dieticians from different countries were around to check the quality of the food. My first assessment as a section in-charge was during the Junior Common Wealth Games in Pune.

That was my first experience with bulk cooking, but with the support of my fellow colleague everything went very well. Also, my boss had faith in me and that helped a lot. I have learnt many cuisines because of my interest and I have always been eager to learn about different cultures and food. Although I worked with the Western cuisine since the beginning of my career, one day I thought of cooking my own cuisine (Bengali food) and it came out very well. My short tenure in Kerala gave me a chance to learn something about South Indian cuisine and appreciate the food as well.

Working as an Executive Sous chef in Trivandrum was a challenge as it was the first time that I was heading a department.

My general manager trusted me to do everything, from buying the equipment from different cities to setting up the kitchen, menu planning, recruitment of the team and dishing out the food. It was a great challenge and a wonderful experience.

Today, I bring a typical Bengali recipe for ‘Baingan Bhaja’ or ‘Begun Bhaja’. It is easy to make and tastes very good.

Ingredients
n 1 cup — 250 ml
n 1 large eggplant (‘baingan’), cut into half inch round slices
n 1 tsp chilli powder
n ½ tsp turmeric powder
n 1 tsp garam masala powder (optional)
n 1 tsp dried mango/amchur powder (optional)
n Rice flour as required
n Salt as required
n Mustard oil or sunflower oil for frying

Method
n Rinse the eggplant in water. Pat dry with a kitchen towel.
n Now slice the eggplant in ½ inch thick roundels.
n Soak these slices in salted water for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove and pat dry all the slices.
n Now add all the spice powders and salt and mix the slices well. Marinate for five to seven minutes.
n Heat oil in a pan. Take rice flour in a plate. Coat each slice with rice flour.
Dust off the
extra rice flour.
n Now pan fry the eggplant slices till crisp and golden brown on both sides.
n Drain the slices on paper tissues.
n Serve ‘Baingan
Bhaja’ hot with
 yogurt or any yogurt dip and some bread or rotis or naans.

Dev Bose, Executive Chef,  Howard Johnson
(As told to Bindu Gopal Rao)