Ajay works as a Senior Chef de Partie in the Mynt restaurant based in Bangalore's 5 star Taj West End hotel. He has 7 years catering experience behind him and his passion is International Cuisine.
We have exciting news from Ajay!! He has decided to go and work halfway across the world on a cruise ship, sailing out of New York. He flew from Mumbai to Milan to Miami and then on to New York. He is based on the Carnival Miracle ship which sails around the Caribbean and holds over 2,000 passengers with over 900 members of staff. He promises to send us a blog soon, when he has had time to catch his breath!
Jambul or jamun (Hindi) is native to India, Pakistan and Indonesia . This fruit is quite well known in ayurveda as it not only helps with diabetes but aids digestion. It has sweet and sour taste and tends to colour the tongue purple. It gives your mouth a dry sensation when you first taste it, but after a sip of water you will feel the sweetness back on your tongue.
This soup was just a small idea that turned into a recipe and is now featured on my Mediterranean buffet.
Recipe By : Ajay Thakur
Serving Size : 4 - Preparation Time :0:10
Categories : Amuse Bouche or starter
Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
150 grams Jamblang -- deseed and roughly chop it
50 grams Avocado -- peeled and chopped
10 grams Garlic
10 grams Basil
20 milliliters White wine
10 milliliters Balsamic vinegar
1 dash Tabasco sauce
10 milliliters Extra virgin olive oil
to taste Salt and pepper
5 milliliters Worcestershire sauce (check it is a vegetarian brand)
Add Jamblang, garlic, avocado, basil and white wine in a blender and blend it to a smooth consistency
Add balsamic vinegar, Tabasco sauce, oil, Worcestershire and adjust seasoning.
Serving Ideas: Can be served as aperitif or amuse bouche
Serve chilled.
A lady came to the restaurant recently and asked to see me. My heart always sinks when this happens. I knew since she had yet to eat she was probably going to ask me to cook something impossible, I expected this was not going to be a two minute request and I was already under pressure in the kitchen. I was not far wrong. She wanted a risotto, then fired off a long list of things she could not eat: butter, cream, meat, fish, any vegetables, chilli, other spices, peppercorns…..she took fifteen minutes to list them all….and all I was left with was rice. She mentioned that she was on some sort of medication and could only eat rice and MUSHROOM. Small mercy. With mushroom on my side, I was going to have an easy ride. I have called this Small Mercy Mushroom Risotto and I have never made a risotto like it. But it tasted surprisingly good….and she was happy!
Serving Size: 2
Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ -- ------------------------------
200 grams mushroom
200 grams Arborio rice
5 grams thyme
5 grams parsley -- chopped
5 grams basil -- shredded
10 milliliters olive oil
5 grams garlic -- chopped
2 cloves garlic
4 drops lemon juice
75 milliliters white wine
To taste salt
Take 3/4th volume of mushroom in a baking tray. Add 2 cloves of garlic and thyme and rub it on mushroom. At 160 deg centigrade for 40 mins cook mushrooms in the oven till it gets dry. Cool the mixture and blend it to a fine paste.
Cut rest of the mushroom in 1/4 inch dice.
Heat a saucepan, add olive oil, chopped garlic and sauté it. Add mushroom and continue sautéing . After 3-4 mins add Arborio Rice and stir till the rice changes to translucent . Deglaze the pan with white wine and cook till the wine evaporates. Now add (two times the quantity of rice) water gradually till the al-dente stage of rice.
Add mushroom paste to cooked rice.
Do seasoning with salt. Squeeze some lemon juice to it.
Serve it in a pasta plate, garnished with Basil sprig
Per Serving : 465 Calories; 5g Fat (10.8% calories from fat); 10g Protein; 87g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 28mg Sodium. Exchanges: 5 Grain(Starch); 1 1/2 Vegetable; 0 Fruit; 1 Fat.
Rice is the staple food of so many countries like India, China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia and many more. Unlike wheat, an allergy to rice is rare and it has the added benefits of being rich in complex carbohydrates and low in salts and fats.
Rub a few grains of rice between your palms for few seconds and then smell. If you get a sweet, husky smell and the rice is also a little moist, you are smelling one of my favourite rices - Basmati. It’s a Hindi word (bas means fragrant and mati means queen). Basmati is long grain rice and mainly used in savoury dishes. There are many other varieties of rice and in my local store in Bangalore, there are over twenty varieties from which to choose.
One serving of rice should be about 100 gm of raw rice - it doubles in volume after cooking
There are two main ways to cook basmati rice on the stove:
Absorption method
This is so called because all the water is absorbed by the rice. The rice does need to be soaked for an hour prior to cooking. Use double the amount of water to rice.
Wash rice thoroughly and then soak it. Use a thick bottomed pan with a tight lid. Add 1 T salt and 2 T ghee to the water, along with a cinnamon stick and a couple of cardamon pods. Bring water to the boil, then add the strained raw rice. Stir after five minutes. Turn down the heat to a gentle simmer, fit the lid and then turn off the heat. Leave it to steam cook for at least five minutes but for up to fifteen minutes. Your rice should be perfectly cooked.
Drain method
This uses much more water but the proportion is not so critical – seven litres of water to 1kg of rice, and the rice does not need to soak. Bring the water to the boil and add the rice. Stir regularly. Test after twelve minutes, when it should be done. Strain and serve.
Some of the famous Indian rice preparations are –hyderabadi biryani, lucknowi biryani, pulao , navratan pulao, bisibella bath, tomato rice, curd rice , khichdi, pongal , kheer and shrikhand.
Happy cooking!!! And let me know which method you prefer!
The mango is the national fruit of India and 65% of the world’s production comes from here. The mango has always been important, going back to ancient times. Mango trees were often used to calculate a person’s wealth. In north India, mango trees could often form part of the dowry on expectation of marriage. Mango trees are of huge commercial importance, which explains their long respected history. Even nowadays, owning a mango tree is useful and I have one at home in my backyard.
Mangoes come in a variety of sizes and colours. The most well known is “Alphonso” and is the most popular and the one most often exported. It is named after the Portuguese explorer, who brought the fruit back from his journeys to Goa. The locals took to calling this Aphoos in Konkani and in Maharashtra the pronunciation got further corrupted to Hapoos, which is what a variety of mango is called today. The Hindi word for mango is aam.
Mango experts can tell by smelling whether the fruit is ready to eat. This skill is possessed by many Indians, my father being one of them. The rest of us just have to squeeze and hope.
Mangoes are available to buy from June to September. Mango trees tend to fruit every other year. With 2007 being a very good year in terms of quality and quantity, 2008 is likely to be poorer, so mangoes will be in short supply.
We might have to wait for 2009 to get the same quality of mangoes.
In Indian kitchens, during the mango season you will find mango on the menu in all sorts of dishes. Small tent cards on the table in restaurants will show the different preparations. At one of the mango festivals I attended I saw more than 100 varieties of mango.
At home, for as long as I remember I had mango every single day during the mango season. I cannot resist mangoes now, having grown up with them. This year, my dear friend Gurmeet got me some Alphonso mangoes, so kept my mango eating tradition going.
In India from the seedlings to the mature fruit, every stage of the mango is used for cooking.
Raw Mango
Raw mangoes are used to make Indian pickle, and every region has its own recipe.
Raw mangoes are supposed to be the coolant. There is a home made north Indian medicinal drink named Aam ka panna which gives relief during heat strokes. It is made by boiling raw mangoes then squeezed and pureed. Powder of roasted cumin seeds and rock salt is added towards the end and it is taken chilled.
Dried unripe mango powder used as a spice in India is known as amchur (sometimes spelled amchoor).
Another famous condiment called mango chutney made by mincing sweet raw mango with fresh coriander leaves , mint leaves and chillies with local seasonings, giving a taste of sweet and sour and a tablespoon of the same is enough to savour your palate.
Ripe mango
Ripe mangoes are used to make
Mango lassi (churned curd and mango pulp),
Mango juice (churned mango pulp +water).
Mango shake (mango pulp +chilled milk/mango ice cream),
Mango ice cream.
Mango kulfi (frozen mango dessert),
Mango kheer (rice, milk and mango pulp from north India),
Mango payassam (from south India),
Cut mangoes (hedgehog style),
Mango shrikhand (set mango curd from west India),
Mango phirnee,
Mango sherbet,
Aam-Ras (Mango pulp which is eaten with puris - an Indian Bread)
Sakhar Amba (Marathi word for a home-made mango jelly/jam),
Mango barfi (a type of Aamba-Wadi),
Aamba-Wadi (a gummy, chewy mango candy) or amawat
Mangoes are so important in our culture, they are used as offerings to God – this is called Prashad. In many Hindu Indian homes, the lady of the house will fast on Thursday or Sunday in the name of God and mangoes are her staple for the day.
So mangoes are very important to Indians as religion, culture, prosperity and enjoyment are all closely woven together. We wait for the mango season every year as it brings the happiness home.
I would love to share some mango recipes if any of you would like them. In the meantime, get your Indian friends to send you some mangoes or better still, come over to India and try them for yourself.
Hello there everyone,
I am Ajay from the eastern part of India and working as a chef in Bangalore at the Taj West End, an exclusive 5 star hotel in acres of gardens. My interest is in international cuisine, especially Mediterranean.
When I heard about the blogs, I was keen to put across my views and share my recipes, for the very reason that I am Indian and vegetarianism started in India .
Although I am not vegetarian, I am respectful of those who are and we take catering for them seriously. Many of my relatives are vegan. We call them (Vaishnav-hindi , a word meaning no flesh and disciple of god). They cannot even smell non-vegetarian food and even eggs are banned. When they go away, they carry their own cooking equipment with them if they are not sure of their destination. It probably sounds ridiculous to you but that’s what being a disciple of god and being vaishnav means to us, and we all respect it.
I am going to be providing you with some Indian and Italian recipes over the course of my next few blogs.
Previously
