Clay-oven roasted chicken salad with betel leaves

Some words are highly inflammable. Fusion is one of them. You can get two sets of people into a war mode by just uttering the words fusion music. One set will breathe fire and say it violates the purity of music; the other section will tell you earnestly that it opens up the borders of music.

Fusion food is like that. Either you like it, or you don’t. Those who don’t like it can go on forever about how fusion ruins the taste of traditional food. Those who like it will sing paeans to its new flavours.

I’m all for fusion — provided it’s done well. Just like fusion music can jar if the two differing strains of music are not blended well, fusion food has to be done just right. You have to remember that not everything goes with everything. But when you get the right blend of flavours, you just can’t beat it.

I’ve eaten and written about some excellent fusion meals I have had in recent times. I still remember Chef Pradip Rozario’s Ceylon Fish cooked in Bailey’s Irish cream at K.K.’s Fusion in Calcutta, the sea bass with fennel leaves at the New World Mainland China in Delhi and chicken baked in a leaf with olive fried rice that I ate at My Humble House at the ITC Maurya. A few days ago I went to a new restaurant called Ignis and came across some innovative Indian fusion dishes.

Indian chicken sushi roll

The restaurant in Delhi — run by Suddha Kukreja and Manav Sharma, who have a fleet of restaurants in the city — serves you dishes that represent a confluence of cultures. I was particularly taken in by their Indian chicken sushi roll — which didn’t taste like the Japanese original, but had a piquant taste of its own.

The core of the sushi consisted of a chicken tikka with a salad tossed in a European dressing. Wrapped around this was not sticky rice, but fragrant biryani. And this was tightly rolled in a piece of parantha which had been cooked with spinach, looking a bit like nori. The overall effect was stupendous. The roll tasted good, and looked like a colourful Indian version of a sushi.

The idea, Kukreja tells me, is to mix flavours that gel. I wondered how they did it. Did they, for instance, have a laboratory where people mixed different flavours and ingredients in a test tube, which either turned into black smoke or morphed into something delicious? Nah, said Kukreja. This was mostly intuitive. “Let’s say we are out of the country somewhere and eating something that tastes good. Then we say, this can go well with an Indian spice, you know.”

The basil leaf, for instance, is something that complements Indian food. Though the sweet basil is used in cuisines in many parts of the world, such as Italy and Thailand, the leaf is hardly ever used in India, even though there are varieties that grow in profusion. The only time you use tulsi leaves in the kitchen is when you are making a broth for a sore throat or other such maladies. But Kukreja’s chicken tikka with basil and pepper demonstrates that it’s a flavour that works out very well in Indian cuisine.

Similarly, you can do wonders with the betel leaf. In India, the leaf is used mostly for paans, but Kukreja and Sharma believe that it can work well in salads which use tart leaves such as rocket. I have had a paan-flavoured liqueur which, frankly, I am not going to have again — but Ignis plans to prepare a betel-flavoured kulfi and kababs. It has already started serving a clay-oven roasted chicken salad with betel leaves.

There are, of course, some diverse elements that just don’t gel. Kukreja wouldn’t want you to mix caviar with dal makhni, for instance. The subtle flavours of the former would get drowned by the spices of the latter. You can, however, make a kabab out of asparagus and corn — for Indians are used to the taste of maize — or a tandoori broccoli with homemade mustard, as Indian mustard will spice up the somewhat bland taste of the veggie.

What I liked the most at Ignis was its Dal Muradabadi. This was a mixed dal, served the way you dish up khao suey or laksa. The dal was in a big bowl, and all around it were small bowls filled with add-ons such as fried garlic, green coriander leaves, lemon wedges, red chillies, chutneys and so on. And this was simply superb.

Clearly, if you open your mind and let your palate free, fusion can change the way you look at food. But you need to take care as well. For fusion is just a few dots away from confusion.        

Basil chicken tikka

Ingredients (to serve one)

• 180gm chicken leg cut into pieces • 15gm basil leaves • 1tsp basil paste • 20gm hung curd • 15gm Amul cheese • Salt, to taste • 5gm crushed black pepper • 5gm besan • 1 egg (white) • 10ml cream • 10gm ginger and garlic paste • 10ml vinegar • Butter, for basting

Method

Remove fat from chicken leg. Rinse it well with water. Add ginger garlic paste, salt, vinegar and basil paste to the chicken. Leave it for 15 minutes. Squeeze it and drain the water. Mash the cheese, hung curd and besan. Add black pepper, salt, cream and basil. Add the mixture to the chicken with the egg white. Set aside for 15-20 minutes. Cook it in a tandoor, basting as required. Serve hot with mint chutney.

Corn and asparagus kabab

Ingredients (to serve one)

• 3 asparagus • 100gm sweet corn • 20gm rice flour • Salt, to taste • 15gm coconut powder • 5gm chopped green chillies • 5gm chopped ginger • 10gm chopped coriander leaves • Butter, for basting

Method

Blanch the asparagus and chop the sweet corn. Add ginger, chilli, coriander and salt to the sweet corn. Add rice flour and coconut powder to it and mix smoothly. Coat the asparagus with the mixture evenly. Heat a non-stick pan and pan grill the kabab, basting with butter. Serve hot with mint chutney.