Lethal Weapon

Shabtay says he finds himself here because his entire life has been about choosing the untrodden path.

‘‘If there are two routes, I will choose the more arduous one,’’ he says. This has taken him from the kibbutz to the kitchen, and from combat techniques to culinary skills.

After serving as a commando in the Israeli army for five years, Shabtay chose a different tack at a time when his colleagues were joining the secret services in droves.

He considered a career built around his hobbies—caricature and papier mâché, for example—but decided creating art was an easy option and, therefore, not for him.

‘‘So I decided to create dishes instead and become a chef,’’ he says. He narrowed down the choice of cooking school to Feerandi in Paris, an elite institution that admits eight students each year. There was a minor hitch: His resume lacked lustre in the culinary department.

‘‘With no experience or background in cooking to boast about, I told them about my experiences in the kibbutz kitchens, where we cooked three meals a day for a community of about 500 people,’’ Shabtay says.

He got a seat.

It was as a Feerandi trainee that Shabtay learned to wield the knife as if an onion were an enemy soldier trying to sneak across Israel’s borders.

‘‘I had to be tough and fierce,’’ he says, laughing. ‘‘Long hours, the constant heat from the fire, and fast action was enough to put off any novice cook, but my army training allowed me to be calm, relaxed and, in fact, enjoy the beauty amidst the tension,’’ he explains.

The bug to do things differently hadn’t left him yet.

‘‘After the course, when all my batch mates found placement in various French restaurants, I headed to New York and joined Odeon, the 37-year-old French kitchen and restaurant,’’ he says.

During this stint, Shabtay also worked in Bangkok at a friend’s restaurant.

‘‘Asian cuisine particularly interested me because it was so different from what I had been doing,’’ Shabtay says. ‘‘The thought of juggling with new ingredients such as coconut milk, which I hadn’t used before, or using special steaming techniques excited me thoroughly.’’

While in New York, Shabtay spent his free time at Nobu’s, a fusion restaurant named after its chef, who is acclaimed as the king of fusion.

“I was totally inspired by Nobu. Here I learnt to put my knowledge of the cuisines of different cultures together and create something totally novel,’’ he says. ‘‘Initially, I was amazed at the perfect balance fusion cuisine brought to two contrasting elements. And then I was simply taken by the beauty of it.’’

Nobu’s fusion food is a mix of Japanese, American and French fare.

Shabtay’s next halt—at Amsterdam’s Vankzuid—introduced him to a different fusion. The restaurant blended Indonesian ingredients (Indonesia was formerly a French colony) with Dutch, Italian and American cuisines.

“Fusion fare is about creating a perfect harmony by using techniques of one cuisine and blending it with ingredients, styles or techniques of another. But most often there is an influence of the particular region you are living in,” explains Shabtay.

This is evident at Zenzi, where Shabtay melds Indian spices with French, American and Thai condiments in a kitchen where turmeric, jeera, sun-dried tomatoes and parmesan cheese all share shelf space.

Zenzi Baked Potatoes

Ingredients
4 big potatoes
200 gm asparagus
100 gm sun-dried tomatoes
200 gm babycorn
200 gm mushroom
100 gm basil
100 gm coriander
200 mg yakitori sauce (combination of soya sauce, rice wine and garlic and ginger paste)
1 glass cream cheese (or 1 glass sour cream)
2 tsp turmeric
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp lemon juice

Method
Bake the potatoes for 45 minutes at 180° centigrade, wrapped in an aluminium foil. Cut the vegetables and stir them in a wok with the yakitori sauce. Mix the cream cheese (or sour cream) with turmeric, coriander, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Cut the baked potatoes into halves.
Scoop out the centre and fill it with the yakitori wok vegetables. Pour the cheesey mixture to cover the potato halves and serve hot with potato wafers.