8/22/2019 Aditya Bal ChakDe Foodie Tips

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THE HINDU 6 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5,2OI2

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Ithough Aditya consulted cookbooks to know more about Indiancooking, he owes a lot to what helearnt from his travels. "I flrmlybelieve that travelling is the best formof education. Going into people'shomes and tasting their cooking hasgiven me a general idea of a region'sculture. Indian cuisine is so vast, it is asvaried as the number of homes andfamilies there are."'Few know that before Chakh Lehappened Aditya knew only how tocook Porbuguese cuisine. "The flrsttime I cooked mainstream Indian foodis when the show happened," he con-fesses.IIe prefers kaacha rasta recipes fromvillages over more fancy ones. "I focusfirst on fundamental techniques andIater on complicated recipes." Hisbook Chakh Le India has a variety ofsumptuous recipes, such as AmritsariPaneer Bhurji, Kosha Mangsho, GoanPrawn ald Mango Ambotih MalabariPrawn curry and Moru Sambhar. Veg-etarians and non-vegetarians alikewould find the book useful.Balance and tradition

Aditya says that baldnce defines tra-ditional Indian cuisine. 'What we canpick up from traditional saMk Ayur-vedic cooking is that there is always anemphasis onbalance; the hot and cold,sour and sweet, bitter and bland are allin proportion."Fresh vegetables and meats enhancethe quality offood, Aditya points outyet again. 'Vegetables fresh out of afarm are sold as close as a one-and-a-half hour drive from Bangalore. Theyare incredible to taste. The vegetablescome in varying sizes. They don't lookgood but Nature didn't decree thatevery tomato and capsicum should beofthe exact shape, size and colour."Aditya says that it would be ideal ifvegetables were grown Iike they usedto."The problem is that pesticides andantibiotics had to be used to feed theever-growing population. There wasno otherwayout. What is happening asa result is that we are becoming chron-ically ill. We are ingesting chemicals,and our children are being fed foodhigh in sodium, cholesterol and sugar."He agrees that organic farming is theway forward, though "the challenge isto make it affordable." Nevertheless,he urges people to be more willing tospend on good quality produce. "Itwould be the best investment of your

life and would mean less medical ex-penses,"When asked about junl< food Adityadoesn't trash it completely. "Defining' junk food is tough. Sometimeg, junkfood is- among the tastiest. If you pre-pare a pizza using fresh salami andmozzarella it is healthj'. But the samepizza if mass-produced, would containajinomoto, processed cheese, salami orchicken, which is unhealthy. So it de-pends."Over the years, Adity4 who de-scribes himself as "a cerebral person"has picked up food trivia along withrecipes. When asked speciflcally onKarnataka, he says that Karwar is a seafood paradise and that the freshest fishcan be found in Kundapur. "Did youknow that yellow-coloured tender co-conut can be found only at Kuppepa-davu, which is a little distance awayfrom Mangalore?" The tender coconutis "three times sweeter than a regularsweet coconut", he adds.In Kuppepadavu !oo, Aditya has had"the best ghee dosa ever, which is pre-pared on a thick tawa and served withcoffee."Aditya's love for baking came fromhis grandmother. "My nali was a pro-lific baker. Like most of our grand-mothers, she would always be comingout of the kitchen with some deliciouspreparation. She enjoyed feeding peo-ple, which has lived on in me."Cooking is often associated with cre-ativity, but it is more a science, Adityacontends. "I ain totally into food sci-ence. 90 per cent of all foods comprisewater. Food gets its form from how themoleclrles, of water are re-arrangedand disturbed by other molecules. Forexample, pasta is a continuous phaseof water interrupted by starch mole-cules. Starch expands when it reactswith water, fllls up the pockets of air,and you get dough."Aditya sdys fhat foodies must readHarold Mcgee's On Food and Cooking."It is perhaps the sin$e most compre-hensive work onfood science ever."Aditya is primarily Bangalore-based, but when people ask him wherehe is from, he admits, he "really doesn'tknow what to say." I am a Kashmiripandit, born in Delhi, and raised inKashmir. Myfamilyhad to leave Kash-mir because of the insurgency." Eversince, he has lived in Bombay for ltyears and Goa for four years.Aditya concludes by saying that hisexperiences in life have taught himthat "for anyone to take you seriously,you have to work hard to proveyourself."