Does anybody remember my Secret Santa? Well, grease your cogs here. I have been a Chef Ritu Dalmia fan for a short while now and this has largely to do with her books and recipes instead of her television appearances because as my frequent rants will have proved to you, I subscribe to no food and lifestyle channels. Not by choice. But by default because my DTH provider is a big pile of decomposing potato peels and does not allow me to have access to nice things like BBC Traveller, TLC, Food Food, NDTV Good Times etc. So my food show viewing is limited to Star World when MasterChef comes on. I do avoid MasterChef India with very deep conviction because while it has one of my favourite chefs and celebs, Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, judging the show, I am very unforgiving about the amount of drama that the channel itself feels the need to sprinkle the show with: over seasoned, I feel. I have also convinced myself that Chef Kapoor can hardly control aforementioned drama levels on the show, given the fact that he is, indeed, not producing the show. I do empathise with his situation.
But I digress. Because by some great twisted plan of fate, I am unable to tell you anything at all about Chef Dalmia's TV personality. Thankfully, because I have her book Travelling Diva and a collectors' edition at that, I can assure you that I love her. She is full of hearty stories, little anecdotes, insights, quirky reasoning and I had the chance to have this outlook confirmed when I was invited for her latest book's launch in Mumbai. The book in question is Chef Ritu's latest cookbook for vegetarians, Diva Green. It happened at APB Cook Studio, which some of you will be kind enough to remember, is the place I conducted a beginners' cooking workshop for the visually impaired. The MD of APB Cook Studio, Rushina, very kindly invited me to the launch, threatening to strangle me if I ditched her last minute. Given that I really love her, I took this threat most seriously and proceeded to her studio, battling rain and a dry cough, which I fervently hoped was not infectious anymore (it was not!).
While we started with hellos and bumping into bloggers we knew in real life and knew from the online world, things gradually got serious and Chef Saransh Goila of the famous butter chicken and the food & travel show Roti, Rasta Aur India arrived with his crew. He had a heart to heart interview with Chef Dalmia, who was already at the cook studio, glorious aromas of basil and rosemary wafting through the air. Chef Ritu Dalmia spent a little time giving an interview and generally putting Saransh in a spot before we finally turned attention to her session with the food bloggers: most important this, given how yours truly was to be a part of the whole thing.
We started with a shot of Green Vichyssoise, a lovely cold soup shot, packed with nutrients, taste and potato. We were told by Chef Dalmia that our tummies would thank us for this and we'd have a lovely next morning with our bowels, a fact that most of us glossed over because nobody wanted to discuss their bowel movements just then. Nevertheless, the ice was broken, we were chided for being lazy and then told to go to our cooking stations to prove our mettle. Thankfully, we were armed with Chef Dalmia's books and the recipes we were making that day from the book, were bookmarked.
Here, I must mention somebody really amazing that I finally had the chance to meet: Roxanne aka The Tiny Taster. Yep, she is tiny and knows three recipes. Now, I have known Roxanne online for a while and seriously admire her articles on food (mostly on her blog, though she writes for several publications) and it was a delight to finally meet her. She wasn't at all how I had imagined her to be (I thought she'd be a reserved, quiet sort of person from SoBo) and she was also extremely nervous about being asked to cook so she plonked herself most conveniently between who she thought were accomplished cooks. She was half right, one of these people was Saee of the awesome MyJhola blog. I was the other. I don't know about accomplished at all but when she told me why she was standing between Saee and me, I was rather nervous. I hoped she'd go with Saee, who is a baking and cooking goddess. But I am very glad she came with me to my station instead because she was the perfect assistant. And she was full of little jokes, she wanted to learn new things and there was never a boring moment with her. I am hoping to run into her more often!
Chef Dalmia herself was very involved, moving from station to station, asking how we were progressing, giving little tips, answering questions and sharing techniques. I like her recipes a great deal: they are simple, not too process heavy, her instructions are to the point and there is tremendous room for improvisation. The again, Chef Dalmia is also old school and this came across rather clearly when she chided Chef Saransh for not being clear about what olive oil he wanted to use for his tomato sauce (he had started saying he'd use butter but was shouted down by the rest of us - he finally mumbled something that sounded like extra virgin olive oil). Chef Dalmia shared the recipe for a cheater's tomato sauce for pasta and the deluxe sauce, which is a lot more tedious to make and calls for more ingredients but tastes much more glorious (yes, I will share those somewhere down the line, don't I always?). Another instance that told me she's authentic with her dishes is when she asked us to kindly chuck our packets of dried oregano into the bin once we go home as far as Italian tomato sauces are concerned. She's a masterchef, that woman.
We were helped in our endeavours to replicate Chef Dalmia's Carrot Cake, Saint's Day Pasta and Spicy Mushroom Salad by Rushina's team, which includes this delightful woman, Harsha. She makes Mumbai's best tiramisu and you cannot stop eating it. I vaguely remember Roxanne trying to drag me away from the plate of tiramisu while I struggled helplessly with trying to look decent and not behave like a complete pig. She kept check on our cakes and pasta in the oven while we fussed around with our dishes, shot questions are Chef Dalmia and turned the lovely studio into a very messy place.
Here's a glimpse of our mushroom salad, with fresh button mushrooms and dried shiitake mushrooms. Most delicious. The original recipe does not call for toasted sesame seeds but that was one of Chef's brainwaves and I admit it took the whole salad to a new level of wow. I asked Chef if by a vegetarian cookbook, she had any particular definition of vegetarian in mind. She had the perfect answer ready.
"This is my concept of vegetarian, this is how I eat my vegetables. I am a meat eater but I come from a family of vegetarians so I appreciate the vegetarian situation. That said, I am comfortable eating eggs so you will find desserts that use eggs in the book. I am alright with animal rennet in matured cheeses so you will see I have used parmesan on the pasta. And I feel that vegetarianism is a very organic word, some vegetarians won't touch onion and garlic while others are comfortable with dairy, some other won't touch eggs. So this is my kind of food. I feel that if there is something you cannot or do not want to do, just don't do it. I am diabetic so I know I must not be eating certain foods - so I just give those up or curtail how much I indulge in them. I do not go trying to recreate those dishes with sugar free or other additives or vegan cheese in case one is lactose intolerant and things. But then, that is my attitude to food."
I loved her answer. Probably because it echoes how I look at food. If I cannot or will not eat certain foods, I just don't. However, I also appreciate that not all of us are that Zen about their food, and before we all get to that state of dispassion where we can say no to things we cannot consume, there will be alternatives. That means, also, that I will probably have to make her carrot cake with butter because I hate oil in my cakes. Mostly. It coats my palate and I do not appreciate the oily aftertaste and feel. Plus, non-buttery cake? Surely, you must be joking! However, the carrot cake we baked was lovely, easy and packed with flavours. I'd only change the oil, perhaps make it eggless if I bake for my brother or my in-laws. That said, I am not about to attempt an eggless meringue. Just don't eat meringue if you don't do eggs. So I totally get Chef Dalmia's outlook.
Our cooking session was followed up with a lovely session of eating and catching up with other bloggers. Most delightful were some of the sides and jams, jellies from Rushina's Lust Pantry, of which I seem to have woefully forgotten to take pictures. But I do remember getting my fingers too sticky with her Apple Jelly and forgetting all about my phone camera. I hope you forgive me this little omission.
We spent some more time watching the beautiful Rushina, who somehow manages to glow despite having been on her feet for over 48hours of planning and cooking. I wish I was like that, I turn absolutely haggard if I am tired.
And that's me, finally getting my book signed by Chef Dalmia, who, by the way, emptied large ladlefuls of Saint's Day Pasta onto my plate, reminding me of my mum from ten years ago, a time when she was still very capable of force feeding me her idea of how much I should be eating. I do very much enjoy reading Chef Dalmia's book, which is now a bedside book that I read, almost like I'd read a storybook. I have already tried out five recipes from the book, all of which have turned out hearty and easy to make and much appreciated by the man. Yes, I do recommend you buy it, especially so if you are vegetarian. And remember to keep your heart open to stories: that's what makes food one of the most important carriers of love.
(PS: Dunno what you're waiting for, go buy Diva Green right away!)
No comments:
Post a Comment