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Polenta |
My encounters with visiting foreign chefs are always illuminating. I am impressed not just by their passion, but by the painstaking efforts they take to make a dish palatable and beautiful. But at the end of the meetings, my fingers and shoulders start to ache. Because, more often than not, the visiting chefs know their food very well, but are not very conversant with English and our interaction demands that I shrug my shoulders quite a bit, and wave my fingers around to explain myself.
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Fried pasta
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For a change, I didn’t have to do all that with chef Stefano Merlo, an Italian chef who was visiting India some weeks ago. I had been assured before I met him that not only did the chef speak English, but that he was extremely articulate as well. I don’t expect chefs whose language is not English to know it well why should they, when they don’t need to? But I have to admit that it was quite a pleasure meeting chef Stefano, who having worked outside Italy for many years, could explain many of the intricacies of his dishes to me.
We were meeting at West View, ITC Maurya’s rooftop grill, in Delhi. The chef, who works at the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit in Thailand, was in town to give a demonstration of his own characteristic style of cooking. And while we tried out the excellent porcini mushroom soup that he had prepared for us, the chef told us how he had been mixing tradition with new forms.
The food that he designed for us, for instance, was traditional but the tweaks were modern. Let me explain. The porcini mushroom soup was traditional cooked with garlic, shallots and parsley. But the interesting bit was the Parmesan foam on top of the soup. He had boiled cream, milk and parmesan together, allowed the mixture to cool and then run it through a sieve. He then filled it up in a foam gun and squirted it over the soup with high- pressure air. The delicious flavour of Parmesan sat on the soup in a form of foam, and collapsed softly as you dug your spoon in it.
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Porcini mushroom soup
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The chef, who is from Padua and has learnt some of the tricks of the culinary trade from the Michelin-starred chef Massimiliano Alajmo, tells me that he likes to experiment with traditional food without taking away from the taste of the original. He presented as starters a wonderful dish of fried pasta. The pasta had been boiled, left out for two days to dry on its own, and then fried. He created a similar starter with grated Parmesan and pistachio, which he cooked in an oven over long hours. When it set into a sheet, he broke it into pieces, placed it around a stick and then served it as an appetiser.
He was equally creative with the traditional polenta, which he placed in sliced mushrooms covered with ragout, and then baked with some cheese.
I think having worked in Tokyo (at the Enoteca Pinchiorri, one of the best known Italian restaurants in the city), the chef believes in the power of presentation. So like the beautiful colours of Japanese food, his Italian dishes traditional but with a zing looked out of this world. ‘Molto buono’, I practised in my mind so that I could convey to the chef the magic that his combination had weaved. But then I remembered this was one man who knew his English as well as his food. I also realised the limitations of the English language. Suddenly ‘very good’ seemed inadequate.
Cream of beans with mussels (serves 2)
Ingredients
• 300g cannellini white beans • 2lt vegetable stock • 1 onion • 50g celery • 1 clove of garlic • 50g parsley leaves • 1 chilli • 16 mussels lextra virgin olive oil • 1 spoon dry egg white
Method
Soak the beans in a pot of water. After 12 hours, drain the beans, rinse well and place the pot on low heat and cook with onion, celery, garlic, chilli, half of the parsley and salt. Add the stock, cook for around two hours. Drain but preserve the cooking liquid. Blend the beans in a mixer. Add two spoons of extra virgin olive oil and the cooking liquid to it. Place mussels in a large pot with extra virgin olive oil and some garlic. Meanwhile blanch the remaining parsley leaves in boiling water, blend and strain, keeping the liquid. Add 1 spoon of dry egg white to it. Pour the cream of beans in four dishes adding four mussels and a spoon of the mussel liquid in each bowl. Work a hand-held blender over the surface of the parsley infusion until it emulsifies and a foam forms. Place a spoonful of the foam on the cream and serve.
Snow fish in crust of breadcrumbs with dry tomato and caper sauce (serves 2)
Ingredients
• 600g Chilean sea bass (skin off) • 100g whipped egg white • 100g breadcrumbs • 200g mashed potato • 300g cherry tomatoes • 40g capers • 50g garlic • 20g basil leaves • 100ml white wine • a cup of vegetable stock • dry oregano
Method
Halve cherry tomatoes, season with salt, pepper, garlic, basil and some olive oil. Place the tomato in a tray and cook in an oven at 70°C for around three hours. Chop garlic and stew in a saucepan with extra virgin olive oil, basil and capers. Add the baked tomatoes and white wine and evaporate. Cook for five minutes adding a cup of vegetable stock, oregano, and salt and pepper to taste.
Season the fish with salt and pepper, place a spoon of whipped egg white on top and flip the fish into the breadcrumbs to obtain an even layer of crumbs on one side. Heat a nonstick pan at medium heat with a light film of oil. Pan-fry the fish first on the side of crumbs and then the other side. Finally cook in the oven at 180°C for seven minutes.
To serve, place a spoon of mashed potato in a plate, pour a couple of spoons of the cherry tomato and caper sauce and top with the sea bass. |
