The Hindu Business Line : Khana khazana in olive oil

Thanks to increased awareness on health and fitness, people keep asking me all the time which oil has less number of calories. I tell them it’s the same for all oils — one gram of oil has nine calories. But the difference comes in the composition of the oil and its cholesterol content,” says Master Chef Sanjeev Kapoor.

Well, people even ask him if they can fry samosas in a microwave! “So I say: ‘No you can’t fry samosas in microwave’. Then they ask me if they can fry things in olive oil, so I say yes, the

Chef Kapoor has been co-opted by the International Oil Association (IOC), which has identified India as a primary market for the promotion of table olives and olive oil during 2007 and 2008. This campaign is managed in India by the SCS Agribusiness Consultants. The result is a recipe book that he has brought out titled Best of India: Cooking with Olive Oil. He describes it thus — “a well-researched presentation of using olive oil in all types of Indian cuisines.”

Is he a convert himself, in his own kitchen at home?

“Yes, very much so,” he smiles. But the conversion to total cooking in olive oil was more by chance than design. As in most Indian homes that use olive oil, in his kitchen too there was judicious use of it in certain types of food for the most obvious reason — the steep cost of olive oil, particularly in India. Four years ago, after attending a food festival in New York and coming home with different packages of olive oil, he stored the oil in the kitchen. On one special occasion when he was searching for a particular type of olive oil, “I found that our cook, a dear 78-year-old lady from Andhra Pradesh, had used it all up. She is like any other cook; to them one cooking-oil is just like another. The best part is that they have no resistance to using one oil or the other.”

But his tryst with olive oil began long years ago in New Zealand, where he was the executive chef of an Indian restaurant and had a few Indian cooks to help him out. The year was 1989 and, as the kitchen was so huge, he suggested to the owner that two restaurants could operate from the same kitchen. So he started an international restaurant from the same place. “Ingredients were ordered and, as the kitchen was the same, it was natural to use these ingredients without much deliberation.”

When an inventory showed Chef Kapoor that the consumption of olive oil had shot up over the months, he made an inquiry and found that the Indian cooks were also using it for their food. “Then it struck me that there was no resistance among traditional cooks to use a different cooking medium. And there was no resistance from the patrons of the restaurant either.” This experience told him that both the cooks and consumers of Indian food had no problem with eating Indian food cooked in olive oil.

Both experiences have taught him that when a gradual change takes place in the use of cooking medium, the palate gets used to it. And “as the beneficial effects of olive oil on one’s health — be it the heart, or diabetes control — have been well proved, in my home we have switched over to olive oil.

“But does that mean that I recommend all Indian food should be cooked in olive oil, or I’m henceforth going to use only olive oil for all my recipes? Of course not.”

This was his simple message at the International Conference on Mediterranean Diet and Health organised by the IOC in Delhi on December 11-12.

But while he thinks Indian food lends itself to cooking in olive oil primarily because of the underlying spiciness of our cuisine, integrating table olives in our food won’t be easy. “But we could use them for salads, chaats — black olives add a lot of colour and they taste good too. You could use chopped olives in uppama too,” he says.

Something different

Ask him why he chose to be a chef and he says, “I wanted to do something that was different. My father was a banker and my brother, as also my uncles, were chartered accountants. Initially I thought of going in for architecture, but then was looking at hotel management as an option too.”

Did he face any resistance from his parents?

“Not really; they just asked me: ‘Are you sure, this is what you want to do?’” Once he said he was indeed sure, he got all the support he needed. In 1981, he joined the Pusa Institute of Hotel Management in Delhi. “Three years later when I graduated, not many people wanted to get into the kitchen, so I opted for it. At first he joined the Oberoi kitchen management training programme but when he was asked to go in for flight kitchen, he protested, and joined the ITDC training programme.

Twenty-three years later, he has authored 18 books, runs two of his signature restaurants, including one in Dubai, and his Khana Khazana is a hugely popular television show. Even though he’s a celebrity chef, he comes through as a non-formidable and spontaneous person, so that people at such conferences find it very easy to reach out to him and ask the most basic questions on cooking or recipes.

Ask him about the challenges he has faced in his career and he’ll tell you about the times when he joined the profession when the “so-called big chefs would never share their recipes and say proudly that they wouldn’t do so. So I made a promise to myself even then that one day if I became famous I would share my knowledge with people and teach them what I knew.”

Chef Kapoor says his biggest critic is his wife Alyona. “She is my biggest and best critic, because she doesn’t have to please me.” To the inevitable question who cooks at home, he says: “Anyone who is at home. That’s not a big deal.”

His passion for his work comes through when you chat with him, and when you comment on it he says simply: “the day that is gone I’ll quit.”

His favourite pastime is to try to get into homes and sample cuisine there; “that’s the best place to get an authentic feel of any cuisine. But the problem is that when I get myself invited to homes, people are diffident, and sometimes I don’t get to eat the typical food they would normally prepare.” So if this is not possible, he tries to go to restaurants that serve traditional food, are very popular but may not be fancy. “In Chennai I’ve been to Ponnusamy’s and Velu Military Hotel and enjoyed the food there. The other day I went to a Bohri wedding and tried the food there…”

When he is invited to sample the food at this Bohri writer’s house he warns: “Main bilkul besharam aadmi hu, zaroor aa jaoonga. (I’m shameless, I’ll definitely come.)”

One promises him reasonably good Bohri food, and tells him that the one ingredient he won’t get here is… diffidence!

Khaas Seekh

Ingredients

1 cup cottage cheese (paneer), grated

600 grams chicken mince (keema)

1 1/2 teaspoons green cardamom powder

1 tablespoon garam masala powder

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint leaves

1 egg

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon white pepper powder

Olive oil to taste

1 teaspoon chaat masala

Satay sticks

For Chopped Chutney

2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander leaves

2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves

2 spring onions with greens, chopped

2 green chillies, seeded and chopped

1/2 inch piece ginger, minced

3 garlic cloves, minced

Salt to taste

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method

Soak the satay sticks in water for a while. Preheat oven to 220 degree C/425 degree F/Gas Mark 7. Take paneer in a bowl. Add half the green cardamom powder, half the garam masala powder, mint leaves and mix, mashing with your hands. Take a portion of this mixture and place on a satay stick and press it around the stick till it is a thin layer. Press the ends firmly. Take chicken keema in another bowl. Break an egg and add. Add salt, remaining green cardamom powder, white pepper powder and remaining garam masala powder and mix well. Take a portion of this mixture and spread it over the paneer mixture. Similarly prepare the other seekhs. Keep the seekhs in the refrigerator for some time before cooking.

Meanwhile, mix all the ingredients for the Chopped Chutney and set aside. Bake seekhs in the preheated oven for ten to fifteen minutes or till done and golden on the surface, basting with a little olive oil in between. Alternatively, grill on a tawa (griddle) drizzling olive oil all around as they cook. Serve hot sprinkled with chaat masala accompanied with Chopped Chutney.

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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