Hyderabad, November 03: From hot and spicy Chicken Laska from Indonesia to luscious Chicken and Crabmeat Spring Rolls from Vietnam and the fiery taste of Thai cuisine with stir-fried Chicken with chilies and Basil, Sanjeev Kapoor’s new book, Flavours of the Orient describes it all. During an entertaining launch event in the city on Sunday, Sanjeev Kapoor introduced his latest book to readers highlighting a few of his favorite lip smacking recipes and cooking tips & tricks.
Flavours of the Orient is a cookery book with a difference. Recipe after delicious recipe introduces readers and cooking enthusiast to the joy of cooking restaurantstyle dishes at home.
A step by step guide, Flavours of the Orient explores the glorious culinary heritage of the Orient with Master Chef Kapoor himself as a guide. All this recipes are according to the Chef, one hundred percent Sanjeev Kapoor recipes.
As he has been cooking for many years now, as an Indian Chef he has has a firm sense of the Indian palate and the kind of flvaours that Indians are most receptive to and changes the recipes to keep them authentic but eveolved.
“The recipes have to be changed to suit what our liking is. For instance in a tradiitonal Thai curry, for some Indians and vegetarians the smell of fish sauce may be offensive , so I rework the recipe to replace the fish sauce with another ingrdient, and that also helps in initating and undiscering palatte towards that flavour. As long as it is not forced, “ says the master chef calling his style of cooking simple and unassuming style that does not put pressure on anyone.
His recipes are tailored to give recipes give comfort and confidence to people to cook and while giving cooking tips he always keeps in mind that some ingredients are not freely available so what cooks can replace them with in their kitchen.
In his book he gives us the secret to making Chicken Laksa in the comfort of your own kithcen. He is especially fond of this pan-asian dish as he has come great memories associated with it.
The recipe to which, MyBangalore will exclusively give to its readers. Stangely he picked up the recipe from his stint in New Zealand when he was a young Chef, “I used to work in new Zealand in and Indian restaurant and on my off days, I would like to try out new restaurants and cuisine.This restaurant I used tot hen frequent the Chef became a dear friend and I was able to convicne him to part with his delicious Laksa recipe. How I then interpreted it for India was to replace the candlenuts which is a key recipe in Indonesia with peanuts for the flavour and nutty texture.” Being who he is, he is constantly being drawn into cooking for family and friends.
“The days we are having people over, its madness. Right from the shopping right down to the cooking, I do it all.” So on his free days, he obviously likes to sleep. But to our delight, we discovered, that Chef Kapoor is now also a budding musician and singer, having recently recorded a new song for a new food show on TV.
“I have always been interested in music and one evening I was sitting with my good friend, Hariharan at his farm house, and he decided to give me an impromptu signing lesson, he opened up his harmonium and then declared that I was not “tone dead”, I had his approval,” says, Kapoor with humour. This happened a year ago, after which for six months he began taking music lessons.
—Agencies