On the food trail: Modern Indian cuisine

 

What is modern Indian cuisine, and what is it all about? These are questions I often find myself answering. Most people seem to think, it’s about fusing cuisines – that is, fusing cultures through food. Though a beautiful thought, this is only partially true. Modern Indian cuisine is not about fusing Indian food with those from other countries, but fusing indigenous ingredients and flavours with modern techniques and presentations. Of course, this also sometimes includes fusing cuisines – but that is not new to India.

Indian cuisine itself is a rich fusion dating back to the time of the Buddha around 600 BC. Over the centuries, traders and invaders came from Greece, Italy, Persia, the Middle East and the Caribbean Islands. The Chinese, Arabs, Moguls, Portuguese and the British have come and gone, both giving and taking, by way of fair exchange or loot, and our Indian heritage has been enriched by the range of taste, in variety and diversity.
The exchange of commodities with other nations, included among other things, spices, cotton and sugar. Cinnamon and cassia came from Sri Lanka; the Arabs brought mustard, fenugreek, cumin, coffee and bananas. Coriander came from China and Middle Europe, hot chilli peppers from the Caribbean, and saffron from the Mediterranean. We not only adopted these ingredients and cultures, but adapted ourselves to such an extent that the fact with certain ingredients never existed in India comes as a stunner. It’s impossible to imagine Indian cooking without chillies, which only started featuring in our cuisine after the Portuguese, brought them in from West Indies. By 1542 three separate varieties of chilly were growing in India. Over the remainder of the 16th century, the Portuguese had also introduced cauliflower, okra (bhindi), pineapple, papaya, cashew nut, and most importantly the tomato, which played a huge impact on the cuisine of India. By the 17th century, we also received the gift of the humble yet extremely versatile, and now, taken-for-granted potato.

The 21st century has seen ingredients like capsicum, asparagus, broccoli, babycorn, several kinds of seafood, caviar, poultry like chicken, and meats like venison, all being slowly introduced into Indian cooking. Western concepts like pates, mousses, terrines, roulades, foams, crusts, encasing, etc. are being applied to Indian dishes. Of course, those who know their Indian cuisine will know that pates and foams are not new to us, as seen in examples like certain kebabs which are served in a paste form (pate) and the delightful Daulat ki Chaat (foam) available all over north India during winters. However, whether traditional Indian or western, these concepts are getting a stylized avatar on plates all across.

It’s not all about curries, sabzies, rotis and tikkas slapped hurriedly onto plates anymore. There is a new brand of chefs following western techniques, and applying them to Indian food. Some like Atul Kocchar, Hari Nayak and Mehernosh Mody have even earned themselves Michelin stars, hence taking the first steps to garnering, or rather putting Indian fine dining on the global map. Others like me went off to the Cordon Bleu in London as early as the 1990s to study plating and true food techniques, for sadly most catering colleges in India do not teach these.

Indian cuisine is vast, and marrying new ideas is something that might take a cultivated palate. It also takes some amount of practice to achieve a good balance of flavours specially when incorporating new ingredients into traditional dishes like raspberries into Bhapa Doi, or making a Dopyaaza using goose or venison. Sometimes, techniques do the trick; like blanching vegetables to retain their colour and bite, and straining gravies and reducing them to make sauces. Another favourite trend is grinding the spice blend coarsely and encrusting meats with it, rather than adding the spice blend to gravy, or using flavoured smoke to give interesting hints of flavour to meats. In desserts, fruit salads have now got a whole new look and feel thanks to techniques like roasting, poaching, grilling and caramelizing being applied to them. With the help of liquid nitrogen, chefs are giving their diners yet another dimension of texture through foams. And this is not limited to just food, but drinks too. One increasingly comes across cocktails like Rasam Mary or Curry Leaf Martinis.

The change in Indian food has come and is here to stay. For it’s not about fusion any more, but the perfecting of skills and techniques.

With the world getting smaller and food becoming global, modernizing any cuisine is made easy. India has already taken and is taking great strides in this area. The only thing left to do is for us to value our own cuisine and its true varied potential, and put it out there for all to see.

Courtesy Yahoo.in