Aao twist karein: Mumbai restaurant chefs share unique tweaks for home-cooked food

We turn to restaurant chefs to help us add some hatke moves to home-cooked food

Let’s face it: We are a doom-scrolling, food-craving janta, spoilt for choice. We want restaurant-style ghar ka khana. Adding truffle oil or slicing avocado on everything is passé. So we asked restaurant chefs in the city  for simple tweaks and additions to ace up the home food game

Chef Vikram Arora is as Dilliwala as Dilliwalas get in Mumbai. He loves his phalsa, chaat papdi and chole bhature with a vengeance. The tomato soup at his Indian restaurant at Churchgate, Nksha, has the sweetness of jaggery and a tempered garnish of toasted pine nuts. This he serves with bite-sized mini nimkis. To smoothen every spoonful, he adds olive oil to the tomato puree (1 litre to 70 ml ratio).

Bhune tamatar aur gur ka shorba served with savoury nimkis (salty snack). Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi 

“This Italian technique smoothens the texture but holds onto the desi taste. I infuse the onion garlic in the oil, so it won’t give you a hectic burp,” says Arora, explaining that the jaggery and the emulsification cuts through the sourness. With starters, he serves a side of kesar peanut chutney. “Earlier, it was designed to be a dahi kebab. But it works best as a chutney—toasted peanuts, sugar or honey sweetness, and curd tang. A good amount of crushed pepper and kesar will uplift your condiment,” he says.

Kesar and peanut chutney

Instead of serving a scoop of sweet ice cream, think of a savoury concoction to go with the cuisine you are serving.  According to head chef and co-founder Kruti Sanghvi at Pass the Salt at Fort, generous parmesan shavings and a dollop of tomato granita do the trick. “The idea was to extend our signature pizza offerings in the form of dessert, with a balance of sweet and savoury,” she says. “This gelato is served with tomato granita, which has a hint of basil and is sweeter but doesn’t taste like ketchup. A scoop of freshly churned parmesan gelato served over tomato granita with a light sprinkle of pink Himalayan salt!

Pinky Chandan Dixit makes Kumaoni raita. Pic/Atul Kamble

We use locally manufactured parmesan (different from Parmigiano Reggiano, which is dedicatedly manufactured only in a specific region of Italy). It is a simple combination of milk, sugar and parmesan cheese. We add in some finely grounded parmesan before churning to make the texture ever so slightly coarser, as well as highlight that beautiful nuttiness that the cheese naturally has and is known for.”

Mohnish Kothare

Chef-owner Mohnish Kothare at Mazi recommends keeping sesame handy to add a twist to regular home dishes. “Toasted sesame seeds are the best-kept secret ingredients to elevate a dish. The sesame seeds’ nuttiness, crunch, and crispy feel add a different layer to the cooking process in savoury and sweet recipes. Turn it into a paste dressing or serve it as a whole on sautée veggies or use as a garnish. Sesame seed sprinkled on raita, subzis, and dips impart a nutty twist.

Chef Mohnish Kothare makes sesame-crusted paneer at Mazi Cafe. Pic/Aditi Haralkar

Chef-owner Pinky Chandan Dixit of Soam and Aamchee loves to mix and match ingredients and dishes. She recommends giving kachumber or boondi raita a break. “Instead, try a Kumaoni raita made with yellow mustard seeds, chilli, mint coriander, all pounded in a silbatta. Add turmeric to the yogurt, sprinkle some turmeric and chopped cucumber for raita and shredded cucumber for a dip,” she added, “Don’t forget to finish it with a drizzle of mustard oil. I love serving the dip with thalipeeth.

Chef-owner Mohnish Kothare at Mazi recommends trying a sesame-crusted paneer. Take cottage cheese cubes, add a pinch of garam masala, chilli-cumin powder, salt  and chaat masala, dip it in a cornflour slurry, press it in a sesame seed mixture, coat well. Pan-fry the coated paneer cubes until golden brown

Another twist is adding chopped boiled potato pieces to transform this into a cold potato salad. If you are serving with paratha, add red chillies and jiralu to the dough to make them masaledar,” she says. Another salt option to always stock in the pantry is jirali, made of cumin seeds, salt, pepper, hing, and green chillies. “Turn sabudana vadas into poppers and sprinkle jirali,” she insists.

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