He’s armed with dehydrators, cryogenated powders and maltodextrin. His ingredients, flown in from all over the world, are teased and tweaked into complex, avant-garde cuisine. He defies genres as he blends modern European techniques with exotic Asian ingredients. Chef Vikramjit Roy is currently being hailed as one of the country’s brightest young chefs, with his penchant for modernist cooking, surprising flavours and Jackson Pollock-inspired plating.
We ask him to cook us a locally sourced, India-inspired, vegetarian meal. Then, just to make it more challenging, we throw in a few more conditions. The meal must be made with basic ingredients, using no high-tech equipment. The final twist? We want him his to do it for Valentine’s Day, to inspire ambitious home chefs to cook for their significant others. Not surprisingly, he dives in with gusto.
Chef Vikramjit
It all began one sunny afternoon in Delhi. I was in the kitchen, trying to find a way to create homemade tomato ketchup with bacon essence. I needed it to be bright white in colour, so I could pair it with a Perigord duck dumpling, black carrot foam, dehydrated shiso powder and lavender rice waffles. Because that’s the kind of food I love to create. Then, my phone suddenly rang. It was the food critic of MetroPlus, so I knew it must be something very interesting; I answered the call. After the initial “His” and “Hellos” and “How are you doing”, she threw down a challenge. Creating a meal for Valentine’s Day. Yes, you heard that right. I was already on the back foot, because I had resolved long ago that I will never create “heart-shaped” cakes or creepy red laces made of marzipan.
Even at Tian, my restaurant (or rather Asian Cuisine Studio) at ITC Maurya, I’m working on a Valentine’s dinner with a twist this year. We’ve put together a collection of really clichéd poems, like ‘Roses are red. Violets are blue. Oh my darling, I love you.’ — the concept is, before each course, we place the poems, set in card holders, in front of the couple. Then we serve dishes created around them. Raspberry chilli mushroom caps for the red roses. Violet cabbage at the base… The colours are dominant, and the taste, rustic.
Personally, I confess I’ve never had the opportunity to cook for a girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, because I’m always working. If I were to cook, I would probably make something Bengali, but with my tweaks. Say a robust daab chingri, which is tender coconut and shrimp, redesigned into a mousse and served with an intense shrimp sauce.
I notice more and more people are choosing to cook at home on Valentine’s Day. Parents of eight-to-14-year-old kids have been calling me all week on their behalf to ask for certain ingredients that are hard to source. Like soy lecithin, for example (a natural emulsifier and stabiliser, it is used to create food foams). I was surprised to know that these kids are not just cooking at home for Valentine’s Day, but are attempting ambitious modernist dishes!
But back to my challenge. A three-course vegetarian menu, to begin with. I was like, “OK.” Then she said, “Only local ingredients — from the market,” and I started to shiver a little. Working at a hotel, I have the luxury of flying in fabulous ingredients from all over the world. If I want clams from Tokyo’s Tsukiji market, I get them. When I use local ingredients, they’re from a curated list of suppliers I know. It got worse. “No fancy equipment. No molecular gastronomy gadgets. No liquid nitrogen.” I don’t know why, but I said “Let’s do this”.
Green curry cigars. Photo: Sandeep Saxena
I wanted to make it fun. I believe it’s important to cook for the person you love. Cooking this menu with local ingredients that are underutilised in the restaurant industry was an exciting challenge, especially since all the conditions practically encapsulated me within four walls. For the next three days, I visited local markets in and around Delhi. I began with Azadpur Mandi, the hub, to learn what was coming from where. Then I went to the smaller markets, local shops and neighbourhood supermarkets. I wanted to understand the cycle, and carefully handpick the best local, seasonal produce that I could relate to, so I could experiment and create dishes that suit my sensibilities. To be honest, it was tedious work. But it’s also reaffirmed my belief that we have incredible produce at our doorsteps.
The result? Contemporary and innovative, but simple creations that are both wholesome and environment-friendly. I think it’s sad the way we treat our own ingredients. If you go to a nice restaurant and see bitter gourd, pumpkin or okra, you’ll ignore it, and order avocado, artichokes or broccoli instead. As for the lauki (bottle gourd), you’ll say, “Ah. I can eat that at home.” But I see the same clients who refuse to eat local vegetables in India go to Noma in Denmark (acknowledged to be one of the finest restaurants in the world) and pay Rs. 30,000 for a meal, to eat their lauki. Because they only use local produce.
In my first course, I change the way we eat Thai curry by blending the best of local and seasonal ingredients like fenugreek, spinach, fresh corn, cauliflower, baby eggplant and okra with a nice wholesome green curry. I then wrapped it around a spring roll sheet. For the main course, I decide on lauki, simply because I wanted to break the stereotype. People see it as boring. But it’s so underrated: high in water, nutritious and able to take in various flavours, yet hold its own. The idea was to make this silly vegetable look sexy — in an easy way. Finally, for the dessert, I chose coconut. You want excitement on Valentine’s. You want surprises. But to end, you want something comfortable. Coconut is something all of us relate to.
Bottle Gourd Steak. Photo: Sandeep Saxena
I’ve cooked this multiple times. Then tried the menu on friends and clients, to make sure it works. It worked so well, I’ve now incorporated some of these in my Tian menu. As a chef, it’s my job to make people try local vegetables, and rediscover how incredible they are. As for my advice to you before you start cooking for your Valentine? First, decide on what you want to communicate. Then think of the other person as you cook, keeping in mind their personality and preferences. You don’t have to follow the recipe to the T. Tweak it where it seems right: and you won’t go wrong.
Recipes specially created for MetroPlus
Green Curry Cigars
(for cigar stuffing)
Ingredients
50 gm fresh fenugreek
100 gm fresh spinach
100 gm broccoli
100 gm cauliflower
20 baby eggplants
50 gm corn kernels
50 gm green beans
50 gm okra
65 gm Veg Thai Green curry paste
100 ml fresh coconut milk
15 gm lemon grass paste
5 gm red chilli paste
Salt to taste
Crushed black pepper to taste
12 spring roll sheets
50 gm quinoa
Method
Cut all the vegetables, except eggplant, into cubes. Fry the okra and eggplant separately for 20 seconds and dry on a paper towel. In a separate pan, with a little coconut oil, put in a paste of lemon grass, followed by Green curry paste. Saute it for a while, then add coconut milk, red chilli paste and season with salt and black pepper. Reduce the coconut milk to half and add all the vegetables; let them absorb all the beautiful flavours. The texture should nice and dry with all the vegetables sticking to each other. Let it cool.
Make thin cigar shaped rolls with the Spring roll sheets stuffed with the Green curry vegetable mixture, wet it a little with a runny batter made with rice flour and water and roll the cigars in quinoa. Fry in hot oil till the crust becomes golden brown. Serve hot.
(For the sweet potato)
Ingredients
2 sweet potatoes
10 gm paprika powder
5 gm garlic powder
5 gm ginger powder
2 gm salt
2 gm white pepper powder
Oil for frying
Method
Slice sweet potato in a mandolin/vegetable slicer after peeling the skin and fry it at 180 degrees Celsius till nice and crispy. Mix all the spices together and sprinkle over it before service. Serve this along with the Green curry cigars.
Bottle Gourd Steak
Ingredients
240 gm bottle gourd
200 gm silken tofu/cottage cheese
40 gm paprika powder
240 gm carrot
25 gm celery
25gm leeks
10 gm fresh red chilli
150 ml cooking cream
70 gm unsalted butter
10 gm salt
5 gm crushed black pepper
50 gm fresh peas
50 gm snow peas
100 gm barley
250 ml vegetable stock
5 ml black vinegar reduction
Method
Roughly cut the carrots, leeks, celery and fresh red chillies. Put them all in a baking pan and sprinkle with salt, pepper and olive oil. Bake at 185 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes. Take it out and let it cool before you blend it into a fine paste. Put it back in a pan and season it, then emulsify with 40 grams of butter and 100 ml of cream.
Now put the barley in the vegetable stock and boil for 20 minutes till soft. Season with salt and pepper. Add 50 ml cream and 30 gm butter. The texture should be both creamy and crunchy.In the meantime, cut the bottle gourd in a thick slanted way. Scoop out the centre and set aside.
Steam the gourd for five minutes. Mix tofu or cottage cheese with paprika powder, salt and pepper. Mix evenly with the centre of the gourd to get a smooth mixture. Stuff the steamed gourd with the mixture and pan sauté them till the exterior is light brown. Finish it in an oven at 185 degrees Celsius for five minutes.
Plating
To put together the dish, put the hot carrot mash at the base of the plate (preferably in a round mould) and line it with black vinegar reduction from the outside.
Make a design as shown in the picture using a satay stick or a toothpick. Put the barley risotto in the centre of the carrot mash and top it with the pan-seared gourd steak. Serve hot.
3 textures of Coconut
(for coconut rice)
Ingredients
50 gm local short grain rice
150 ml coconut milk
25 gm jaggery
10 chopped raisins
5 gm Darjeeling tea
Method
Soak the Darjeeling tea in the coconut milk and leave it overnight to infuse. Next day, strain off the tea and cook the rice and jaggery in it till done at slow temperature. The rice should be soft but not disintegrated. Mix the raisins just before service. This has to be served warm.
(for vanilla coconut powder)
Ingredients
100 gm desiccated coconut powder
1 vanilla bean
20 gm icing sugar
2 gm cardamom powder
5 gm cocoa powder
Method
Cut the Vanilla beans into half, scrape off the seeds, mix it with the coconut powder and leave it overnight in an airtight container overnight to infuse. Next day, put it on a dry pan, mix in the icing sugar, cardamom powder and toss it till the coconut powder turns light brown. Take it off the heat and mix in the cocoa powder. Store it in a sealed container till use.
(for spicy coconut slush)
Ingredients
800 gm sugar
1 vanilla stick
1250 ml full cream milk
600 ml heavy cream
100 gm crushed white pepper
200 gm tender coconut flesh
1250 ml coconut milk
Method
Boil the milk, cream, sugar and scraped vanilla beans. Add coconut milk and crushed white pepper corn when it is still hot and let it sit to infuse for 1 hour away from heat. Blend the tender coconut flesh till fine and add it to the previous mixture. Strain the entire liquid through a fine mesh and freeze it in a flat pan. Every 1 hour, scrape the mixture with a fork for at least 4 -5 times. The result should be a fine icy, spicy, sweet, coconuty texture and flavour.
Plating
In order to put the dessert together, rest the half coconut shell on a firm base of plate. Make a quenelle of the warm coconut rice and put in the centre of the shell. Sprinkle generous amounts of coconut powder on top of the rice and put the slush all around the dessert.
The difference of texture, temperature and taste would do wonders to the palate and you surely would enjoy the flavours.
THE MENU
Green curry cigars with fresh fenugreek, baby eggplant, spinach, corn, sweet potato chips.
Bottle gourd steak with caramelised carrot mash, barley risotto, fresh and snow peas.
Five textures of coconut served in its shell with gooseberry compote.
