From dumplings, kung pao, crepes and croquettes to burritos, taco shell salad and kuttu pizza, this navratra is all about innovation for vrat ka khana. SANGETA YADAV speaks with restaurant owners and chefs on how fasting food has become the new big business
The navratras are here and with it the fasting season. This year, restaurants instead of offering the usual vrat thali that has puri, sabzi and kheer, are offering unconventional yet lip-smacking delicacies. So one has tapioca sago croquettes, buckwheat (kutu) chips, baked roots trio, cumin-dusted cottage cheese and more.
“The tapioca sago croquettes is made of sour cream and basil dollop with homemade herb and roast potato. We’ve stuffed filo parcels with roast zucchini and broccoli, chili spiced spinach and buckwheat chips, charcoal grilled marinated vegetables and buckwheat crepes and cumin dusted cottage cheese with roasted black pepper cherry tomato, creamy spinach,” chef Noah Barnes, executive chef, The Hungry Monkey, tells you.
If Chinese is what your heart desires, try the navratra special at Wok, The lalit which has a wide spread of dishes. “For the first time, we’ve introduced Chinese navratra dishes without onion, garlic, rice and wheat flour. In crispy sago dumplings we’ve taken the sago flour and made dumplings with assortment of veggies inside. We have crispy fried sweet potato as well using rock salt. We have broccoli babycorn which are stirred fried with the sesame sauce. We have also got lotus stem honey chilli. In kung pao potato crispy fry, we have used Cantonese style transforming the dish by replacing it with potatoes,” Gaurav Sachdev, manager of Wok and Grill Room, tells you, adding that the Grill Room is also offering navratra special.
“It was very difficult for us to conceptualise a navratra menu. To start with, we have basil infused quinoa salad served with pickled beetroot, grilled watermelon and arugula salad, lettuce salad with mozzarella and olive dressing and roasted butternut squash soup. In main course we’ve potato gnocchi, charred polenta which is a semolina cake, and grilled cottage cheese,” Sachdev tells you.
Farzi Café that specialises in continental food also has something for those on vrat. Roasted lotus seed, sabudana crisps and buckwheat tacos as starters and sabudana risotto and water chestnut crisp on offer in the main course.
Apart from the usual navratra thalis, the Global Food Factory, Rajouri Garden, has come up with athali drawing its inspiration from global cuisine. It serves kuttu pizza, falafel with special navratri dips and more. This is priced at Rs300 plus taxes. The restaurant haskuttu wraps where one can add grilled paneer or tandoori aloo.
The Project, a restaurant in Hauz Khaz, owned by Priyank Sukhija has some tasty delicacies as well. “Navratri is the time to indulge in good food. We, for these special nine days, are offering special fruit pizzas like apple caramelised pizza, banana pizza and much more. We also have fruit mocktails, which our mixologist has customised with fruits like watermelon, apple and guava,” Sukhija says.
Even Italian restaurants, like the Grub House, are offeringkuttu and rabri pizza topped with grilled cottage cheese. Rajat Kapoor, owner of the restaurant says: “More and more people have started fasting nowadays. But people like to step out of homes and try new things. We want to savour innovative foods and we provide that to our customer everyday so that they don’t wait for navratri to end in order to relish and enjoy food.”
Situated in the heart of the Capital serving Italian and Mediterranean cuisine, Fresc Co has come up with two contemporarynavratra dishes —kuttu pizza and English roasted pumpkin salad. Talking about the recipe, Akhilesh Jha, brand chef, Fresco says: “The pizza base is made of kuttu aata which is topped with cottage cheese and vegetables like potato, tomatoes, etc. Another speciality is the pumpkin salad,” Jha says adding that they also have buckwheat pasta with arrabbiata sauce and ricotta lasagne.
But there are many restaurants which are preferring to offer the usualvrat fare as people like to stick to the basic Indian navratra food. “Very few like to try out and experiment with navratra dishes, especially if it is been cooked at the same kitchen serving non-veg dishes. To develop the trust of the people, we ask them to see the preparation in our live kitchen. Customers wish to see the condition of kitchen where the food is getting prepared,” Jha says.
Then there are burritos and taco shell salad at Sattviko. “We are using kuttu to make the base and replace paneer with makhana. For taco salad we use taco tortillas shell, stuffed with vegetables. We make sure we use right ingredients and create the same recipe,” Prasoon Gupta, founder of Sattviko tells you.
It is not just about serving unconventionalnavratra food at their outlets, many restaurants say that there is a huge demand of innovative navratra dishes for big parties. “We order the ingredients much in advance so that there is no shortage and we make sure that we are able to meet the demand,” Gupta says.
“The most difficult part is to get the texture right when it comes to global cuisine. Before introducing a dish, we research and go the trials. Once that is approved, it finds itself on the menu. The only difficulty in innovating navratra special dishes is getting right mix of ingredients that often don’t work for European dishes,” Barnes says.