Easy on the Entrée

‘‘While researching Indian food, our in-house team discovered a little-known cuisine developed by expat traders at least a couple of centuries ago. They were British, but not of the ruling classes, and so excluded from mainstream Raj society. These people formed their own community and christened themselves ‘nabobs’, as distinct from nawabs,’’ he says, pausing to take a breath.

‘‘The food they evolved was different from Anglo-Indian cuisine, which was basically Indianised Continental food. The nabobs toned down the spices, added generous dollops of cream, curd and khoya, and made the Indian ingredients their own.’’

Served at Dum Pukht, the Jolly Nabob Pudding—the restaurant’s only dish with a hint of the West—is a perfect example of what happens when the twain meet.

JOLLY NABOB PUDDING

INGREDIENTS
1 kg khoya
500 gm sugar
15 eggs
100 gm flour
A generous pinch of saffron
40 gm elaichi powder
800 gm powdered cashewnuts
800 gm ghee
For topping: 100 gm almond flakes,
50 gm raisins,
50 gm crushed pistachios

METHOD
Beat the ghee, khoya, sugar and eggs well. Dissolve the saffron in a little water and add to the mixture.

Mix the dry ingredients—flour, elaichi, cashewnut—together and fold into the khoya mixture.

Grease a baking pan. Pour in the pudding mix, spread smoothly and sprinkle the topping evenly. Heat the oven to 180° C. Place the pan in a larger pan and fill water so it reaches the baking pan halfway. Cover with aluminium foil and bake till done.

Serve with custard brandy sauce: Boil 1 litre milk with 10 ml vanilla essence and 250 gm sugar. Dissolve 30 gm custard powder in a little water and add it to the milk. Cook further, whisking constantly until thickened. Cool the mixture, add 100 ml brandy and serve with the warm pudding.

AUSTERE, almost stern, Executive Chef Nariyoshi Nakamura belies all notions of the chef-as-showman. His signature dessert, he confesses, is being thawed; an over enthusiastic minion had failed to remove it from the freezer in time.

So, to while away the awkward interregnum, he tries to break the ice in his sparse English. ‘‘The tea, it is one of the most prestigious of Japanese foods,’’ he says. We nod politely, adding helpfully, if cluelessly, ‘‘Tea ceremonies, yes, we know about that.’’

Nakamura beams. ‘‘Now we make ice cream with tea.’’

This evokes no retort, as we try to subdue images of… vanilla ice cream with hot tea sauce?

Mercifully, at that point the dessert appears. There’s no sauce-boat, only a pale green scoop of something. I gently place a tiny spoonful in my mouth. It is unlike any ice cream I have had, not as sweet, with an unmistakable tannin taste. Nakamura watches as I take another spoonful. ‘‘This is Macha ice cream, macha means powdered tea,’’ he says.

Macha ice cream was born as a summer pudding in the 17th century, when Kaiseki cuisine—served at Nakamura’s Sakura, the Japanese restaurant at the Metropolitan Hotel Nikko —came into existence.

True to type, no one remembers the name of the man who transformed a decoction into a dessert. But you can drink—or eat—to his health.

MACHA ICE CREAM

INGREDIENTS
1 litre milk
200 gm sugar
5 egg yolks
15 gm green tea powder (macha)
50 ml fresh cream
150 ml condensed milk

METHOD
Add egg yolks, sugar and condensed milk to the milk. Heat in a pan over a slow fire till it starts simmering; take care it doesn’t boil. Whisk regularly to keep lumps from forming. Let it cool.

In a small bowl, mix the green tea powder with a spoonful or so of the milk mixture. Pour into the remaining milk mixture, making sure there are no lumps.

Churn the concoction in an ice cream maker for 30 minutes. Remove and freeze at -5° C. Serve chilled.

EXECUTIVE Sous Chef Vito Froio flashes a Cheshire cat grin when asked for his secret recipe. ‘‘What is there to it?’’ he asks. ‘‘It is just eggs and sugar.’’

Oh yes, but with these two staples, Froio conjures up a little marvel on his copper bain-marie at Brix, the just-relaunched all-Italian eatery at The Grand, New Delhi. With all the grace of long practice, he ignites the gas fire and allows the water to come to just the right temperature. Then he pours in the egg yolks and adds the sugar, one teaspoon to each yolk. With the other hand, he wields a whisk, beating, beating, beating, till the yolks amalgamate with the caster sugar, producing a deliciously smooth, light yellow concoction.

‘‘This,’’ says Froio, ‘‘is the basic sabayone. A good Italian wife serves it to her husband for breakfast. It is a high-energy food that is supposed to help him recoup the energies spent making love the night before. And after downing this, they can go right back to bed.’’ The last is said with a raunchy glint in his eye, lest anyone mistake his meaning.

‘‘It is a very traditional, rustic dish, best with eggs laid that very morning. I don’t know how old it is, but I suspect very old,’’ says Froio.

‘‘In Italy, the sabayone continues to be a breakfast dish, but it lends itself to so many adaptations. Here at the Brix, we add Frangelico, a hazelnut liqueur, and serve it over ice cream.’’

The ice cream, we may add, is completely unsuccessful in dousing the fire that Froio lights—with the sabayone, what did you think?