Porcini liquor-infused rock potato boulangere topped with pineapple parsley foam

When I popped the chocolate-wrapped pan into my mouth, I knew it was going to be a promising evening. I was meeting Utpal Mondal, the new executive chef of Calcutta’s Hotel Hindusthan International. We were discussing new movements in food, and the Chef surprised me by saying that he wanted to start one himself. And since I had found his chocolatey pan rather intriguing, I knew he’d have something interesting up his sleeve. I was right — the chef wants to present dishes that have ingredients soaked in liquids of different kind over long periods of time.

It will be a while before his Pernod-flavoured baby mushroom ragout with bell pepper-infused polenta sushi makes it to the HHI menu, but chef Mondal is making his clients happy with his special dishes in private parties. “The feedback is tremendous,” he says.

I can understand that. What the chef is doing is imparting special flavours and colours to dishes by soaking an ingredient for a very, very long time in a particular kind of liquid. For instance, he takes a fillet of bekti, and soaks it in something like pomegranate juice (see recipe), or apple juice. The juice gives a sweetish touch to the dish, and adds its own flavour to the fish. And the colour of the dish, especially when pomegranate is being used, is lovely. “It’s nicer than pink salmon,” he says.

Chef Utpal Mondal wants to leave a legacy behind for future chefs

The chef, who worked for 15 years at the Taj Bengal and left the hotel to join HHI when he held the number two post at the Taj, has been giving this form of cuisine a lot of thought. The process of pre-marinating that takes place in tandoori cooking can easily be transferred to Continental cuisine, he argues.

Take something like a porcini liquor-infused rock potato boulangere topped with pineapple pastry foam. For this, he takes some porcini mushrooms and soaks them in lukewarm water. He adds potatoes to this, and lets the spuds soak in the flavours of the porcini for 12 hours. Why couldn’t he just cook the potatoes with the porcini, I ask him. “Because this way you get the flavour of the mushroom in the potatoes,” he replies. “The flavours of a liquid get infused into the molecules of the veggies or the meat that I am going to cook,” he says.

The chef prepares what he calls a trio ricotta on a garlic pokchoy veloute, with balsamic pears. The ricotta cheese is given three distinct flavours for this. One piece of cheese goes into coconut cream mixed with vanilla liqueur. Another piece goes into a watermelon juice reduction. The third is soaked in mint purée. The three slices are then grilled and presented together with blanched pokchoy stems, grilled aubergines and tart pears soaked in balsamic vinegar.

Trio-ricotta parmeggiano on garlic pokchoy veloute topped with balsamic pears

One flavour that goes very well with Continental cuisine is orange. The chef makes liberal use of Cointreau — a great orange liqueur — to spike flavours in the dishes that he has been conceptualising. The chef discovered the potential of the Cointreau when he started serving his guests a Cointreau-flavoured kulfi. “It was a huge success,” he says.

He has used the Cointreau rather successfully in a minced duck cappelletti (see recipe). Mint is another favourite of his. It goes well with fish, he says — giving it an aromatic flavour, and a pleasant colour.

All this demands some serious work in the kitchen — to say nothing of all the work that goes on in the library. Chef Mondal says he has been thinking along these lines for a very long time. He has been experimenting hard, and believes that this is a new form of cuisine just waiting to be tapped. “It’s a cuisine of colour and flavour,” the chef says.

What he wants to do is leave a legacy behind for the next generation of chefs. And since Chef Mondal is still in his early forties, we can expect the legacy to get richer over time. Liquids have never had it this good.

Oregano-infused water chestnut cappelletti stuffed with orange Cointreau duck

Ingredients

• 200gm water chestnut powder • 5gm paste of oregano leaves • 3 egg yolks • 10gm salt • 20ml clarified butter • 20ml cream • 30gm pecorino cheese • 20ml Cointreau liqueur • 200gm duck breast • 30gm duck fat • l200ml orange juice• 10ml extra virgin olive oil • 2gm black peppercorn • 10gm chopped garlic • 20gm chopped onion • 10gm chopped leeks • 10gm chopped celery • 1 basil sprig

Method

Knead water chestnut powder, salt, egg yolk and oregano paste into a pasta sheet. Pierce the duck breast with a knife. Soak it in orange juice and salt for 24 hours. Take it out and pat it dry. Add the fat and mince it. Sauté onions and garlic in olive oil. Add the mince and cook. Season. Put the duck meat in the pasta sheet and shape it like a cap to make a cappelletti. Blanche the cappelletti. It should be al dente. Prepare the cream sauce with pecorino cheese and orange Cointreau. Add the sauce over the pasta.

Bekti soaked in pomegranate juice with mustard-infused potato topped with apple-flavoured asparagus

Ingredients

• 400gm bekti fillets • 100ml pomegranate juice • 50ml milk • 15gm salt
• 5gm peppercorn • 100gm potato • 10gm Dijon mustard • 50ml apple juice • 150gm asparagus • 15ml cream • 15gm butter • 1 lime • 10gm chopped garlic • 30ml olive oil •Sugar, to taste

Method

Make pomegranate juice. Mix with milk, add salt and a pinch of sugar. Put the fish fillets in this and keep aside for 24 hours. Blanche the asparagus in the apple juice with sugar and salt. Take out the asparagus and allow the juice to cool.Soak the asparagus in it for two hours.

Roast the potatoes and mash them. In butter, sauté half of the chopped garlic with
mustard, cream, salt and half the crushed black peppercorn. Add the potatoes and sauté some more.

Place the fish on a tray and pat dry. Add the remaining chopped garlic, juice of 1 lime and the remaining black peppercorn. Season. Grill with olive oil. Place the mustard potato at the centre of the plate. Add the grilled fish on top. Garnish with the apple-flavoured asparagus.

Courtesy: Hotel Hindusthan International, Calcutta,
Photographs by Rashbehari Das