Lily flower bhaji with lotus stems

Every now and then I make a trip to our local flower mart. Unlike the poet, my heart doesn’t leap up when I behold daffodils — or any other flower, for that matter. But the flower haats, even I have to admit, are a riot of colours and fragrances. And even the most prosaic of fellows can get a bit overwhelmed when surrounded by flowers of all kinds.

I suspect that these days chef Sharad Dewan’s kitchen is a bit like the flower mart. For The Park Hotel’s director of food production has in recent times been cooking with flowers. The last time I encountered flowers on the dinner table was when a friend of mine prepared a delicious salad of leaves and petals. And, of course, I always enjoy the odd rose petal in a dish: it looks good, and gives a heady aroma to the food.

“We have always associated flowers with things of beauty and décor and perfumery,” says chef Dewan. “But as far as food goes, I never thought of going beyond the rose which we used to make ‘gulkand’ (a rose jam) or added to flavour ‘garam masala’.” But now that he has been working with flowers as an ingredient, the chef has found very many ways of using them to tickle our palates.

Kachumber salad with holy basil flowers

And it’s not just the rose petal that has caught his fancy — he has been cooking with a whole host of flowers from lilies to marigold and tulsi flowers to mustard blooms, adding to the flavours and appearances of dishes.

Some flowers, of course, are used quite extensively in many parts of the country. The banana flower, for one, is a great delicacy, as is the pumpkin flower, which is fried as served as fritters in the East. The tiny drumstick florets, which are quite a favoured ingredient in many kitchens in the West, turn into a delicious bhaji. But chef Dewan, to my surprise, even cooks the lily to make a bhaji with lotus stems.

That marigold — or the genda phool — is edible is something that all kids in India probably know. When we were small boys, we were the bane of the gardeners in our neighbourhood. When we were not plucking mangoes, we were stealing marigold flowers. First we’d eat the little round bulb-like part of the flower — which was deliciously tart — and then we’d nibble on the genda petals.

Golden fried gulab jamuns with marigold rabri

I suppose chef Dewan did something similar when he was growing up because he seems quite knowledgeable about the taste of marigold petals. He uses them to flavour and colour rabri. He purees some marigold petals and mixes them well with rabri, which he then serves with hot gulab jamuns.

Flowers don’t just have to figure in Indian dishes. The chef, for instance, serves a bowl of French onion soup with an onion flower tempura. And he prepares an oriental hotpot which he presents with dim sums cooked with chive flowers and even does tomato mozzarella shots with basil flowers.

What’s clear is that flowers don’t just add to the looks of a dish but enhance the taste as well. Flowers have their own peculiar flavours, and you can experiment with them in different ways. The chef takes the tulsi flower — holy basil — to make a salad with chopped onions, tomatoes and other veggies.

But I think the rose continues to rule when it comes to using flowers in the kitchen. I still remember the delicious chocolate that I ate at the end of a happy meal at The Suryaa many months ago. The chocolate had been set over a rose petal, and the outcome was not just a treat for the eyes, but for the taste buds too.

Chef Dewan uses rose petals to flavour and garnish all kinds of desserts — from gulab ki kheer and phirni to ice cream and a thandai brûée. All the delightful things that he does with the rose reminds me of one of my favourite jokes, which — since we are on the subject of flowers — I must relate to you as a cheery end to this column. A school inspector looks at golden booms in a school and asks the English teacher to name the flower. Chrysanthemum, said the teacher promptly. “Spell it, Mr Singh,” barked the inspector. “Oh, sorry — that’s a rose. R--S-E, rose,” he replied.

And that reminds me of a Chinese fish dish in which the fish had been fanned out to look like a chrysanthemum. But of that, another time.

Printed pasta with mustard flower and sage butter (serves 2)

Ingredients

For the pasta:
• 200g flour
• 2 eggs
• 15-20 sprigs of fresh parsley
• 10-12 mustard flowers
• 10ml milk

Method:
Make pasta dough with flour and whisked eggs (leaving about 2tbs egg aside for the egg wash). Knead well. Keep the dough covered with a wet cloth. Now roll the dough in a pasta machine to make 2-4 sheets. Place the sheets on a flat surface and with the help of a rolling pasta cutter cut into equal squares. Take a sheet, and apply the egg wash (mix of eggs and milk) over it. Place the parsley sprigs and mustard flowers over it like the pieces on a chess board. Now take a second sheet and place it over the first. Roll the sheets carefully so that you get to see the parsley and flower prints all over the sheets. Now cut the pasta into equal sizes with the print on each strip. Repeat the procedure with the other two sheets. Blanch the pasta in hot boiling water.

For the sauce, heat a pan, but make sure it’s not too hot. Add butter (125g), torn sage leaves (10-12) and not more than 2-3 mustard petals for too much of mustard can make the sauce bitter. Now put the blanched pasta in the sauce. Add 10ml white wine, check the seasoning and sprinkle 30g Parmesan cheese on top. Serve the pasta hot with a few mustard petals over it.