Chutney surprise

For chef Satish Arora, the idea behind every dish is always to pique your curiosity. Give him a traditional dish and he would put it back on the table with a nice little tasty twist.

My strong foundation in European cooking techniques came in handy when I began to experiment with Indian dishes. I could marry the best of both worlds and experiment with new dishes that would excite and surprise my guests as well as myself. One of the dishes I tried very early on at the Taj, was a spicy and colourful spaghetti. All I did was mix a little bit of green chilli, turmeric powder, paprika powder, chopped spring onions, chopped onions, garlic and coriander leaves with tomato sauce. The result was a colourful flavour-bomb. When I presented this dish to my chefs, they liked it since it was pungent and offered a familiar yet exotic kind of spiciness. We decided to name it Spaghetti Burmese. While serving it to guests, the team garnished it with a whole green chilli for a dramatic
effect.

Of all the things that I tried in the kitchen, I enjoyed the process of reimagining a home-style recipe the most. Give me a traditional dish and I would put it back on the table with a nice little tasty twist. For instance, I developed a home-style chicken curry, for which I used some chicken tikka from the tandoor, sautéed it with onion, garlic and chopped spinach and presented the dish as Chicken Tikka Palakwala. The idea behind every dish is always to pique your curiosity.

Then there was the restaurant favourite — a rich beef bolognese. I wanted to give it a different spin altogether, so I replaced the beef with minced lamb and made a sandwich out of it with grated cheese. It packed all the creamy deliciousness of a bolognese into the convenience of a sandwich and voilà! It was a surefire hit! Whenever I carried out my kitchen experiments, I would first serve the dishes to the executives of the hotel gathered for lunch. I would take their feedback and then tweak, improvise and improve my dishes. The kitchens were my laboratories and I saw myself as an alchemist — mixing, matching, blending, pairing, unpairing and stirring it all up into something new, unexpected and always fun. Once my experiments began to be well received, it added fuel to the fire of my imagination. But I also worked with a handicap — most of the chefs I worked with belonged to the old school of thought, preferring to fall back on traditional wisdom, recipes that had been handed down by word of mouth, and a hesitancy to push the boundaries. I had to lean on whatever books and magazines I could get to expand my knowledge. My dishes were my stories. I had my own language. I used my learning, my reading and my understanding of the grammar of cooking to create my signature style, with some quirky touches for effect. A slit green chilli where you least expect it, a fistful of tropical fruits in a savoury dish, completely new marinades for traditional dishes — I tried it all.

When you are in a Taj kitchen and you are open to experimenting, there is no end to the kind of dishes you can conjure up. I found inspiration in everything around me. I saw jars of sweet mango pickle that came from Gujarat and I wanted to pair the pickle with a creamy white sauce for a new chicken dish. I used a marinade of garlic, red chilli paste, a little lemon juice, salt and pepper, and then I breaded the bird. I chopped up the mango pieces from the pickle, added some extra cream to the white sauce and mixed in the chicken. It turned out to be a bloody good dish! People loved it, and I was happy with my creation.

(Excerpted with permission from Sweets And Bitters: Tales From a Chef’s Life by Satish Arora, as told to Chandrima Pal and published by Bloomsbury.)