Fooling Around With Flavours

At Olive, Malik serves Mediterranean fusion dishes like the Oven-roasted Snapper with citrus orange or lemon flavours. His white Steamed Chicken with Spinach is accompanied by yellow smoked pepper sauce and purple-red roasted beetroot. 8220;You need a strong base as the driving force of a dish. After all, the fundamentals of cuisines remain constant,8221; adds the chef, who8217;s been whipping up specials for over a decade. Emphasises owner A D Singh, 8220;It is only in the freshness, consistency and flavour that the secret of good fusion lies.8221;

Mumbai8217;s recently opened all-day deli, Cafe Sin, follows the same culinary Bible. Head Chef Sheldon Fernandes, who honed his French-Pacific skills in Los Angeles, affirms that each culture has individual cooking techniques but one can fool around with flavours. So his creations include Italian Pasta with Chimichuri Argentinean pesto and Teriyaki Rock Fish on a bed of Honey Hash Potatoes with Jalepeno Tartar Sauce. His forthcoming Spanish festival has influences of Spain8217;s colonies, like the Mexican hints in the Grilled Chicken Breast with Spicy Chocolate Mojo. 8220;If you mix too many overpowering ingredients, the dish will have no character,8221; he cautions.

New Delhi8217;s Japanese restaurant at the Nikko Metropolitan, Sakura, serves Fusion Sushi. Divisional Head of Operations of Nikko Metropolitan, Sanjay Sharma points out, 8216;8216;Instead of raw fish, we give our clients ingredients that they can relate to and will, therefore, not hesitate to try out. Apart from this, the Japanese flavour is maintained.8217;8217; Sharma says that Japanese food is an acquired taste and a first-timer might not be able to appreciate it, 8216;8216;and so fusion helps in introducing your client to the cuisine.8217;8217;

Fusion also allows the chefs to wave the wand of innovative presentation. With Malik, of course, the bottomline is taste. He doesn8217;t go for those six-inch vertical layers. But he enjoys playing with colour, as does Indigo8217;s Head Chef Nitin Kulkarni 8220;a balance of colour on the plate is essential. I don8217;t use food colouring, as our natural vegetables are so beautiful8221;. And it8217;s playing around with permutations that they best enjoy. 8220;I never know when I8217;ll wake up with a new idea. This is why fusion is so much fun,8221; smiles Unit Chef of Athena, Sanjib Sarkar. And Pot Pourri8217;s Nitin Tandon believes that there are no limits to what one marries. Malik sums up, 8220;This is the true test of a chef8217;s creativity. It8217;s the only way I can express myself. This is my profession, hobby and passion.8221;

Though import and storage are now easier, most restaurants prefer to capitalise on local ingredients. So when Fernandes doesn8217;t get Mexican ancho chillies, he smokes local red ones. He also uses Indian spices, with dishes like Tiger Prawn Rechado with Thai Curry Sauce. In fact, Indo-international is the ruling flavour. So much so, that fast-food delivery outlets, like Mumbai8217;s Food Factory, offer Pav-Bhaji Pizza too.

8216;8216;Given our penchant for spicy, rich food, we have to create flavours Indians like, cuisines that share a love for spices and strong flavours like South Italian, Japanese and South American,8217;8217; says Sikka. Fusion8217;s also changing the aesthetics of food. For instance, in his Gajar Ka Halwa Pie, 8216;8216;the food8217;s Indian but the presentation of the dish gives it a trans-national feel.8217;8217;

A fact confirmed by Pia Puri, proprietor of Delhi8217;s Punjabi By Nature, 8216;8216;We8217;re basically an Indian restaurant, but are influenced by other cuisines.8221; The brother-sister duo of Pia and Arjun have implemented this in the restaurant as well as the bar section. They have even conjured up the popular Gol-Guppa Shots: black pepper vodka in gol-guppas, followed by a beer chaser. 8216;8216;The idea is to be innovative and different, and all the while stick to our basic idea of being a Punjabi joint,8217;8217; she says. Also on the menu are Sharaabi Raan where the whole leg of a lamb is marinated in alcohol, Drunken Prawns and Broccoli Tandoor.

The trend holds true in Mumbai too. Another new restaurant, Kurry Klub, specialises in Indian blends, with owner-chef Prodip Rozario conjuring up Penne in Gassi sauce with Shredded Reshmi Kebabs and Spinach Fondue with Fusion Kebabs. Even the city8217;s exclusive Indigo, concentrating on French influences, incorporates local flavours. 8220;The Panchamrut Sauce, similar to that served at Maharashtrian weddings, is a rage. We have so much to experiment with in our country,8221; enthuses Kulkarni.

Athena follows this mantra too. 8220;We use cuisines we8217;re confident about. Like choosing suitable wines, I choose Indians tastes that go with international food. I love imli, amla, adhrak and, being a Bengali, sarson. One favourite is the Pan-fried Pomfret with Lemon Mustard Cream Sauce,8221; admits Sarkar. The Taj Mahal Hotel8217;s independent eatery, Sidewok, specialises in Pan-Asian fare, blending cuisine from countries like Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea and, of course, India. Executive Chef Hemant Oberoi8217;s team tosses out everything from Kid Leg with Butter Chilli Oyster Sauce to the succulent Pink Salmon Tikka, from their brightly-lit open kitchen.

However, many feel the term is oft abused. 8220;Randomly throwing something together isn8217;t fusion,8221; protests Moshe Shek of Cafe Basilico, a popular new deli. Chips in Fernandes, 8220;It confuses and cons the guests and puts them off fusion.8221; However, some like Tandon feel this boils down to elitism. 8220;If a road stall mixes food, it8217;s bastardisation. If an exclusive restaurant does the same, it8217;s unique,8221; he shrugs. But the choc-a-bloc eatery doesn8217;t compromise either. Tandon may interchange coriander and basil or coconut milk and cream, but his dictum remains: 8220;Keep it simple and pristine. On websites where chefs chat up, there are huge arguments on fusion. But we all agree that the simplest dishes are the toughest to perfect.8221;

With inputs from Priyamvada Kowshik in New Delhi