What’s the order of the day? If we rewind even a few years, it was definitely not low fat or low calorie dishes for celebrity chefs worth their toques. Diners, not so long ago, had only plates of salads to look at if they uttered words as sacrilegious as healthy. Sadly, the world of fine dining held little promise for the diet junkie who also craved scrumptious food.

Today even haughty culinary idols like Gordon Ramsay — with a dozen Michelin stars to his credit — are turning up the heat and embracing healthy eating. Take a look at Ramsay’s book Healthy Appetite. It has sections like ‘Avoid the bad fats’, ‘Omega 3 boost’ and ‘Getting the right balance’. And he has gone even further than that. A fruit-based dish even comes with nutritional information like “rich in Vitamin C to boost your immunity”.

Clearly, the decadent diner is a vanishing species — laid low by cholesterol perhaps. They have been replaced by a new breed, vigilant about the calorie counter ticking away and even more worried about that than the ingredients going into the dishes. Every forkful is checked against artery clogging cholesterol, carcinogenic substances, transfats and a host of other factors responsible for causing lifestyle disorders. So every chef worth his spatula is ensuring that the luxury diner is not biting off more than he can chew. In fact The Metropolitan Hotel in Delhi is courting careful diners with its low calorie dinner. Called ‘Eat a meal within 500 calories’, the six-course dinner has specific calorie listings for each item that arrives at the table. Other dining facilities too, have aces up their sleeve. Here’s a dekko at what culinary kings across the country are serving up for the new age diner.

ITC Sonar, Kolkata

Chef Ramesh Javvaji

You can go healthy in any cuisine according to Executive Chef Ramesh Javvaji. But Javvaji’s piece de resistance when it comes to careful eating is the Continental spread. The dishes he has outlined for us are part of their spa cuisine at The Restaurant, where they avoid smothering the food with rich, palate-clogging sauces and additives.

Each of the recipes provided below has been cooked with minimal oil and only olive oil that’s rich in antioxidants and mono saturated fatty acids has been used. While the antioxidants help prevent cell damage, the mono saturated fatty acids keep cardiac ailments at bay.

“The spa menu is designed to supply patrons with good essential fatty acids from fish, vegetables, grains and pulses,” says Javvaji.

Chef Ramesh Javvaji

Both the recipes have also used lean meats like chicken and fish. “We use only use trimmed lean meats to reduce saturated fats,” adds Javvaji. Saturated fats are believed to raise blood cholesterol levels considerably.

Bundles of spring chicken with asparagus spears on a salad of raw papaya, cilantro and roasted peanuts

Ingredients

4 chicken breast supreme

4 asparagus spears

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

5ml olive oil

50gm raw papaya

5gm cherry tomatoes

2 sprigs cilantro

10gm roasted peanuts

5ml lemon juice

2 spring onions

Method

Peel and cut papaya. Marinate with salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil, then keep aside. Marinate chicken supreme with salt and pepper. Grill the supreme. Make two bundles with chicken supreme and asparagus. In a plate put papaya salad and top this with asparagus and chicken supreme. Garnish with cilantro.

Oven baked beckti with a herbed whole wheat crumble on a medley of broccoli, corn and Spanish onions

Ingredients

2 beckti lozenges (fillets)

10gm broccoli

10gm Spanish onions

10gm American corn

2gm parsley

2gm thyme

5gm Dijon mustard

10gm tomato puree

5gm chopped garlic

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

10gm bread crumbs

10gm sesame seeds

Method

Marinate beckti fillets with Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, chopped parsley and thyme. Cover the fish with sesame seeds and bread crumbs. Put in the oven for 15 minutes at 250° Celsius. Heat oil and put broccoli, Spanish onions and American corn in it. Toss it well.

For the sauce

Heat oil and put garlic and tomato puree in it. Add salt and pepper. Serve the fish with sautéed vegetables and sauce

The Park

Chef Surajit Banerjee

Chef Surajit Banerjee at The Park is a raw veggie fan. He has used colourful vegetables, like bell peppers, corn and tomatoes, rich in phyto chemicals in his first recipe. Phyto chemicals with disease preventive properties are abundantly found in tomatoes and other colourful fruits and vegetables.

And there’s a quirky Indian twist to the Continental food that he serves up. Local and seasonal produces that are high on flavour like the Gondhoraj lime, a traditional Bengali lime and Kasundi, a Bengali mustard sauce, are used to spice up the continental fare without piling on the calories.

And as Ramsay says in his book Healthy Appetite, “It’s not just a matter of selecting the leanest cuts of meat and reducing the amount of fat we consume, it helps to know which ingredients are at their peak at any given time, both in terms of flavour and nutrition.”

Gondhoraj lime infused VSOP olive oil salad

Ingredients

15gm mushrooms

15gm zucchini

15gm bell pepper

15gm baby corn

10gm whole corn

3 cherry tomatoes

4 olives

10gm asparagus

20gm broccoli

30gm iceberg lettuce

For dressing

1 Gandharaj lime

5ml VSOP olive oil

5gm French Mustard

2gm sugar

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Method

Cut the mushroom into two. Cut the zucchini, baby corn and asparagus into ½ inch dices. Deseed and cut the bell pepper into ½ inch dices. Cut florets from broccoli. Cook the baby corn well and blanch mushroom, zucchini, asparagus and broccoli in salted water. Put all the vegetable in chilled water after blanching. In a bowl mix all the ingredients for dressing and whisk well. Now mix all the vegetables, iceberg lettuce and toss with the dressing. Don’t add too much dressing to the salad or the vegetables will become limp. Serve in a salad plate with lavoche bread or French loaf slices.

Note: Instead of VSOP Olive oil, any other extra virgin olive oil may also be used.

Banana leaf wrapped smoked fish

Ingredients 180gm boneless fish fillet (Calcutta beckti or any other lean fish) 5gm Kasundi Juice of one lemon 1 bunch basil Salt to taste Pepper to taste 1 banana leaf

Method

Clean the fish properly and pat dry with a paper towel to remove excess moisture. Now marinate the fish with chopped basil, mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper and keep for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Meanwhile slightly steam the banana leaf to make it pliable. Wrap the banana leaf around the marinated fish along with a little marinade and secure properly. Create a smoking chamber by putting some smouldering teak wood shavings in a vessel, which has a lid. Over this, at some height, put a metal sieve/mesh. Put the fish on this sieve and close the lid. Leave the fish in this smoking chamber for about 15 minutes. The fish will come out cooked and with a nice smoky flavour. The juices of the fish remain trapped inside the banana leaf. Alternatively, steam the banana leaf wrapped fish in a steamer for 15 to 20 minutes. Turn off the steamer and rest for a while. Remove the fish from smoker/steamer and serve on a plate with some steamed vegetable and lemon wedges.

The Metropolitan Hotel, Delhi

Chef Nariyoshi Nakamura (above); Chef Basant Kumar Kishor

One can hardly complain about the calorie intake at The Metropolitan Hotel in Delhi. The six course dinner at Chutney, one of its Indian restaurants comes with calorie listings for all the courses and even accompaniments like the phulka (50 cal), raita (50 cal) and even pickles of pumpkin (9.41 cal) and papaya (14 cal). “The menu is a perfect combination of taste and health. Only less oily and less spicy food can be part of health menu,” says Executive Sous Chef Basant Kumar Kishor.

The high octane Japanese restaurant at The Metropolitan Hotel, Sakura has a Miso Soup by Master Chef Nariyoshi Nakamura, with exceedingly healthy ingredients like wakame, miso, daikon and dashi. Wakame is a species of kelp that’s rich in proteins, lipids, minerals, vitamins A, B1 and B2, while the soya bean paste in miso is a protein source. There’s also daikon or the Japanese radish, that’s an excellent palate cleanser and low in calories. Also, dashi or flavoured Japanese soup stock is a great source of protein garnered from giant kelp or konbu, one of its chief ingredients.

Hare matter ki shammi

Ingredients 280gm green peas

90gm potato pahari

15gm ginger, chopped

10gm green chillies

5ml olive oil

20gm coriander leaves

5gm yellow chilli powder

5gm black cumin

Salt to taste

Total Cal (4 portion) 244.8

Total Cal (1 portion) 61.2

Method

Blanch the green peas. Put olive oil in a pan and add black cumin to it. Also, add green peas and sauté it till green peas gets dry. Let it cool. When it cools, add boiled and mashed potatoes, chopped coriander. Make flat round cakes (tikki). Take oil in a fry pan and stir fry the cakes (tikki). Serve hot.

Miso soup

Ingredients

35gm white miso paste

15gm red miso paste

600ml dashi

2tbs spring onions

5gm dried wakame

1/2 block silken tofu

Method

Soak the wakame in cold water. Cut the block of tofu into 1cm thick squares. Take a little dashi and make a paste with the two kinds of miso. Don’t boil this liquid. Add miso gradually while adjusting the taste. Heat the dashi in a saucepan. Add the miso-dashi mixture. Bring to a boil. Serve hot in individual lidded soup cups. Garnish with tofu cubes, spring onions and wakame

The Claridges

Chef Anurag Bali

We didn’t win the war but Indians nowadays aren’t happy unless they can occasionally foray into Chinese territory. And The Claridges in Delhi has added a healthful twist to its Chinese tale. “Chinese herbal soup with vegetables is essentially a tonic meant to nourish the body; it uses special Chinese herbs like ginseng and wolfberry. Ginseng acts as an energy tonic and also helps calm and cleanse the body whilst wolfberry medicinally enhances the immune system and improves eyesight,” says Chef Anurag Bali, Executive Sous Chef, The Claridges. If you happen to be going Continental then Bali can serve up dishes like the wine poached cod, which uses lean white fish and fresh vegetables. The dish uses poaching as a cooking technique, making it a low calorie and low fat option.

Chinese herbal soup with vegetables

Ingredients

100gm carrots

100gm pokchoy

50gm broccoli

100gm lemon

30gm ginger

30gm ginseng root

15gm Chinese wolfberries

30gm salt

30gm sugar

2500ml vegetable stock

Method

Dice Vegetables into bite size cubes. Add vegetables to stock and simmer. Add ginseng root, wolfberries and sliced ginger. Bring stock to boil serve herbal soup hot.

Wine poached cod fish with cilantro and wild mushrooms

Ingredients

220gm cod fillet

20ml white wine

200gm fish stock

30gm spring onion greens

50gm button mushrooms

40gm ceps

40gm spinach

15ml lemon juice

5gm salt

5gm pepper

Method

Combine the first six ingredients in a thick bottomed pan. Put it on flame and let the mixture simmer. Season cod fillet and marinate lightly with lemon juice. Poach in the liquid mixture with vegetables for 6-8 minutes. Serve hot on a bed of the vegetables used during poaching. Use reduced poaching liquid as sauce

Spaghetti Kitchen

Bill Marchetti

Indians tend to think of cheese, cream sauces and dishes that use lots of refined flour when they think of Italian food. But at Spaghetti Kitchen, a plush Italian standalone restaurant in the Capital, proprietor Bill Marchetti is determined to show us another side of Italy.

“We use good olive oils, fresh herbs, good sea salt and then focus on bringing out and highlighting the natural taste of the ingredient,” says Marchetti. He also has advice for restaurant regulars, “For main courses lean towards fish, chicken, whole wheat pastas or a veg risotto. And don’t forget a glass or two of wine. That’s great for reducing the blood pressure and purifying the blood,” he says.

Marchetti has even made the traditionally high cal pizza a healthful option for fitness geeks with a salad topping and has served up a penne arrabbiata, with green veggies and wholemeal pasta.

Penne all’arrabbiata with fresh vegetables

Ingredients 400gm whole wheat penne 50ml olive oil 10 cloves of garlic, sliced 1tsp dried Kashmiri chilli, snipped into flakes 3 onions, diced 1 cup tomato puree 600gm fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced Whole leaves of basil, lightly torn by hand 2 cup mixed blanched vegetables 4tbs grated Parmesan cheese

Method:

Sauté the garlic in the hot olive oil. Add the chilli followed by the onions. Sauté till the onions are translucent. Add the diced tomatoes and sauté over a high heat for about five minutes. Season with sea salt and a little freshly ground black pepper. Add the tomato puree and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the vegetables and basil leaves and keep warm. Cook the penne in ample salted water for about 12 minutes. Drain, do not rinse and add to the tomato sauce. Over a medium flame, simmer for a minute to amalgamate the flavours. Serve with grated Parmesan(optional).

Salad Pizza

You can start with a regular baked pizza. Add a healthful touch by topping the simple pizza base with mixed salad greens, olives and steamed vegetables. Since the vegetables are steamed, you don’t tend to go overboard with the calories too. Also, olives are loaded with Vitamin E, iron and antioxidants. Dress the regular pizza with balsamic vinegar and season it with sea salt, pepper and a dash of olive oil.