Chef Kishi Arora shared some everyday recipes that you can prepare with olive oil at the recently concluded Palate Fest. She busted the myth that Indian food cannot be cooked in olive oil. Shrabasti Mallik reports
Does the sight and smell of munchies like pakora, paratha andcutlet get your tastebuds all tingly, yet you cannot take a dig at it. Thanks to the strict diet chart that you absolutely have to follow. We feel the pain. But at the recently concluded Palate Fest, we came across a few dishes which you can eat guilt free without having to bother much about additional carbs or fattening ingredients.
At the master class that we attended, chef Kishi Arora, demonstrated three different ways by which one can whip up easy and delicious dishes, using olive oil. Did you know that you can make a cup of chocolate cake with oilIJ Yes, just substitute butter with olive oil. Chef Arora mixed the regular ingredients like flour, baking powder, unsweetened cocoa powder, sugar powder and milk. Then she proceeded to pour in two table spoon of olive oil of a renowned brand. “Olive oil makes the cake moist and also, since it is flavourless, it does not mess up the flavour of the chocolate. Also, the finer quality of chocolate, better the flavour,” the chef pointed out.
After all the ingredients were mixed, she poured the batter into a coffee cup and spread a spoonful of hazelnut spread over it. Then she put it in the oven. “It normally takes a minute or two to bake but if you want to bake a larger batch, the time will vary,” she said. We asked her why she put the spread on top and she explained that when the cake bakes, the crust cracks and the spread flows in, making it creamier. “You can also use chopped nuts in the batter and use any kind of spread. You can also add a dressing. Of you do not have a dough at home get kaju barfi from any sweet shop and roll a dough out of it. Then simply cut out shapes,” she suggested.
She served it with strawberry and basil leaf salad. “You can add a zest of lemon to enhance the flavour,” she said.
With the next two dishes that he made — buckwheat sabudana tikki and achari paneer with tadka veggies — chef Arora broke the long standing myth that Indian food needs either mustard oil or refined oil. “Olive oil has good cholesterol and you only need half the amount in your daily cooking. Plus, it does not add to the flavour, so its a perfect medium,” she said as she demonstrated how one can saute, shallow fry and even heat olive oil to the desired temperature.