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Discerning palates want only the best meat

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Sourish Bhattacharyya
Sourish BhattacharyyaJan 01, 2015 | 18:27

Discerning palates want only the best meat

It's so commonplace to hear expat chefs complaining about Delhi's infamous poverty of quality ingredients that it has stopped making news for me. My ears therefore cocked up the other day when Christophe Gillino, the talented yet low-key executive chef of The Leela Palace New Delhi at Chanakyapuri, pointed out to me how his guests warm up to anything that is new and different - and of course, higher up on the quality ladder.

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For these discerning Delhiites, the right hand side of the menu has ceased to matter. It is taste alone that counts. We may be wracked by a poverty of ingredients, but no one can miss the richness of our evolved taste buds. Whether it's Charolais, a prized beef from France, or the prized Kobe, of which Gillino could get just 8 kilos from Japan, or Colorado lamb, which is the new meat of choice at top restaurants across America, Delhiites are happily biting into each new temptation on the menu.

The market for quality meats has broken through the glass ceiling of religious firewalls and personal squeamishness, which is not surprising in an age when 20 million Indians are travelling overseas and are spending top dollars on food after travel and accommodation. And there are suppliers who are feeding this wholesome appetite.

I met one of them over coffee a couple of days back. Raminder Bakshi is one of Delhi's most successful restaurant consultants and now he has found a parallel calling in running the business of "fine meats at affordable prices". His vehicle is a German company, Fleischer & Koch, which went into hibernation after World War II and has just been revived by an Indian investor. I asked him about Delhi's growing appetite for gourmet meats and he cited the example of bacon in the low season - May and June, when pig products are traditionally in short supply. In just June this past year, Bakshi estimates, Delhi's fine and smart casual dining restaurants consumed 20,000 kilos of bacon. In his long career in the hospitality sector, he hasn't seen consumption of this kind.

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Bakshi, for instance, has found a supplier of quality veal in Pune - it is approved by the empowered authorities and it has a 700-day shelf life. Having been on the other side of the supply chain, Bakshi knows pricing is the biggest impediment on the way to sourcing quality ingredients, so his veal tenderloin goes to bulk buyers for Rs 700 a kilo, with the online marketplace, TheDreamCanteen.com, sells for Rs 900. I have been surprised by the popularity of wiener schnitzel (Viennese veal cutlets) and ossobuco (veal shanks braised with vegetables, white wine and broth) on restaurant and catering menus. It's clearly a supply-led demand - the ease with which veal is available has been responsible for the rising demand for it.

We'll see the growing presence of turkey on the menus of the rich and waist-conscious. The entry of lighter birds weighing up to 2.5 kilos has made it easier for households to roast turkey all through the year - and not just in December. Grill-and-serve turkey and cheese roulade promises to be the next big party favourite. I also predict that basa (paneer of the fish kingdom!) will thankfully go out of fashion as a result of competition from Thai and Chinese tilapia. The fish, produced in the largest quantities in America, has acquired a global fan following despite some medical researchers warning that eating the fish is like having bacon with your hamburger. Rabbit meat meanwhile is poised to be the next big thing. Being the fastest growing animal, it is an asset for growers and its meat meets with the approval of all. Look out for the Sirsa rabbit.

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Creative Food to Rule Indian Palate Next Year

It was a Tuesday, traditionally regarded as a bad day for the restaurant business, but Farzi Cafe at Cyber Hub, Gurgaon, didn’t have a single table to spare. As I sat in one corner awaiting my turn to be seated, I read each page of the menu to understand why the restaurant had grabbed the imagination of the young — the very same demographic that wouldn’t, till even a couple of years back, be seen dead at one of the old-fashioned kebabs and curries restaurants. I got my answer in the menu. 

palak-paneer-quesadi_010115051716.jpg
Farzi Cafe’s palak paneer quesadillas with water chestnut and cucumber salsa.

Each generation tries to eat and drink differently than the one before it, so if their parents still like their kebabs and dosas the oldfashioned way, the young are naturally gravitating to an evolving pan-Indian cuisine that combines good looks with international flavours. Farzi Cafe has been successfully dishing out this cuisine — and continually producing surprises. My discoveries were the unbeatable chicken tangri kebabs with goat cheese, the innovative seekh kebab Wellington (the kebabs were wrapped in a puff pastry, but that’s where the comparison with Beef Wellington ended) and the genre-defining palak paneer quesadillas with water chestnut and cucumber salsa. I could see the young clientele just digging the food. It was their way of setting themselves apart from their parents.

Marriage Caterers

Those who were complaining of the dismal number of auspicious days in 2014, which saw extended periods of "drought", are ringing in 2015 with a little more boisterous cheer than the rest. This year, we have 80 days that our oracles have decreed as being auspicious for weddings. For caterers, each Big Fat Indian Wedding translates into four days of feasting, so they are looking expectantly at the 320 meal occasions that the auspicious days present to them. The food served at wedding parties, especially those of fatcats at sexy international locations, have reached another orbit of creativity. Watch this space for more as we trudge across 2015.

Good Food and the Business of Art

It's January, and the air is thick with expectations from the two of the country’s biggest cultural events — the Jaipur Literature Festival (January 21 to 25) and the India Art Fair (January 29 to February 1). A Lit Fest that offers so much food for thought, sadly, has only pedestrian fare to dish out to hungry souls. I hope they don’t continue to live by the adage — "Man can live by noble thoughts alone" — this year too! The India Art Fair, on the other hand, maybe because it is a Delhi phenomenon, takes its food as seriously as the business of art.

Nira Kehar, the creative force behind Chez Nini (which shut down yesterday to allow its creator to move on to other more exciting culinary pursuits), is curating the India Art Fair’s food offerings this year. And she proposes to create several food spaces where visitors can eat in the company of art installations, interacting with artists while they do so.

So, you’ll have Hungry Monkey, the Safdarjung Enclave restaurant that has become a popular hangout for Young Delhi, sharing the rooftop of the main building of the NSIC Exhibition Grounds (the India Art Fair venue at Okhla) with Caara, young and successful organic food purveyor Ambika Seth’s bespoke catering venture with journalist-turned-chef Alice Heim. Caara’s Pesto Genovese, hand-made in the old style by the women of Mewat, has found many takers in our city with a voracious appetite.

Other foodie attractions at the India Art Fair include stalls (or pop-ups, as it has now become fashionable to say) by four popular restaurants — The Lodhi, which is the go-to place at this time of the year, Monkey Bar, Soda Bottle Opener Wala and Guppy by Ai. It’s heartening to see this confluence art and food. Then, will our chefs rise to the occasion and create art with their food? What about an edible art installation? That would be fun!

Last updated: January 01, 2015 | 18:27
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