Salmon Nori Tempura

I always enjoy meeting people in the world of food. I was in Calcutta last month, and encountered three new executive chefs in the city. This is the last of the series — a journey that has taken me down several interesting innovations to the topic of the week — the confluence of the East and West.

Chef Mark Smith is a Sri Lankan who has spent many years in Australia. In fact, it was while working in a restaurant in Melbourne that he found his forte — East-West fusion. “My background was Italian food. But I got interested in this because there is a huge influence of Asian cuisine in Australia,” says the executive chef of the New Kenilworth Hotel. And since Italian food included spices and flavours, he thought he could use some of his expertise in a new field.

Pear poached in ginger and saffron with rice pudding

The result is an interesting mix of cuisines and ingredients. For instance, he does a brilliant caramelised pumpkin soup with Asian pesto (see recipe). He puts basil leaves, without which you can’t have your Italian pesto, but tops that with mint and coriander leaves. The pesto also includes green chillies. And instead of pine nuts, Chef Smith uses cashewnuts.

East meets West with chillies and coriander, galangal and dry spices such as star anise and cinnamon — all of which, he holds, go well with Western dishes.

The 37-year-old chef, who was earlier at The Kenilworth Beach Resort and Spa, Goa, has worked in several restaurants in Melbourne and at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai, before returning to Sri Lanka with different assignments every now and then. His travels taught him that there was a clientele for fusion food. “Working in a restaurant gave me the freedom to experiment,” he says.

Mushroom risotto

The experimentations went on for long, though the chef maintains that it was “simply a matter of matching and getting the right combination.”

That’s how he zeroed in on a crab linguini (see recipe), flavoured with coriander leaves and kaffir lime leaves. The leaves give an Asian touch to the pasta. He cooks his salmon ‘nori’ tempura with wasabi mayonnaise, and then serves it with rocket leaves — mixing salmon with Japanese, Southeast Asian and American flavours. I had the salmon tempura when I met him, and was struck by the contrasting flavours.

Chef Mark Smith’s travels taught him that there is a clientele for fusion food

Chef Smith believes that you can experiment with the salmon in different ways. The fish, for instance, goes well with the Japanese teriyaki sauce. “It’s a rich fish and its flavours are prominent. So it goes well with a robust sauce,” he says. But he likes his sauces light — more tomato- and olive oil-based than the heavy flour-based thick sauces.

The flavour of a grilled quail or chicken is enhanced not with the usual pepper, but with Chinese Schezwan pepper, giving a piquant touch to the meat. He cooks fish with sumak, a spice used in Moroccan food.

When he prepares poached pear with rice pudding, he flavours the pear with ginger, saffron, star anise, cinnamon and cloves. And for the pudding he uses Arborio, the rice used for risottos. The rice pudding is cooked over a slow fire. When it cools, he adds vanilla essence to it and folds in lightly whipped cream, before chilling it.

The chef plans to include all these exotic dishes in his menu at the New Kenilworth Hotel. Meanwhile, he is talking to a lot of people and holding discussions on what Calcuttans would like to eat. “I use as many local ingredients as I can, and then give the recipe a twist,” he says.

Clearly, Chef Smith likes to go down the road not taken. And making a nice pathway there as he walks on.        

Caramelised pumpkin soup with Asian pesto

Ingredients (to serve 4)

• 400gm peeled red pumpkin • 100gm peeled and quartered onions • 2 cloves peeled and crushed garlic ½ tsp fresh thyme • 20ml honey • 30ml olive oil • 1 bay leaf • vegetable stock • 50ml coconut cream • 50gm chilled, diced butter • Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

For the pesto

• 20gm basil leaves • 20gm fresh coriander sprigs • 20gm mint leaves • 1 clove peeled garlic • 2 sliced green chillies • 30gm grated Parmesan • 60ml sunflower oil • 30gm lightly toasted cashew • Salt, to taste

Method

Roughly cut the pumpkin into 1-in cubes. Add the onion, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, honey and olive oil. Place on a baking tray and roast for 20 minutes at 220°C. The vegetables will caramelise and turn golden brown. Remove from the oven and transfer pumpkin mix to a blender. Add vegetable stock and blend till smooth. Strain and transfer to a pan. Bring to a boil, simmer for 10 minutes. Add coconut cream. Season and whisk in the chilled butter. For the Asian pesto, blend all the ingredients in a food processor while adding the oil gradually. Check seasoning.

To serve, ladle the pumpkin soup into bowls and top with the Asian pesto.

Crab linguini

Ingredients (to serve 4)

• 400gm chopped fresh crabmeat • 200gm linguini pasta • 3 ripe tomatoes • 2 peeled and finely sliced garlic cloves • 2 deseeded and finely chopped fresh red chillies • 40gm sliced fresh coriander • 2 finely chopped kaffir lime leaves • 50ml olive oil • 50ml dry white wine • 5gm chilled diced butter • Salt, to taste

Method

Blanch tomatoes in boiling water for 30 seconds and then plunge into iced water to remove the skins. Deseed by halving them and squeezing out the seeds. Save the juice. Cut the tomatoes into 1-cm pieces. Boil the linguini in plenty of salted water (3 litres, with 30gm salt) until ‘al dente’ and drain. Heat the oil in a pan. Add garlic and chillies and fry until soft. Add the crabmeat. Cook for a minute. Add tomato and cook for 2 minutes. Deglaze with wine. Add tomato juice and chopped kaffir lime leaves. Add the drained linguini, season and cook so that the pasta can absorb the flavours. To finish, toss with diced butter and fresh coriander.

To serve, divide into plates, garnish with coriander sprigs and drizzle with olive oil.