Back to blogging

Yes I have been off blogging for a long time and that's because of certain issues with work which are taken care of now..So now I shall be writing more often and will see you guys around.Till then"keep calm and cook".

Chef not a Cook..

This argument has probably been going on for ages..What is the difference between a Chef and a Cook??Are they the same??If no what is the difference.
The reason I took up this topic is because of making people understand that  there is a significance difference between these two terms.Well you can say that all Chefs were Cooks,but all Cooks are not Chefs.
Chef is a food professional who has sound practical as well as theoretical knowledge about food production,whereas a cook just does what he is commanded to do,in this case mostly by a Chef who heads the kitchen or a section.
A cook has all the possibilities of growing to the position of the Chef over the years ,gaining theoretical knowledge,certain terminologies,methods of cooking,etc and this combined with the practical knowledge that they already posses will make them a Chef.
A Chef is responsible for managing a team of trained cooks and  responsible for honing their skill set so that they go on to become chefs in the future.

That is the difference between both,although the term Head Cook has been used from time to time in the culinary world,it according to me is not the right term to give  a Chef.

A Chef mainly has supervisory roles in the kitchen as well as managerial,its upto a Chef to implement a menu in an establishment and for a cook to actually carry it through.A chef has to either have a Culinary Degree or should have done an Apprenticeship Course of a similar time frame under the guidance of a Chef so as to have the knowledge of a Culinary Degree.

A cook is still at the learning level of his career and will go through a time frame and a hierarchy to become a chef.

But no matter how much I try to explain this old argument,its is never going to end with a justified decision as at time there have been situations where i have seen good cooks perform better than Chefs and work much harder than them .And I have learned a lot from them over the years I have been working.I have high regards for both but at the same time as in any commercial establishment a hierarchy has to be maintained and  in the kitchen the Chef is always right.PERIOD.

The real truth about Tandoori Chicken.

Recently I had a healthy argument(trust me!!) with a fellow industry professional regarding the origin of Tandoori Chicken and  I realized  through that discussion that my good friend was unable to accept the fact that Tandoori Chicken was in fact NOT an Indian Dish.

An Indian meal is never complete with some kind of a kebab or for that matter if a family is sitting down for dinner at an Indian restaurant(no matter if its in a luxury hotel or a Highway Dhabba),the meal never ends without Tandoori Chicken or any dish from the now so famous section of any menu aptly named “from the clay oven”.

Tandoori Chicken is as indigenous to Indian food as Pizza is to Italy or Cannabis to Rock and Roll. Every establishment,state,city has their own version of it but the origin of the dish has some very startling and astonishing facts.

As I had been finding my way across numerous kitchens in India during my intial years ; both large and small I always wondered why do we have Tandoori Chicken in Indian Cuisine when it actually has origins from Afghanistan. But then it struck me that does it actually??

A lot has been written and published about “Chicken Tikka Masala” the famous Indian dish which made it big in UK, to the extent that it was rumored to be their national dish for a long time running,and how a cook in one of the billion India restaurants in London invented it after a customer returned a plate of tikka saying that it was too dry to consume ,used some India spices and a can of tomato soup to make the now famous dish. But we hardly consider the fact that there wont be any Chicken Tikka Masala if there was no Tandoori Chicken.

So what is the real truth about it…

No its not from Afghanistan or the Western Frontier because Tandoors DO NOT EXIST there at all.Its only in India and Pakistan that you will find tandoors .Tandoors have existed in India from the time of Indus Valley Civilization. There is archaeological evidence of tandoor being found at numerous dig sites along the Indus River and which have striking resemblance to the present day Tandoors.

India heard of Tandoori Chicken when a famous restaurant from Delhi (which still exists today, and has a number of fake branches)called Moti Mahal near Daryaganj introduced the dish in the mid 1950’s which was then eventually taken to the Great Britain in the next 10 years where it gained much popularity.It caught on so much that opening an Indian Restaurant without Tandoori Chicken on the menu was like hara-kiri. The origins of the dish as I found out from Cooks who have been handed down the recipe of this dish from their seniors say that the origin lies with the partition of India after Independence. During this time of chaos when people fled to either side a lot of Lahore(now in present Pakistan) refugees came to the Indian side for better lives and it was they who started this popular dish . Moti Mahal was not the inventor of this dish but just a medium to make it popular.

The most common notion being that the dish is of Mughal origins,but the major ingredients used in most versions of this dish are natural to the Indian Sub-continent.

The Punjabis should be given the much needed appreciation for inventing the Tandoori Chicken as we know it today. Punjabis have been known to cook rotis in a kind of clay oven which has modernized to a Tandoor as we see it today . Dhabbas were the Punjabi version of Udupi restaurant. Limited Menu, Fast service, Home food, when dhabbas originated in the 1950’s the Punjabi immigrants dint have enough financial support to buy utensils and stuff so the made a couple of tandoor/clay ovens, where the cooked rotis,Chicken and even dal (which was cooked over simmering coal the whole night) making the menu short and simple.

Once on my visit to Delhi a very close friend of and a pure Punjabi in all aspects took me to a dhabba on the outskirts of the town which according to him served the most authentic Tandoori Chicken of all,and boy was he right(in fact he even bet his Royal Enfield;a punjabi sign of being macho,on it).Being a Chef and foodie I have lost count of the different version of Tandoori Chicken I’ve had till now , but this was by far the best one I had. Being curious and striking a conversation with owner I found out that he belonged to one of the first family of refugees from Punjab that came during and his version of Tandoori Chicken was the closest to the original.

But then.. is it??Gordon Ramsay on his famous television series “Gordon’s  Great Escape” tried hard to find the recipe but had a mixed view of the origin of the dish. Heston Blumenthal on one of his visits to India went mad knowing how one dish can have so many recipes from its country of origin.

Chefs from around the world took this process of cooking to a different level Fillet of Tandoori Halibut with Cucumber raita is a favorite with Chef Ramsay’s .Version of Tandoori Salmon and Lobster are quite common in India too(though most of this adventurous dishes taste horrible).We have bastardized this concept to a point of no return, new age cooks rather twats have lost the real Tandoori Chicken to commercialization, loads of artificial food color and the ever so boring and tasteless broiler chicken, rather than preserving what is heritage we have literally left it to the fire.

But some places still do a decent version of it till now.I am pretty sure you will find one in your city better still try to do some cooking at home, its not a Godzillean task.I have put links to two of my favorite and easy tandoor dishes for the budding chef to the home cook at the end of the article. Give it a shot , post pictures and let me know and how was it and most importantly remember to share it.

My Tandoori Recipes

Ingredient..Ingredient..Ingredient

According to me a Chef contributes all together about 20-30 percent to churn out a dish.Why??For me all that really matters for a good pasta or a beef wellington or in that case even some thing as naive as mashed potato is nothing but the source and quality of your ingredients.Be it fresh produce like vegetables and meats or dry herbs,it has to be from the best and nothing less but the best place possible.

To get the best of the lot,go early morning to the market,just
when the transport vehicles arrive to the depot/market.

You might have a killer recipe but what good is it going to do if you get the ingredients that are not upto the standards.

The most fool proof way to get the best ingredient for your establishment or for home use is DIY(Do It Yourself),its like buying a luxury car and hiring a chauffeur for it.That is just being LAZY.I consider it therapeutic;going everyday morning to the local market and experiencing the sight,smell,sounds,fighting with the vendor for a good price,all this and more is a booster for the whole day.

At times choosing the right ingredient not only gives a perfect result but also helps in productivity.For example using a bit over ripe tomatoes for making Pasta sauce gives a more earthy and tangy notes to the overall taste and you end up using the right amount.Did you know that the meat from the cheek portion of a cow is one of the most tender cuts from the carcass. Similarly learn from your peers.Its a myth that no chef will share his/her secrets,they will, just that it will be hard to get it out of them.Because of the sheer hard work , sleepless nights that they have put into gaining that same knowledge themselves,they will make sure you learn it yourself so that you never forget it.

Baby mustard sprouts growing in my kitchen
on a bed of  surgical cotton placed
in a container.Great for salad garnishes.

Picking the right product is indirectly responsible for each and every aspect in a food business.For example you pick up a good fresh fish and your grilled fish is going to be the best they have eaten,you pick a less fresh one like a day old one kept in the freezer its gonna be okay,you pick up older than that,ill be surprised if they pay the bill or leave without creating a fuss.

The very secrets of procuring the best ingredients is getting down to ground level,it all starts with you vendor.Trust me when I say this , the most experienced of chefs wont even know small secrets that a vendor will tell you about the ingredients that they deal with.

Yes at times you do bribe them(but for me its more of a token of appreciation for keeping a good fillet aside for you,or keeping the freshest rock lobsters for you rather than giving it off to somebody else).But its all required to make a good product and present it to the guests.

So remember DO NOT be lazy and but vegetables from a cold storage unit,make a trip to the local market and trust me you wont be disappointed.For all you know you might end up getting more than you thought you would and end up making a superb dish.

Food and Me..

Food for some is a natural- biological process,a part of evolution,something that NEEDS TO BE DONE everyday,for some it is what they go through all the struggles in life,whereas for some its recreation,therapy,passion,obsession.

Well I fall in the last category OBSESSION. There is a very thin line of difference between passion and obsession.When you get images similar to that of DEXTER,(the sucessful TV series of a blood splatter analyst,who becomes a vigilante/bad guy executioner by night) just that mine are full of fresh produce,best meat in place of dead bodies and serial killers.So when you have things like this you are obssesed.I have what I like to call OGD(Obsessive Gastronomic Disorder).

Be it cooking,eating,watching(tv,youtube),smelling,listening,reading.I adore everything related to food.Maybe its kind of inbuilt in me now,whenevr I'm near food,the dish starts getting deconstructed in my head graphically.As in how from a raw tomato, its become the pasta sauce that you are relishing.Its hard to recreate this exact phenomenon in words,but it is an amazing experience.

I try my best to challenge myself everyday, hone my skills everyday. Like one might think that the way to cut an onion or sharpen a knife is like the best and only way to do it. But I try to see if I can enhance the same.

I consider myself bloody lucky to have worked under some great Chefs(a Chef and a Cook are NOT the same  who have played a major role in what I am today and that list includes top notch chefs from 5stars to my mum and grandma.This industry is one of the most demanding one around,where you have to maintain the standards and meet the customers’ demands everyday by default.

I head a small kitchen(in terms of dimensions of it and nothing else,standards here are as good as any gourmet kitchen around the world),but the quality of food that we churn out from this tiny kitchen will make any 5star chef think twice(considering that a good part of our clientele are from some of the biggest  hotel brands in India ranging from GM's to executives)about the food.
And people ask us again and again how we manage to do that??And all we say(with a big smile)is "Its the love",and yes it is the love,passion and drive that gets us there.