Chilli pickle and cheese baked crab

On the face of it, there is nothing much in common between Gregory Peck and Joymalya Banerjee. The first was an American actor, and the second is an Indian chef. But there is, the chef tells me, a connection — both love or loved their work. Chef Joymalya recalls that the actor once pointed out at an Oscar ceremony that 98 per cent people couldn’t do what they loved to do — but the remaining two per cent loved what they did. “I belong to this two per cent,” said Gregory Peck — and clearly so does the chef. “Welcome to my world,” he stresses.

His world, right now, is a quaint little place in Old Ballygunj called Bohemian. The chef — who has always impressed me with his culinary thoughts and action — hopes that the new restaurant will showcase what he’s best at: “combining different styles and ingredients simply for the love and joy it gives, both when it works, and when it doesn’t.”

It’s this love for combination that appeals to me. Chef Joymalya — who used to be the chief chef at Oh! Calcutta before he struck out on his own — has been creatively mixing Bengali cooking spices in Western cooking.

Steamed chicken breast with Radhuni-enriched curry sauce

He uses all that you find in jars in every Bengali kitchen — such as bori, which are dried balls made out of different kinds of dals, or kashundi, which is a bitter and sharp mustard sauce generally served with cutlets and chops — to conjure up innovative dishes. The traditional Bengali panch phoron (which usually consists of cumin, fenugreek, mustard, fennel and nigella), aam kashundi (a tangy mustard-mango paste) and radhuni (a celery-like plant often used in Bengali food) — come up in the most surprising dishes.

For instance, he steams a breast of chicken and presents it in curry flavoured with radhuni and then serves it with wilted greens and a bori pilaf. And he bakes hilsa fillets after crusting them with powdered bori.

These are experiments that work well because most Bengali spices and garnishes, in my opinion, are the kind that go with any food which is lightly cooked. The spices have their own particular flavours, and go a long way in enriching a dish. Some of the cooking ingredients — such as the kashundi and the aam kashundi — have a piquant taste and can tart up a sauce. So when he wraps chicken strips in bacon, and then simmers it in a sauce prepared with reduced aam kashundi, he just can’t go wrong.

Panch phoron, as one would expect, figures prominently on his menu. This most basic five-spice mix can be found in all kinds of Bengali dishes — from white potatoes to fish curries and vegetables. In one of chef Joymalya’s creations, he makes a marinade with panch phoron, ginger paste, chilli paste, lime juice and salt for chicken escallops and then grills the chicken, basting it with panch phoron oil.

But Bengali condiments aren’t all mild — some are pretty potent. One such ingredient that the chef has been using in his dishes is a red chilli pickle masala. In his chilli pickle ’’ cheese baked crab, he cooks crab meat with this pungent red chilli pickle mix to give the otherwise innocuous taste of crabs a nice kick.

The chef’s philosophy is simple. “In all my years of being a chef I have always done new things. Being able to do what you love to do gives me that zeal to achieve excellence and the courage to tread on a different path,” he says. That’s the way, chef — as Ogden Nash almost said: candy is dandy but spice is nice.

Hilsa baked with bori crust (serves 4)

Ingredients:
• 2 hilsa fillets • 45g green chilli paste • 10g turmeric • 25ml mustard oil • salt to taste • 200g masoor dal bori • 15g chopped green chilli • 10g chopped coriander • 10g red chilli powder • 2 eggs • 30ml lime juice

Method:
Prepare a marinade with salt, green chilli paste, turmeric, lime juice and mustard oil. Apply it generously to the fish fillet and keep aside for 20 minutes. Steam the fillets for 15 minutes. Remove, cool and de-bone the fillets. Cut the fillets into halves to serve as individual portions. Fry the masoor daal bori and drain on absorbent paper. Crush the bori into small pieces. Mix with salt, red chilli powder, chopped coriander and chopped green chilli. Lightly steam the de-boned fillet to warm the fish. Break the eggs in a mixing bowl, whisk them a little and then add to the bori mixture. Mix lightly and apply to the fish pieces. Bake them in the oven for 7-8 minutes or till the crust has hardened. Serve with stir-fried spinach and buttered tomato rice.

Bacon-wrapped chicken supreme bundles with aam kashundi reduction (serves 4)

Ingredients:
• 400g boneless chicken breast • 16 streaky bacon slices • 25g ginger paste • 40g red chilli paste • 20g Kashmiri chilli paste • 100g aam kashundi paste • 30ml kashundi • 35ml lime juice • 200ml cooking cream • 45g chopped onion • 20g chopped garlic • 30ml mustard oil • 20g green chilli paste • salt and sugar to taste

Method:
Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan. Sauté the ginger paste and half the red chilli paste and kashmiri chilli paste. Add the aam kashundi paste and kashundi. Pour about 750ml of water. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 1 hour 45 minutes, till the mixture is reduced and gets to a thick jam-like consistency. Cut the chicken into strips and marinade with 10g of the aam kashundi reduction, salt and lime juice. Take 4 strips of the marinated chicken and wrap with streaky bacon, securing it with a toothpick. Repeat the same process with the remaining chicken strips. There should be 16 rolls in all. In a non-stick pan, grill the rolls on low heat till the bacon is crispy.

For the sauce, heat mustard oil in a pan, sauté chopped onion and chopped garlic. Add the cream and half of the aam kashundi reduction. Season and add green chilli paste. Cook the sauce for few minutes. Add the bacon-wrapped chicken and cook for another 5 minutes. Serve with tossed vegetables and steamed rice.