Chef’s garden in the kitchen

I started my career at the age of 18 as an apprentice and have been in this profession for almost 25 years now.
Chef’s garden in the kitchen

BENGALURU: I started my career at the age of 18 as an apprentice and have been in this profession for almost 25 years now. My family has been in this profession for generations and hence creativity in the space of food, runs in the family.
I always enjoy learning new things, be it new dishes, new styles of garnishing, new cuisines, learning about new cultures and so on.

The society has grown increasingly conscious about health care. I found from my own experience that people have started understanding the need of organic farming. It has become a trend now.
That’s when I started thinking about what I can make exclusively with organic vegetables. I always wished of having a vegetable garden near to my kitchen so that I can pluck from them and directly put them in frying pan. Interestingly, from my travel experience, I found that there are places in India where people do the same. This gave me an idea of making a special dish which I named it as Chef’s Garden. Keeping new market trends, awareness of local theme, freshly grown, farm to plate concepts in mind, I created this contemporary salad using fresh microgreens and dehydrated olives.

For preparing Chef’s garden, I use all the fresh vegetables like carrot, zucchini, baby corn, Pearl onion microgreens and Frezze which spread over the cheese filled baked dough. Sprinkling olive powder, Panko crumb and dressing it up with Vinegrette give a good flavour to the dish.
The whole idea behind creating dishes with fresh local produce is to create appreciation for healthy eating, benefits of organic produce, spreading the joy of simplistic dishes and cooking.
More and more people want to embrace the idea of farm to fork, enjoy seasonal fruits and vegetables and make the most of what is available around them which is fresh and stored without preservatives.
As a chef and a parent, I want the future generation to understand the importance of organic farming by introducing exciting and interesting dishes for them and getting them to eat healthy, nutritious food.

- Chef Rana Dominic Gomes, Executive Chef,Hotel Royal Orchid

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