Kalmi Shirazi

My friend, Amita, is an imaginative academic. And being essentially a vegetarian, she puts her imagination to work when she entertains by conjuring up — or ordering — some interesting veggie dishes. Last week, when she called some friends home for dinner, she had quite an awesome dish on her table. A bottle gourd — the humble lauki — had been scooped out and stuffed with chopped tomatoes, paneer and raisins. Then it was sliced and cooked in a yoghurt-based gravy.

Any kind of a stuffing — in vegetables, fish or chicken — is a good way of tarting up a dish. We Indians, in fact, have a whole lot of stuffed dishes, and sometime in the future I hope to write about stuffing bitter gourds and okra — dishes that I am rather good at.

This week, though, I shall focus on some Western and Chinese recipes. Executive Chef Sujan Mukherjee of Taj Bengal has provided us with a great array of dishes with stuffing.

Bharwan chutney paneer roll

And being quite an innovative chef, the dishes that he suggests are out of the ordinary, with names that sound almost as delicious as the dish. Take, for instance, his steamed tang mien flour pocket stuffed with lemon prawn napped with taosi sauce. For this, you need 35 minutes in hand — and 200gm prawn, 50gm tang mien flour (wheat starch), 15gm taosi (salted fermented beans), 10gm oil, 5gm chopped garlic, 5gm chopped ginger, 10gm chopped spring, 2ml of dark soy, salt and sugar to taste, 10-15ml boiling water, and 4-5 chopped lemon leaves.

Clean and devein the prawns. Mash the upper part of the prawn, keeping the tail intact. Marinate with the shredded lemon leaves and keep for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, make a dough of the flour and boiling water. Divide the dough into six parts, and roll them into small roundels. Stuff the roundels with mashed prawn, keeping the tail visible. Steam for three minutes.

Now sauté the chopped garlic and ginger in oil in a wok. Add the taosi and put 75ml water. Allow it to boil. Season, and top with sesame oil. Now nappe — that’s chefspeak for coating — the tang mien pockets with the sauce, and garnish with spring onion.

Steamed Tang Mien Flour pocket stuffed with Lemon Prawn, napped with taosi sauce

Stuffing is a good way of enhancing flavours, for the filling itself can contrast with, or complement, the taste of the ingredient that is being stuffed. There was a time when I loved Chicken a la Kiev. Much before Delhi discovered its Continental palate, there was a little known restaurant in Pahar Ganj, which was the hub for backpackers. The restaurant, called The Metropolis, had a wonderful menu, and I used to go there for my Chicken a la Kiev. For this, you flavoured a chunk of butter with herbs and then froze the butter. You took a chicken breast, beat it with a wooden hammer, stuffed the frozen butter into it, rolled the breast and crumb fried it. You seasoned it and served it on a platter. When you cut into the breast, the herbed butter came oozing out — and quite made your day.

You can cook vegetables with vegetable stuffing. Chef Mukherjee makes a stuffed courgette — with a small yellow and a green zucchini — filled with Monterey Jack (a semi-hard American cheese), paprika phyllo with carrots and mango salsa. And, of course, you can mix vegetables with meat and come up with wonderful results.

Sstuffed squid with duet of tuna and snapper, salmon tartare and red currant compote

There is, for instance, a very simple recipe for stuffed tomato that you can try out. Cut off the top of a tomato, scoop out the seeds and drain completely. Mix some ham with parsley, bread crumbs, salt and pepper to taste and stir in some whipped egg. Stuff the filling in the tomato and microwave on high for five minutes. Place a slice of cheese on the tomato and brown for three minutes.

Stuffing can be pretty exotic as well. The chef offers a recipe for stuffed squid with a duet of tuna and snapper, salmon tartare and red currant compote.

For this, he makes a mousse with snapper mince, egg yolk and cream by blending in a mixer, and then a similar mousse with tuna mince and cream. In some extra virgin olive oil, he adds lime juice, salt and castor sugar and marinates fresh salmon dices for two or three hours. He adds some saffron to the snapper mousse. Then, with a piping bag, he puts the two types of mousse into the squid pockets. He heats some white wine and sugar, adds red currants, cools and chills this compote. Then he roughly dices carrots, onion, celery and leek which he uses for a court bouillon — a flavoured liquid for poaching — and adds to it some bay leaf, peppercorn and bouquet garni (a bunch of herbs that usually includes parsley and thyme). He steams the squids in the court bouillon till they are done. Now he cools them and arranges them on a plate, and then spoons out the salmon tartare and red currant compote.

I can go on and on about delicious fillings. But I think we’d all rather stuff our faces!

Stuffed silken tofu with Mandarin orange and Chinese pickled vegetable served with spicy orange sauce

Ingredients (Portion: 1) • 200gm silken tofu •15gm Mandarin orange peel •15gm pickled vegetable l50gm cornflour •25ml oil •5gm chopped ginger •10gm chopped spring onion •Salt to taste •5gm sugar l80ml orange juice • 2ml chilli oil

Method
Slice the tofu horizontally in half, keeping one end intact. Chop the orange peel along with the pickled vegetables and stuff the tofu with it. Heat oil in a wok and fry the tofu, and then keep it aside. For the sauce, sauté the chopped ginger in the same oil. Add the orange juice, let it boil, and add the sugar and salt. Add the chilli oil and thicken with corn flour. Arrange the tofu on a plate, and spread the sauce on top. Garnish with spring onions.

Courtesy: Chef Sujan Mukherjee,
Taj Bengal, Calcutta
Photographs by Rashbehari Das