West View at ITC Maurya is showcasing the best of American cuisine, which is an assortment of varied cultures, finds out Samiksha Raj
Think of American food and what comes to mind are fresh-baked breads and burgers, hamburgers and hotdogs, fries and barbeques. But, it’s much more than that. It’s a melting pot of cultures. Drawing influences from the history, geography and culture of around 50 states, the United States of America houses a delectable array of vegetarian and non-vegetarian cuisine, ranging from the Creole, Tex-Mex, Southern food to home spun recipes of Africa, pies, pudding and chowders. Philli cheese steak is Philadelphia’s famous street food, New Orleans offers the best soups and gumbos. For lemon and poppy seed cheese cake with almond wafers, visit the pastry shops in Greenwich, New York. Raising a toast to the American Independence Day (July 4), West View at ITC Maurya is recreating the magic of scrumptious American culinary classics. From traditional favourites like hotdogs, gumbos, barbeques and chowders to rare picks like crawfish bisque, chicken and sausage gumbo, south western rub pork chops, pecan nut pie and bourbon whisky cakes, this American extravaganza is not to be given a skip.
I happened to attend the opening day of ‘eating the American way’ at West View which had a four-course menu for its guests. The antipasti comprised a lot of Spanish and Italian cold cuts, homegrown salmon, America inspired apple and walnut salads for the vegetarians while sapicion, water buffalo salad, was for the non-vegetarians. For veggies, cauliflower and broccoli salad was a good option. The mild taste of soft and supple cauliflower and broccoli was seasoned with tangy lemon and other familiar spices. Chef Ashwin Ramachandran, junior sous chef, told me, “The salad is a mix of two exotic components: Cajun spice which consists of onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne pepper and paprika and the broccoli has been infused with caraway and grilled with salt and pepper and finished in the oven. We have added lemon juice, cumin and chillies for some Indian flavours.” The second course was a serving of soups. For the first day they had one soup in the vegetarian category and one in the non-vegetarian. I slurped the savoury pumpkin soup which had pistachios added to it. For my carnivore counterparts there was a lobster soup.
Next on offer were grilled delicacies. For the vegetarians there was corn cob, sweet potato veg skewer, bell pepper stuffed with pistachios and arborio rice, chilli garlic pineapple, bries banana wrap, roasted pumpkin and haloumi while the non-vegetarians chose from lobster tail, red snapper, prawns, Kolkata betki, Norwegian salmon and tenderloin. “Our seafood offering has the freshwater shell fish, lobsters that have been sourced from Andaman & Nicobar, freshwater trout and the Kolkata betki (sea). The meat section has chicken and lamb chops, water buffalo fillet, the lamb chops being a variation of the special Australian lamb. Apart from this we also have some of the best sausages — chorizo, a Spanish variant and bockwurst, a German one,” explained chef Ashwin.
The chef also told me about the rubs and sauces that added flavours to the grill section. He said, “We’ve used the memphis rub, cayenne pepper, black pepper, dry mustard, olives, onion powder and many other spices and sauces ranging from hot sauce with fishbone stock, cheese and garlic sauce among others to present a palatable grill section.” Completing the items of the grill menu was the classical American gravy topped with celery, onion, fiery pepper and Thai chillies.