Satay festival at Jasmine, the oriental restaurant at The Royal Plaza
Enjoying the vacations with an outing to India Gate with your family and feeling hungry? Well, if you are game for fare other than the customary palak-paneer, dal-makhani and chicken tikka at the Pandara Road market, and are in a generous mood to spend, take a left on the Ashoka Road and try out interesting fare at the ongoing Satay Festival at Jasminean Oriental restaurant at The Royal Plaza hotel.
Satay is a dish of marinated, skewered and grilled meat served with a yummy peanut sauce. It's the national dish of Indonesia and is quite popular in other Southeast Asian countries as well. In this food fest, Chef Atul Shankar Misra offers to diners four variations in satay — Malaysian, Thai, Indonesian and Singaporean, in chicken, lamb and prawns. The marination is different in each style.
Having a weakness for prawns, I put my finger first on the chef's Malaysian prawn satay. Since sugar isused during marination in Malaysian style of cooking, the prawns are not spicy, ideal of the season.
Next on my list is its lamb meat ball satay, they come a bit tangy, thesweet and sour Oriental taste is dominating. To make the lamb tender, the chef uses pineapple syrup, its flavour blends pretty well with the Oriental herbs.
Highlighting the reasons behind hosting a satay fest, Chef Atul says, “Satay is considered one of world's healthiest foods. It is considered amongst the world's most delicious style of cuisine with a unique blend of tastes consisting of various natural and healthy vegetables, meat and herbs.”
About the marination, he explains what goes into what. The Malaysian marination consists of onion, lemon grass, galangal, cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric and sugar. The Indonesian marination is prepared by using palm sugar, onion, coconut and light soya. The Singaporean style needs onion, peanut paste, garlic, ginger, fresh red chilli, cumin powder, coriander powder and sugar. The Thai style uses Thai herbs, lemon grass, red curry paste and ginger.
Normally, there are few variations in vegetarian satays but the fest at Jasmine offers good options. It has a mushroom satay that comes in three sizes of mushrooms pierced into the satay stick. The fresh green vegetable satay comes with a combination of brocolli, pumpkin and other fresh veggies marinated with Oriental herbs and spices. It has a cottage cheese onion satay too, worth trying.
All the satays are served with steamed rice, salad and peanut sauce.
( Unlimited non-vegetarian satays come for Rs.1500 per person and the unlimited vegetarian satays are for Rs.1300 per person.)
Keywords: Satay, The Royal Plaza hotel.
