CaLDRON February 2014 - Valentine's Day Special | Page 77

stand what he can do.
PPS: Do you appreciate the innovation
that is taking place in traditional style
of cooking?
AB: I think it is great and necessary.
The fact that there is so much innovation in the spectrum of Indian cooking
guarantees that our cuisine will keep
improving in certain ways. There is so
much stuff that’s rooted in tradition but
we haven’t documented it.
Also, innovating with Indian cooking
takes a lot more skill than we realise.
It’s great to talk about tradition, but
when people say that a particular dish
isn’t authentic, I tell them to find me
authentic. I get many emails saying that
was not the right way to cook a dish
and I reply that it was my way to do it.
I get information from various sources,
books, the internet and then I cook a
dish in my own way.

Aditya's book, Chakh le India

ingredients – for instance, Kashmiri
chillies or hing or cockscomb flower –
to do it the right way. Folks think that
the food is generally very heavy and
always swimming in mustard oil. But, at
home we eat very simple Kashmiri fare,
which is lighter. I’m planning to start
my own Kashmiri catering operations
in the next few months and that is the
kind of light food I want to put out.
PPS: Which chefs do you enjoy reading
about or watching on TV?
AB: I love Jamie Oliver and I’ve learnt
so much from him. I don’t have formal
training in cooking, so I have piles of
cookbooks from Jamie Oliver, Thomas
Keller, Escoffier, to cookbooks that go
back 200 years. I also enjoy watching
Gary Rhodes because he’s another chap
who explains food very well.
CaLDRON February 2014

PPS: AB: I’m not a big fan of molecular gastronomy and I don’t know how
it will work with Indian food. But I am
happy for those who are doing it. What
I don’t understand, though, is whether
one can sustain the whole molecular
gastronomy aspect in our country, from
the business perspective. People tried it
with ‘Smokehouse Room’ and ‘Azimuth’.
They had good stuff, but they bombed.
We can’t fathom molecular gastronomy
PPS: Talking about TV chefs, what new in Indian cuisine. We need time!
roles will we be seeing you in this year?
AB: There is stuff happening with
The first mainstream Italian restauNDTV and beyond NDTV as well. I’m rant came up some 20 years ago and
now we’re already onto the molecular
now looking for different cookery-regastronomy trend? Where is the chance
lated things to do. My main focus is
getting down to the business front of
to understand the movement and the
cooking because I get very edgy if I’m
growth that the West has had? Countries like Italy, France, Australia, Spain,
not cooking all the time.
etc, have seen years with the growth of a
PPS: When you are in Delhi, where do certain set of chefs. We don’t even have
you enjoy eating?
that chef culture here as yet; we don’t
AB: Indian Accent is one place, because nurture chefs. Where is the growth or
learning for a cook under a chef?
I’m totally fascinated by Chef Mehrotra’s work. Sadly, he won’t give me a
stint in his kitchen (chuckles). I have
At many places that I have visited, no
visited them a couple of times and it’s
one has the time to teach the cooks to
been really fantastic to try and under- reach a better place in the system and
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