“Sabse pehle aap logo ko Sanjeev Kapoor ka pyaar bhara namashkar”— the celebrity chef greeted a cheering crowd at Sapphire Banquets for the Kolkata Cookery Workshop, in association with t2, on June 24. Whipping up about 10 vegetarian dishes in three-and-a-half hours, Kapoor was in his elements as he kept the audience glued to his workstation with jokes, tips, anecdotes and, of course, his dimpled smile. Here’s what the chef told t2...
Your comfort food…
I like everything, I eat everything. Whatever is in front of me, I’m comfortable with that. Certainly, things that you grow up with are things that you’re nostalgic about. But nothing that makes me say, ‘Oh my god, I want it right now’.
Five things we will always find in your fridge…
I have a large fridge, so you’ll find 50 things. But you’ll find lemon, garlic, spices, herbs and preserves from different parts of the world, milk and loads of seasonal fruits and vegetables.
Five spices that are always there in your kitchen cupboard…
You’ll find 10 different kinds of chillies. But mostly, the spice cupboard shows where I’ve been recently. Like I picked up various things from Georgia, I’ve picked up this spicy paste called Ajika and also this mix of sea salt and chillies... three or four variants of them actually. Depending on where I travel, I pick up things. I pick up herbs, fresh ingredients, pots and pans... anything related to food.
One dish that your wife makes better than you do…
Everything (smiles). She makes very good dosa and khandvi. She’s a great cook.
A food combination that you swear by…
Biryani and raita.
Is vegetarian coming back as a trend?
It’s always been there. So in India, when we say non-vegetarian, it’s not that they don’t eat vegetarian food. Globally, yes, vegetarian food is picking up.
Your favourite cookbook…
Favourites put you in a box, it’s restrictive and boring. You have to break the rules and not confine to favourites. Otherwise you keep going back to the same thing. You have to find a new path, you cannot take a road that has already been travelled.
Your favourite restaurant in the world….
I don’t like going back to the same restaurant, but still I would say it’s Roca (El Cellar de Can Roca) in Girona, Spain. It’s been rated number one in the world for quite some time now, serving world cuisine.
If you were to go on a food trip around the world, where would you go?
Everywhere! (Laughs) But if I had to choose, then Kerala, all of Maharashtra, Goa and Peshawar, coastal Spain, South America like Peru and Chile. My father was born in Peshawar and I’ve never been there, so I would love to go.
A must-try dish for you when you visit Calcutta?
Kanchagolla... I had that right after I landed here. And Mishti Doi. So sweets mostly. Among savoury, the jhaalmuri here is very different, so that too. But we get that in Mumbai now.
When you’re not cooking, you…
Sleep and listen to music. We also have a band and we jam. We have a WhatsApp group called Sur Ke Serious Raahi and we have a session tomorrow from 4pm and it will go on till late night (smiles).
YOUR TIPS FOR ASPIRING CHEFS…
Gain as much knowledge and skills as possible and work hard. Be open and think of the world as your canvas.
RECIPE FOR GRILLED VEGETABLE AND PANEER BURRITO
Ingredients:
250g cottage cheese cut into thin slices
1 small zucchini, sliced
1 small yellow squash, sliced
1 capsicum, cut into triangles
1 tomato tortilla
4-5 cloves of garlic, chopped
Lettuce leaves, hand torn
4tbs sour cream
½ cup tomato salsa
1tsp red chilli flakes
Salt and pepper, to taste
Olive oil, as needed
Method:
• Marinate the cottage cheese, zucchini, squash and capsicum with olive oil, garlic, chilli flakes, salt and pepper.
?• Heat some olive oil in a non-stick pan and grill the marinated vegetables.
?• To make tomato tortilla or roti, just add tomato puree in the dough and roll out like normal rotis.
?• Heat the roti to lightly toast on a pan.
?• Arrange lettuce leaves on the tortilla, add the grilled vegetables.
?• Top with sour cream and roll it up tightly.
?• Cut at an angle and serve with tomato salsa.
FAN SPEAK
I’ve watched a lot of Sanjeev Kapoor’s shows and have always been stunned by the way he presents his dishes, so I wanted to attend and see for myself —Yashaswy Kedia, a Class X student of The Heritage School.
Sanjeev Kapoor made it all look very easy. He made some simple recipes but presented them so well. Someday, when I feel like cooking, I know I’ll have these recipes to fall back on
—Anshu Agarwal, party planner
TIP SHEET
• Make sour cream by adding lemon juice to hung curd.
• To make vegetable stock, add root vegetables like carrots and potatoes along with ginger, garlic and seasoning. Please don’t add just any vegetable, like ladies finger!
• Rotis can be flavoured with anything. Think spinach and tomato. Same with idlis.
• While chopping herbs, don’t bruise them too much so that the flavour remains on the chopping board itself.
• Use tools like a cookie cutter to get same-sized discs of veggies for your dishes.
Text: Deborima Ganguly
Pictures: B. Halder
