What Indiaand#039;s Superchefs Plan to Serve, and Eat, This Winter

pJust like your wardrobe, even your kitchen deserves an upgrade, especially during winter. We speak to four renowned Indian chefs to help you and your kitchen prepare for the season of celebration./p pandnbsp;/p pstrongRitu Dalmia/strong/p pstrongbr //strong/p pstrong/strong/p p style="text-align: center;"strong/strong/p pandnbsp;/p pandldquo;The onset of winter is one of my favourite times of the year,andrdquo; says Ritu Dalmia, Co-Owner and Executive Chef of Diva, Delhi's famed Italian restaurant chain. While she personally loves sipping hot chocolate with marshmallows on a sunny winter morning, she also looks forward to the season for its fresh produce. andldquo;Winter means my kitchen is stocked up with pumpkins, beetroots, figs, berries, and apples, some of my favourite seasonal greens.andrdquo; Apart from these, she also invested in white truffles and porcini mushrooms that are especially imported. andldquo;The Stracciatella egg soup with fresh porcini mushrooms is one of my favourite winter specials.andrdquo; Her restaurants' new winter menu will also feature her favourite dishes like goat cheese salad with beetroot, prawn, fennel, and orange salad, and hot pumpkin soup with a hint of braised ginger./p pandnbsp;/p pstrongVicky Ratnani/strong/p pstrongbr //strong/p pstrong/strong/p p style="text-align: center;"strong/strong/p pandnbsp;/p pChef Vicky Ratnani is a household name thanks to his cookery show, Vicky Goes Veg, which airs on NDTV Good Times. Despite travelling across 37 countries, and cooking for the likes of Queen Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela, and Rod Stewart, he still calls India the ideal country to source seasonal spices. "India is known for its winter spices and root vegetables. "I donandrsquo;t mind travelling to distant locations for produce like mustard beans (emsarso/em), beetroot, sweet potatoes, yam (emsuran/em), winter carrots, turnips, and pumpkins.andrdquo; In fact, he often travels to Delhi, Uttaranchal, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Meghalaya to source his favourite root vegetables like beetroot, sweet potatoes, radish, and winter carrots. The dishes he is likely to prepare in the coming monthsandmdash;ones that will also be included in the menu at his Mumbai restaurant Korner Houseandmdash;are andldquo;a root vegetable minestrone, a salad made with a green wheat called emPonk/em, which is a staple dish in Gujarat, and lamb stew with potatoes and baby onions served with polenta bread tossed in black truffle oil."/p pandnbsp;/p pstrongSanjana Patel/strong/p pstrongbr //strong/p pstrong/strong/p p style="text-align: center;"strong/strong/p pandnbsp;/p pPastry chef and owner of La Folie, a French patisserie in Mumbai, Sanjana Patel is fond of winter, as it gives her a chance bake with warmth-inducing ingredients like orange peel, rum, and marzipan. andldquo;I normally start preparing for winter in October, as that is when I make my laundry list for the season.andrdquo; It includes exotic ingredients like Tasmanian leatherwood honey, macadamia nuts, Marcona almonds, and Taiwanese ponkan orange. In fact, she sources these raw materials each time she travels, which is andldquo;usually for business purposes as I consult with bakeries and patisseries in Kuwait, and Southeast Asian cities like Singapore and Taiwan." While she globetrotting, purchasing these ingredients becomes easy. "However, there are times when I have to import some of these ingredients as I end up using them for the cakes and pastries at my restaurant.andrdquo; While this is her practice for desserts, for her savoury preparations, Patel depends on local farmers from Pune and Shillim. She also imports strawberries and organic Gouda and cheddar cheese from the Himalayas./p pandnbsp;/p pstrongKunal Kapur/strong/p pstrongbr //strong/p pstrong/strong/p p style="text-align: center;"strong/strong/p pandnbsp;/p pCelebrity chef and author Kunal Kapur loves the winter as he can pull out his barbecue. For him, winter mean spicy food. andldquo;I shop for my spices personally and stock up on my favourite dried red chillies. Winter is the best time to add some spice to your food, and I am quite particular about the chillies I use.andrdquo; He orders them in bulk from Rajasthan, Kashmir, and Gujarat as he fears running out of them. Apart from these, Kapur also hoards root vegetables, a specialty of the season. andldquo;I particularly like the way my mother makes turnips with fenugreek and sugar. I replicate the same flavours and make it into a mash and serve it with a slow-cooked emraan /emcurry.andrdquo; Talking about his winter specials, Kapur says he loves to experiment with Indian cuisine, and hence gives the traditional emmakke di roti/em a new twist each year. This year, he intends to serve the emrotis /emlike pita bread with lamb trotter soup. He is looking forward to presenting the dish on one of the episodes of the ongoing Masterchef Season 5. andldquo;I remember eating a particular winter dish with my father. He would especially take me to Kirti Nagar's famous furniture market in Delhi, where I would relish this delicious soup-curry served with hot rotis and emparathas/em.andrdquo;/p pandnbsp;/p pemImage Courtesy:andnbsp;andnbsp;andcopy; Thinkstockphotos/ Getty Images/em/p pandnbsp;/p div id=":2ph.mw" class="tk TmwRj Sn GjkoZd"/div div id=":2pb.mw" class="tk TmwRj Sn GjkoZd" div id=":2pb.ma" class="Tn" div class="KL" div class="OD" div class="IL" div id=":2pb.av" class="Up pC"a tabindex="0" href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/108000276591527881195/about" target="_blank"/a/div /div /div /div /div /div pstrongMore On andgt;andgt; a href="http://www.luxpresso.com/lifestyle/food-drink" target="_blank"Food andamp; Drink/a/strong/p

from Luxpresso http://www.luxpresso.com/news-lifestyle/favourite-winter-ingredients-and-dishes-of-famous-indian-chefs/16101465
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