Category: India

Slow Food Movement catches up in India- Good, Clean, Fair food @ Olive, Qutub

I booked myself for a dinner showcasing the Slow Food Movement in India last week at Olive, Qutub. Having had many a memorable meals at Olive, Qutub, I go back again for the love of the place – The pebble strewn outdoor seating being my favourite. It makes me feel that I am in a different land, away from the blaring horns of a crazy city life and under a giant tree with sunshine making its way through the leaves, landing on my plate.

This time round, I took my seat in their GreenHouse to sample the best of local produce from India. It is only opportune to salute the sheer brilliance of Chef Sujan Sarkar and team who have taken modern gastronomy to another level in India. There are no gimmicks involved. Only. Real. Food. The 9-course Slow food dinner with a welcome drink was pegged at Rs 1900. The same menu is available with wine too.

Here are my top picks from the fairy-tale like dinner

Pumpkin and Goat Cheese,Fermented Gooseberry, Oreo
Crispy pumpkin strands, cape gooseberry fermented in lactic acid with a slight tang and a gorgeous faux oreo made with black olive shortbread to get the colour right, filled with creamy citrus scented goat cheese mousse to make a fab filling. Brilliant trailer, this! Sorry, not sharing a pic as the one I have is half eaten.

Best of ‘The Green Bean’ farm

This brilliantly plated salad was a riot of colours, textures and tastes. It consisted of confit parsnips, beetroot, black radish and baby carrots tossed in an apple cider vinaigrette, drizzled with nasturtium oil, complete with a nasturtium leaf and topped with a wheat grass crisp. If this doesn’t sound, HOT already, the Best of The Green Bean farm had a sprinkling of black garlic powder which was the very reason I signed up myself for this dinner. Having read up about the process of making black garlic that takes upto two months to show results, this plate simply couldn’t have been missed and was worth a million bucks. Best of ‘The Green Bean’ farm was unlike any salad that I’ve tasted and will remain etched in my mind.

Wood sorrel, Gondhoraj Lime sorbet
Gondhoraj lime is the Indian equivalent of Kaffir lime and is a favourite of the Bengali community. Its flavours were combined with wild wood sorrel to form an aromatic sorbet served in a gondhoraj lime shell. The natural notes hit the spot and the taste lingered in my mouth for a long, long time.

Kalari, Gucci and walnut Thecha, a slice of Kashmir
All regional Kashmiri flavours on a plate! This dish is a modern gastronomical tribute to the valley. You may have had the Kashmiri Tarimi a million times, but this dish belongs right up there. Sautéed Kashmiri Morels (the prized fungi from the valley) came in a white onion and mushroom gravy, topped with pan-seared Kalari Cheese from Kashmir and sprinkled with a walnut and coriander thecha crumb that gave the dish a crunch. The walnuts, again coming from the valley, are much sought after. Overall, the dish had an earthy flavour from the morels, woody rendering from the nuts and robustness of the Kalari cheese. The white onion gravy helped the flavours merge well. It was wilderness on a plate with unparalleled textures.

Ash gourd, Radish, 4S Buttermilk
Buttermilk (from 4S brand) was churned into an ice-cream and served along with a candied ash gourd strip which is actually our petha and a thin strip of caramelized radish. While buttermilk ice-cream was a first for me, who knew it’d taste so nice and go well with radish? The candied ash gourd rendered sweetness and blended with the rest of the flavours like no other. These were topped with a pretty red apple blossom flower (from Krishi Cress) that made the dish ooze oomph as if it has descended right from the ramp and walked to my plate. Whee!

Priya rice, burnt butter, chocolate, coconut

Honestly I would’ve ended my meal with the Ash gourd, Radish, 4S Buttermilk course, but when you are being fed so nicely, you are eager to know what’s next? There are paeans written about the Japanese trying to get their Soba noodle right, their Sushi perfect, we have the Pootharekulu from Andhra as the Indian candidate. The Pootharekulu is a rice paper sweet. But the dish at Olive had unsweetened rice paper made from Jaya rice, burnt butter solids(the stuff left over after your mom makes ghee), coconut foam and a slightly nutty sesame chocolate rock served with chocolate ganache and mandarin ice-cream.

If you sign up for this meal, you’d come back feeling you’ve cheated Olive of their money. That good! Aye!

About Slow Food movement

The Slow Food movement supports local produce and respects the environment. To know more click here

Trendy Microgreens

New things on my plate eliminate the mundanity of table regulars. Stuff, that we eat daily. As a child I often used to wonder if our life would ever move ahead of the normal dal, roti, peas, carrots, rajma, aloo and so on. Will there ever be born again vegetables? My wishes were heard, a little late in life, but they were. Growing up I discovered foods that I had not eaten earlier. And as late as now, I also discovered microgreens. 
Let me begin from the beginning. A few years ago, I was introduced to exotic salad leaves like Rocket and Arugula, which are now quite common at Delhi dining tables. Recently, I discovered many chefs were using mini greens or micro greens to enhance the flavour of their dishes as well as add a charming visual appeal. Mostly, I’ve seen chefs using microgreens to add a curious, visual factor while plating their food. And very often, I find myself being ‘educated’ that I have microgreens on my plate. So, it would only be apt to talk about them on the blog. 
Microgreens are nutrient dense and are typically sown and harvested within 7 to 14 days. There are quite a few of them available on supermarket sheleves. They come in varied colours and flavours like Radish cress, Cilantro cress, Arugula cress, Mustard cress, Lolo Rosso, Beet cress and so on. Microgreens are grown in plastic trays and need good monitoring, the right amount of sun, shade, air and basically quite a lot of care. Some, use sprouting pads to grow them (mostly outside India) and others use cocopeat. I’ve got some Red Cabbage Cress Microgreens to showcase. They have a red stem and green leaves and could make for many a pretty plates. They taste like well, cabbage, and are as crunchy. I planted them in my hummus pot to up the visual factor. Have a look and stay tuned for much more, pretty soon! 

La Compagnia – A dinner with strangers

It’s a strange feeling to go for a dinner without knowing anyone on the table and coming back with a few friends in your kitty. Skeeter experienced the same at La Compagnia: A dinner with strangers.

The concept

A dinner at a pre-determined venue with a specially curated menu will be held each month in various cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and more… There are no +1s allowed. You have to be a solo diner. You’d be joined by other such diners and would gradually get to know each other over perfectly timed courses that give you ample time to befriend and network with others on the table. The table could have people who are new to the city, people who are looking for work-related opportunities, or just a cool bunch to dine out with and explore a new cuisine, perhaps.

Dinner with strangers is a concept popular in the West, which people sometimes organise at their homes. Yes, they open their homes to complete strangers and sometimes even throw in a new cuisine for everyone to sample. The possibilities are endless. It maybe a potluck, or a cookoff, it only gets as fancy as your mind.

The venue for the debut La Compgania table in Delhi was Guppy by Ai at Lodhi Road. We arrived to a neatly laid table with fresh flowers, sparkling cutlery and our respective name tags. As all diners arrived we took our seats and began the introductions. The table was a good mix of entrepreneurs, start-up funders, start-up owners, journalists and writers. We all happened to share the table with Marryam Reshii, a respected food writer/critic, one Skeeter personally adores. Conversations, food, and alcohol did rounds, not necessarily in any order. Sometimes, the experience precedes the food and this was one such event. For the uninitiated, Guppy is Skeeter’s comfort food place, where she’d hop in for some Rock Corn Tempura or a Udon noodles and mushroom bowl. They do some great cocktails too!  
The meal included Amuse Bouche, appetizers, cocktails, main course and a dessert platter. 
Damages:  Rs 1850 per head.
P.S.: This was one of the better organised events that Skeets has been to in a long, long time! 

Lay’s Football favourites: Apple Chilli Flavour product review

Family and friends call Skeeter a marketeer’s delight. A new product that hits the supermarket shelves has to be picked and tried by Skeeter atleast once. All these nudges from the family time and again led Skeeter to the idea that these products could be showcased on the blog too! Hence launching Delhi Foodies’ Zone product reviews today. Here, Skeeter will showcase what she likes and what she doesn’t. Hope you will like reading such posts off and on.

Product

Skeets brings to you the delightful Lay’s Football favourites: Apple Chilli Flavour. It is one of the three limited edition flavours on offer. The other two being Cheesy Jalapeno and Tangy Herb. Skeeter is yet to try those. One bite of the Apple Chilli ridged potato crisps justifies the flavour(come to think of a thousand products whose tagline doesn’t match the taste). This one’s HOT with a strong hint of apple flavour (which the ingredients list reveals comes from the dried apple juice powder). It is tangy and yeah ‘No one can eat just one’ 🙂  Packed with a punch it gets a thumbs up from Skeeter.

Packaging and price tag

The mustard/deep yellow pack comes with football icon Leo Messi holding a chip and the doodles of apple and chilli make for attractive packaging. They are available in Rs 20 and Rs 10 packs of 52g and 26g respectively. Pick them up and munch on!

P.S.: One can vote for their favourite flavour and get a chance to watch Messi play Live!

Delhi’s hidden gem: Aap ki Pasand tea boutique by San-cha

Old Delhi’s mystical charm draws Skeeter to the kuchas and gallis of this part, time and again. This time around, it was in order to dig another gem. A different one from the chaat, kheer or the bedmi puri kinds. Skeeter’s been visiting Aap ki Pasand tea boutique by San-cha since a few years. When Splenda invited Skeeter for a ‘harmless sweet’ afternoon to her favourite tea shop, she found yet another reason to visit her favourite part of Old Delhi. It is chaotic, it is dirty, but it all emanates from the mind. Once you look beyond such things which usually keep the well-heeled folk from visiting these areas, you discover the underlying charm, which needless to say is quite underrated. We prefer malls over culture. Meh.
A group of eight food and drink enthusiasts gathered to learn a thing or two about tea from the very experienced tea taster Mr Sanjay Kapur who also happens to be the owner of the shop. Skeeter’s been meaning to hear him talk “tea” since a long, long time. And sometimes you get things you ask for without having to bat an eyelid like Skeeter did. Mr Kapur touched upon a few important points which the emerging category of health conscious Indians are curious to know. The average person may however go about drinking his cuppa without having to care much. Skeeter is enlisting a few points touched upon by Mr Kapur for those who’d like to dwelve deeper.

Tea and Caffeine

250mg of Caffeine is the limit beyond which the American Psychiatric Association (APA) draws a line.

How much tea is enough or good?

It can be concluded that the regular intake of five or more cups of tea per day facilitates healthy ageing – Dr H. Weisburger. Institute of Cancer Prevention, American Health Foundation.

The average tea cup

The average tea cup contains 25mg Caffeine. The average cup measures 150 ml approx. The average tea bag contains 2mg of tea.

The black tea or green tea debate

There is no real evidence that signifies green tea to be better than black. In fact, Sancha’s First Flush Darjeeling Black Tea selection which Mr Kapur describes as world’s finest Darjeeling cuppa is very high in anti oxidants. It turns out that the PM took this tea as the Indian State’s Gift to the Emperor of Japan early this year.

We tasted the Masala tea, the ginger tea and the First Flush Darjeeling Black Tea by Sancha. Skeeter quite liked the ginger tea without any added sugar or sweetener. And she is certainly going back for more.

More about Aap Ki Pasand
Locations:
Darya Ganj
Santushti shopping complex
Gurgaon (coming up very soon)

Tasting
Go to the tea boutique and taste your cuppa free of cost and pick what you like.

Recommendations
Besides the First Flush Darjeeling Black Tea, Skeeter recommends the ginger tea and the Jasmine tea pearls (a botanical blend).
Besides, there are several other blends that come packed beautifully, with a very Indian feel to them. They make for a great gift for the festive season or if you are travelling abroad and want to gift a something “very Indian” to your friends and relatives. Take your pick.