Becoming a chef wasn’t on my to-do list when I was growing up. I joined the hotel management course and it was during the training period that I got interested in the kitchen.
In fact, when I joined The Leela Palace Bengaluru, I had to cook something and show them that I could do it to get the job.
One of the first dishes I made was a roast chicken with mashed potato and gravy. Thanks to my good luck, the chef that I was reporting to was also impressed with my cooking.
Since then I worked in multiple kitchens of the Taj Group and honed my skills. I was also worked in a Michelin star restaurant in London for three years before I came back to India.
As I have worked in various kitchens, my speciality has become western cuisine. I started off my career in a French fine dining restaurant and then to Italian. Over the years, I’ve experimented with modern Indian and molecular gastronomy as well. However, South Indian cuisine is my favourite.
When I worked in Windmills Craftworks, I had the opportunity to learn and make various dishes in Karnataka. I loved that there was so much to learn and experiment with.
At XOOX Brewmill, I work with everything from modern Indian, European, Oriental to Japanese dishes. Interestingly, there’s Karnataka cuisine too. The recipe shared today is a Tandoori Vegetable Chaat which is a fairly simple dish to prepare. Unlike the normal vegetable tandoori dishes, we have used English vegetables like asparagus, enoki mushrooms, baby corn and broccoli. Cooked in a tandoor, we have marinated it with masalas that are easily available here.
Tandoori Vegetable Chaat
Ingredients
- Baby corn peeled (small size), 4
- Mushroom (medium size), 4
- Baby potato, 4
- Broccoli (small florets), 4
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Tandoori Vegetable chaat
"/> - Red capsicum (small size), 1
- Green capsicum (small size), 1
- Yellow capsicum (small size), 1
- Enokii mushroom, 4
- Cashewnut, 10
- Hung curd, 2 tbsp
- Jeera seeds, 1/2 tsp
- Coriander powder, 1/2 tsp
- Garam masala, 1/2 tsp
- Chaat masala, 1/2 tsp
- Salt to taste
- Ginger (small size), 1
- Peeled garlic clove, 6
- Red chilli dried, 2
- Chilli Powder, 1/2 tsp
- Black salt, 1/2 tsp
- Kasoori methi, 1/2 tsp
- Mustard oil, 1 tbsp
- Salted butter, 1/2 tsp
- Amchur powder, 1/2 tsp
- Lemon, 1
Method
- Wash, blanch (in turmeric water) and clean dry all the vegetables properly so that the marination can be coated to them nicely and evenly.
- Take the hung curd in a bowl and put all the spices except chat masala. Whisk them all together breaking the lumps of hung curd to make it a smooth marinade.
- Put in all the vegetables together in the marinade mix them well so that all the vegetables are properly coated with the marinade.
- The medium of cooking we use here is a clay oven (tandoor) which is pre-heated.
- Arrange all the vegetables on the tandoor skewer softly so that they don’t break and fall off the skewer and put them inside the clay oven.
- After 6 to 7 minutes, once you have a nice colour on your vegetables, and your marinade is cooked, take them out and put them in a bowl again.
- Put some chaat masala, chopped coriander, mint and squeeze a lemon mix well, arrange in a bowl or a plate garnished with some onion salad and mint.
- Serve it along with mint chutney.