A matter of taste.

Salty Mulligatawny
Almost all the dishes have its own color, texture, consistency and taste, and if at all, the dishes you prepare is not resembling the original one, just change the name of the dishes you prepared, it’s so simple isn’t it? It so happened in an unknown club in Coimbatore, a guest from kerala, called the chef, showed him a bowl full of fish gravy and asked, is this what you call fish moilee? Do you know how it looks like? The color, the flavor, Do you think I am from Europe. Replacing some nonsense and calling it moilee… etc etc etcetera…. I have been in kerala my whole life,, and I know what fish moilee is ... etc etc etcetera.. And Etceteras. The chef with a pleasant smile, nodded with the guest’s words and said.. Yes mam. I know what you mean. But this is Fish moilee Club style. Please look at the menu card its Club style fish moilee.
And to me, whether its club style fish moilee or traditional kerala fish moilee, taste matters, perhaps for everyone, for me if a dish look perfect and if we are content with the taste, nothing else in it matters. Whether its original, or adopted, or substituted .The reason is, I have been used to it, exploring the different taste of the same dish. (and again)Teaching a batch of twenty fifes on how to cook mulligatawny soup using a single standard recipe, I taste twenty-five different mulligatawny at the end of the session. Leaving me with blankness for evaluation. Then how do we evaluate the dish/student, just check them whether they knew the functions of each ingredients they add in their soup/dish.
On table number seventeen, the mulligatawny soup is salt, salt, and salty……….. With kilograms of salt in it. I asked him, what went wrong in your soup? Number seventeen replied, Sat, the soup you just tasted is perfect, and stop frowning sat, look at my menu, it is not mulligatawny its ‘Salty mulligatawny.’

Mulligatawny: is a curry-flavoured soup of Anglo-Indian origin. Many versions are ther , the literal translation in pepperwater ("Millagu" is pepper and "Thanni" is water). Despite the name, pepper itself is not a vital ingredient. Served with boiled rice as garnish.

Not Again.

Nutritious

A Swiss restaurand n the exclsive Winterthur resort introduced recently a new menu, which has a list of special disheds containing at least 75% of human breast milk. These specialities contain such meals as meat stew and soup.
So, if you think you “quit the habit” too hastly, now is your chance to get back the lost “nutritions”
Source: http://www.metro.co.uk/

drink not

They say in Japan, one should not forget to try out the Frog sashimi and the fresh, still beating heart of a frog. Flushed down with a refreshing glass of lizard sake. How else?

Oeuf what?
Do you fancy eggs? Many (except my student Xavier who gets a severe stomach ache as soon as the yolk gets inside) - just prefer to eat them before the embryo inside has a peck an feathers. The people in Cambodia apparently think differently, as a duck-egg-delicacy called balut is a great treat loved by the locals. The trick of preparing balut is to let the embryo inside the egg to develop until the bird inside is nearly ready to see the daylight. When the embryo inside is right, the egg is boiled and served with a pinch of salt on top.
The Cambodian locals enjoy their Balut normally as a night time snack, accompanied with a cold beer.

Photo: balut( duck egg delicacy)

What Color??
I have not tasted Absinthe, and many say it tastes pretty much and few say that it taste what rat poison would taste like. Then again, there’s always the possibility of “cool hallicinations”, when consumed in substancial abounts. A private candy company lollyphile has come up with an idea to manufacture lollipops out of absinthe. “made with real (and completely legal!) absinthe”
Source: http://www.lollyphile.com/

Ashok Can you here me?
Here’s yet another odd consumable, cocktails without spirit. These frog cocktail are made by skinning live Telmatobius frogs and droppin them into a blender with other ingredients. This health-drink, which is said to have aphrodisiac properties, is mighty popular at the Andes.
The frogs used for the cocktail are endangered species as well, and therefore the local officials are trying to stop the tradition, with little success so far.
What would be the most discusting substance you could imagine flavouring your wine with? Well, I’m sure baby mice would not come too far off?
Baby mice wine is a traditional Korean health drink, which is brewed by drowning alive baby mice, maximum three days old, in rice moonshine and letting them to ferment in the bottle for about a year. According to local Korean belief, mouse wine is a cure to just about any illness imaginable; including asthma and liver problems among others. my bro Ashok who is in Korea doesn’t have any asthma or liver problem
If mice wine does not do the trick for you, do not forget to try out the Cobra Schnapps Source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/295820/from_the_alcoholic_xfiles_korean_baby.html

NO Excuse....

Take some oil, before you enter the buffet, my friend said as he walked out from the buffet counter, why? The rice is very dry to swallow that you may need some oil as a lubricant. I lost my appetite as soon those comments passed from his mouth, the buffet is for 250 people, prepared by NIK (known and a good cook) and I have tasted many a times the dishes prepared by NIK and have heard not a single complaint, but the present buffet… The rice is dry, the gravy is sweet, elastic roti’s, bitter curd rice and the paneer sucks.
My friend’s comments were true, but I couldn’t resist eating, and i was starving literally
(Hungry and Taste ironic isn’t it), I walked with my plate into the kitchen and found NIK in the corner.
Had food… looking at my plate “how’s Food” is what NIK asked as soon as I entered, the word ‘GOOD’ came from my mouth reluctantly, because rather finding fault let me know what’s the fact behind those miserable dishes, I munched one and half elastic roti’s with sweet korma for my hungry stomach.
A week after it’s a same kind of buffet, the dishes were same, and its prepared by the same NIK, the difference is, this time the paneer is fresh, the gravy is rich, roti’s are hot and soft, and no need of any lubricant, enter the buffet with a good palate. After searching NIK for seventeen minutes I found him in his usual place in the corner of the kitchen. I asked him WHY? What’s wrong with the same dishes you prepared last time?
NIK: Equipment, the equipments that I used the other day, were old so the dishes got screwed, ME: but old equipments are well seasoned and also the dishes taste better when u cook with it
NIK: Yes sat, but the flames from the burner were uneven and low
ME: but, the dishes taste good when you cook in a low flame for a long time
NIK: yes sat, I had a tooth ache the other day
ME: toothache! But, what does the toothache have to do with the foods you prepare.
NIK: I had a fight with my wife…
ME: C’mon, you have anything else to say
NIK: yes sat, before the guest comments on my food, I know what my food taste like .The other day, I spoiled the food, it happens sometimes, if the complains are with one or two dishes I try to learn from my mistake, when all the foods are spoiled, I have to find some lame excuse, and I was in a very bad mood last time
ME: so.. What?
NIK: I will not cook in the future, when I have a fight with my wife.


It happens sometimes, tough the ingredients are fresh, and all equipments available, and we, cooking with care and concentration, the food get spoiled leaving us to wonder whether ARTS or SCIENCE went wrong, Our minds blank, without knowing the real answer, has to find some Excuses. LAME Excuses

The Real Bartender..

The Second consecutive year a wonderful and a great session/seminar/presentation titled “Art of Bartending” Bartending is more of an art than science, but don’t forget the molecular mixology science – sodium alginate and calcium chloride. We invited a real bartender for the show (bartenders not only take care of bottles but also those who hit the bottles) and our guest was Rohan Carvalho and his show is worth the weight of one thousand desert elephants in gold/platinum/ any other expensive materials in world.

We believe in Practical Spiritual Guidance, it applies to the spirit of other kind also, the show had a great start and the audiences were in high spirit. The PPT's was not history and geography about alcohol and bar, Ron made it more interesting and understanding, anyone want to know what bartending is all about, join BAR SQUARE – (its Ron’s school of bartending in Bangalore, Chennai, hyderabad), I have never seen an interesting non stop two hour presentation/ lecture like this

“Ron you really Rock”

The Bartending industry is all about entertaining the guest, not impressing the guest, and today the world is no more round, its FLAT with all the modern technology, make the most of it as early, as possible. I agree one hundred percent with you Ron, the real passion will make anyone perfect in his profession and your very presence will induce anyone to choose this profession.( If you notice the tattoo Bar barian in Ron’s Right, left, Right, no its left hand , you will call it a spelling mistake)

The after lunch session was not just about mixing cocktails, there was lot of flair (I can send you the clippings if you want), and a little of showmanship behind the bar is essential. …. How can I forget your recipe, the Black Chicken, where you black the onion in oil, rather browning it, with a dash of Worcester sauce, Tabasco sauce, salt and diced chicken to end with, the dish is black, a recipe to remember, its not fusion its Ron’s Tradition.

Almost eight cocktails, four glasses of each, the interesting part is, the students were involved in preparing; it started with, my all time favorite, mojito and ended with daiquiri. A sip of this, a sip of that ended my day with shark tooth, sprite, lemon to squeeze,pinch of salt,and crushed pepper my home made recipe (Anyone can suggest a name) I couldn’t stop with a single drink, the drink doubled till the bottle was half, three-fourth, half empty. Still the day ,the presentation, and the flair was green in my mind, and I do remember those two words – DRINK RESPONSIBLY


Desert Elephant – it is very tough , strong and it can survive for many days without food and it travels vast miles in search of food, in that dry, dry, desert. And to me it’s the best of the best -

Martini.. Half hot half cold

Molecular Mixology

A good way to understand food, its too much of chemistry and too much of confusing, no wonder I discontinued Bio Chemistry after forty five days of class, and I was lucky enough to learn what I loved. To end the Molecular Gastronomy, I would like to start with a cocktail, because I have always been fond of drinking, and today behind the bar molecular mixology is becoming popular, a new career BAR CHEMIST, thanks to Ron a leading bar tender in India for his views on molecular mixology. The main objective is to turn cocktails in to papers, foams, gels, and powders. Where you no longer drink a cocktail
Many cocktail has fake garnish, like fake caviars or fake strawberries, but at the end garnish is all about eye appeal and presentation. And nothing wrong with fake caviar or strawberries. In molecular mixology syringe and needles replaces shakers and stirrers, unlike molecular gastronomy where you try to understand what happens when foods are mixed, baked, whipped, fried, sautéed in limejuice, and so forth. And It shows, for example, how the 451 classical French sauces break down into 23 distinct types. the creation and pairing of billions of novel, potentially tasty dishes. To demonstrate how, This randomly generated a formula describing the physical microstructure of a previously nonexistent dish and the formula for boiling an EGG .in mixology its very few chemicals …. Sodium Alginate, liquid nitrogen etc. . .
Sodium Alginate a natural product with the chemical formula Na C6 H7 O6, is derived from the cell walls of brown algae. It is used in the food industry as a thickener, to increase the viscosity of liquids and as an emulsifier. The use of sodium alginate in the restaurant industry was first introduced by Ferran Adria who created the concept of spheres/pearls in his world famous restaurant ElBulli in 2003. The idea being that a liquid is thickened with sodium alginate and submerged in a bath of calcium chloride to create spheres, also know as the process of spherification.. It can be applied in other areas of cooking, for example in thickening sauces and creating gels. Unlike gelatin you can heat/cook your sauce or gel without it melting and becoming liquid. Used as an emulsifying agent and to increase viscosity, sodium alginate helps suspend particles within a solution, for example vanilla bean in a pannacotta will remain mixed throughout the mixture instead of sinking to the base of the finished product blah blah blah blah blah… its more chemistry …let it make more simple
(Sodium alginate is mixed with any liquid/juices and the mixture is piped in small quantities into a bowl containing water and calcium chloride, chemically, the piped liquid mixture becomes soft/hard/semi hard balls as it gets into the bowl containing water and calcium chloride, and you strain the water to get small balls, fake caviar)
A talented bartender would have a handle on the specific gravities of different liquors so he could layer them one on top of another to make a pina colada, and imagine a cocktail which is solid until you take it to your mouth, and unsweetened mojito decanted from a cocktail shaker into a glass filled with cotton candy that immediately dissipates into and sweetens the drink. However, its very much important for the cocktail and molecular mixology to meet the present need, when one gets, tired enough with fake caviar and frozen Cosmo with liquid nitrogen, one will tip and fall into something better.

A fried Mayonnaise please..

The Chef… the chemist…
The food we eat today is the same as our ancestors ate? What will be the food of tomorrow? I still wonder, who asked this question in a class of one hundred students, convenient foods, fast food, and fusion food… never talk about fusion. Remember the previous blog. People kill the dish in the name of fusion
I thought of molecular mixology, oh to talk about food or something to do with eating its Molecular Gastronomy, the word not only sounds chemically its a study of the chemistry and physics behind the preparation of any dishes take for example why the rice becomes soft when you boil, or why a mayonnaise becomes firm? Herve This French physical chemist is recognized as the father of molecular gastronomy, but there are many before herve this who have shown a scientific approach towards cooking. Is this going to bring a change? Many restaurants are have molecular food in the menu, how do you call the people in the kitchen as chefs or chemists? The interesting part is there goes a molecular paring of food, like the food and wine combination, interesting isn’t it. There exists a paring molecule, which make the food better for example strawberry and coriander, snail and beetroot, banana and parsley, pineapple and blue cheese, and more interestingly caviar and white chocolate, the high level of amines in both caviar and chocolate, these are the proteins that have broken down from their amino acids state but no so far as to become ammonia, not able to understand, I too have the same problem
I have heard people saying Molecular Gastronomy is not a rocket science, but in south part of India? And they say twenty percent of the tasting experience comes from taste (i.e. from the tongue) and eighty percent from nose (i.e. from the aroma), but I want to divide the eighty and give the half to Eyes (a good food is first eaten with eyes, then follows nose and tongue), there are over nine thousand tasting buds which detects the sweet, salt, sour and bitter and over five to ten million cells capable of detecting smells, but when a food looks awful we don’t even want to try it.
When molecular gastronomy is all about changing the texture, density or viscosity of the molecular structure of a food, in precise when lot of science involved, why do we still call cooking an art? I am not a critic of molecular gastronomy, it’s a great way to introduce to the new form of food, may be in a themed restaurant and it works with great brains which need more understanding, after all a great chef is one who understands the food,

Many cook books suggest the following for boiling eggs: 3-6 min for a soft yolk, 6-8 min for a medium soft yolk and 8-10 min for a hard yolk, but from a scientific view point, the above directions are not very precise. A number of important parameters remain unanswered: What is the size of the eggs? Are they taken directly from the fridge or are they at room temperature? Are they put into cold or boiling water? If using cold water - do you start the timer when you turn on the heat or when the water starts to boil (and in that case, how much water do you use)?do you now that there is in fact a formula for calculating the boiling time for eggs which takes a lot of these parameters into account. Given the starting temperature of the egg T0, the temperature of the water Twater, the desired temperature of the yolk Tyolk and the circumference of the egg c, the cooking time t of the eggs in minutes is given by:

Thanks to Dr. Charles D. H. Williams , a lecturer in physics at University of Exeter. For making us to understand more about boiling eggs


New Dishes named after famous chemists

Gibbs- When an egg white is whipped with oil, a white emulsion is obtained. If this emulsion is cooked in a microwave oven, water heats and expands. At that time, the temperature is about 100°C, which is higher than the coagulation temperature of egg-white proteins. The emulsion is then trapped into a gel. Of course, oil does not necessarily taste good, but imagine infusing vanilla pods in egg white, dissolving sugar into the mixture and adding very good olive oil before microwave cooking. The product is called a Gibbs, after the famous physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903).

Vauquelin - When an egg white is whipped, a small quantity of foam is formed: about 300 ml for one egg white.Why not more? As whipped egg white consists primarily of water (around 90%), proteins and air, it is easy to discover that adding water will produce more foam. If the foam is cooked in a microwave oven, a chemically jellified foam is formed. To achieve a better-tasting product, use orange juice or cranberry juice instead of water, and add sugar to increase the viscosity and to stabilize the foam before cooking. This new dish is named after Nicolas Vauquelin (1763–1829),

Baumé - Have you ever put a whole egg into alcohol? If you are patient enough, ethanol will permeate the shell and promote coagulation. After about one month, the result is a strange coagulated egg called a baume after the French chemists Antoine baume (1728 – 1804)

Continues…

I think it is a sad reflection on our civilization
That while we can and do measure the temperature in the atmosphere of Venus we do not know what goes on inside our soufflés
Nicholas Kurti- Hungarian-born physicist

Couldn't find...

One-hour lecture, extended half an hour more without any interactive session, the outside expert, started by thanking us for providing him an opportunity for presenting his lecture. The lecture titled Trends in the Hospitality Industry, almost all the schools favorite topic when it comes to guest lecture, but today’s lecture was something more than that, he compared our industry today’s with twenty years before. From five to six schools in India to over a twenty schools in Coimbatore alone. How many students are passing out every year out of catering schools? There are huge opportunities in this sector, but why there are no people joining this industry?? Someone mentioned IT, what I thought, is the “potential candidates for the particular work, shortage of quality manpower”. Not able to produce potential future hoteliers, something really wrong with the teachers.
The students agreed that the school will provide the basic knowledge, our guest expected the same answer, its like you were provided with a boat and an oar and its you who have to sail across, I have been mentioning the same thing “you can take the horse to the river, but you can’t make it drink water” it may be a horse or may be a be a be a Zebra also. Then the lecture went with supply and demand analysis with a topic revenue management and dynamic pricing, the important of communication, network, willingness to change or its willingness to move, teamwork and good attitude.
Then the kitchen came, people in the name of fusion cooking really kill the food; I agree one hundred percent, I don’t want to taste dosa when I’m touring Gujarat, it so happened once in rajastan (Udaipur) our team mate went in search of idly and sambar, (he found at last what he searched for). While the remaining fifteen of us enjoyed dal batti, kachori, safed maas and gevhar. And finally …… Tradition food is still popular (always popular) among many travelers and its presentation plays a vital role, be proud of our own Indian culinary, every four hundred kilometer you travel the food changes. In the end the lecture was fruitful, its all how you look at the industry, you hold or you drop… what’s your passion?
People in Italy do not know what their neighbor region cooks, and the same dish/food will have different names in different regions, and I do not know for how many kilometers their food changes, I’ll get the answer from kunnu who lives near Milan.

How many times you keep telling,, its hard for those words to enter into many brains, because all those brains are soo strong, made up of brick, sand and god knows what, however they will realise after completing the studies. "its no use crying over spilt milk" and no wonder i couldnt find any topic for this post.

Music Vs Chicken

"If Music Be the Food of Love, Play on"

Two with bsnl network and one with an airtel, a conference call which lasted for solid twenty six minutes, My friend hari who is very good dancer but it is years since he had danced in any event is learning cooking, his friend NIT who is a very good singer, studies music in KM music conservatory, Chennai. We three were on conference call last night and nit had an airtel network ‘Express yourself”. Tough it’s not a surprise call I’m very much happy to speak with someone who loves music; she has chosen the best school to study what she loves, the master being the one who crowned the Indian music with his twin Oscars. But what about Nit’s love for food? “I hate Vegetarian food’ her only comment.
We talked about ooty, my home…. Her school…. Chennai… and ended with slum dog … millionaire, forget the eight Oscars, there are more potential Oscar movies than Slum dog, who said this? It is not the way to show India, but, what is real India? And what is real mumbai? I remember a day when we were at bindi bazaar. Let me finish with slum dog before that, tough the millionaire swept eight Oscars many were just happy in the Chennai circle, as we knew the master is not at all prepared for it, and was least expecting an award and there are many AR compositions far far better than jai ho!
I am not a good singer, and was forced to sing, I sang two lines from a non-AR song, believe me I was sober. But before that nit sang a beautiful AR song, her voice is too good that I felt my heat in my mouth, not because I’m hearing it for the first time, Nit not only sings she is also a good violinist, she wants to compose music, that’s her passion. As I knew very little about violin I spoke about the EADGBE strings in guitar, Every Adult Dog Growls Barks Eats, that’s how I learned the string, its been two years now and just learned to play Happy Birthday..
The conversation showed me her palate for chicken is more/high, compared to her palate for music, a cooking session and a music session was mutually agreed upon, I have too many chicken dishes in my mind, for someone who hates vegetarian food, I am not a prophet to prophecise, but some unknown instinct says one day Nits going to compose some great music, and me cooking more chicken for her.
HAPPY MUSIC!

The Ingredients of Yeast.

After one hour of teaching about the leavening agents in baking, mote (that’s how everyone call him) had a doubt, I’m very much happy for his presence in my class, tough he is having an hundred percent attendance, Chef what are the ingredients of yeast, is that a doubt? Are you kidding me? What is happening? How do you answer that question? And why do you guys want to learn cooking, when you hate it? (Does he really hate cooking or my nonstop lecture), these words came out from my mouth without a stop. But that’s not the case today he is almost changed now, last night I got a call and it said ‘hello Chef Chintu’ (that’s how mote calls me) I have to join Shangri la next week. Shangri la which means paradise or a land of happiness where people live beyond average lifespan, Shangri la that’s one of the best hotel in Sydney, and I also heard that he is going to join as Chef de partie, and I’m not sure about the cuisine. I felt very much happy for him and prayed the almighty.
What a change from the ingredients of yeast to CDP in Shangri la, it took years for mote to commit himself, for what? To love cooking, to make money, to create a passion. I wondered, when you are with something for a long time, you may be forced to love it. I have seen many who loves cooking when they are in school, they really cook awesome dishes, once a student fused chettinad and Chinese together in a chicken preparation, We have had chicken curd rice and vermicelli rasam in a cookery session, but today is he still cooking, still with an apron? No. He is with Garment Company, ironic isn’t it? The inner talent is there with all the fellow students bringing it out is the difficult task. Many students are not willing to accept their talents and keep searching for something, which is just in front of their eyes. As an executive chef from ITC said, It is very much true that just mere theoretical knowledge does not make a chef. It is his innovation, his devoted desire to turnout novel creations in food and beverage that make him an inspired chef. To me a chef has to meet many gastronomic tastes of the guest, it doesn’t comes all of a sudden, total commitment and the sincere love for the work you do/dishes you prepare counts more. I have invited my beloved friend for dinner tonight and I agree with Kylie kwong that when you cook for someone you love, half of the love you have to show in the dishes you prepare, its time for mis en place, and I’m signing off…

HAPPY COOKING!