BENGALURU: I was born and brought up in the foothills of Himalayas in Rishikesh and the use of organic and fresh farm ingredients has come naturally to me while making pastries. Through my many years of experience in the art of patisserie in international cruises, Middle East and in some of the country’s finest five star hotels, the one ingredient that intrigues me the most is Passion Fruit.
With its sweet and delicious tart-like flavour, I prefer the fruit over other ingredients because of the beautiful colour and health benefits it has. Some of the health benefits are: It helps in weight loss as it reduces hunger and makes you feel full for a long time, reduces heart diseases, reduces blood cholesterol levels, prolongs physical endurance, helps re-fuel carbohydrate stores after exercise, increases body sensitivity to insulin thus helping in preventing diabetes and even helps fight some forms of cancer.
The fruit is unique, round and has a hard skin and contains yellow pulp with black edible seeds giving it a natural crunch. I try to preserve the crunchiness of the passion fruit as much as I can while cooking.
I believe that practice makes you perfect and if you have a dish you want to master, make it at home often, don’t worry about perfecting it initially and try to enjoy the process. Also, find as many restaurants you can try out in your city to experience great dishes which would encourage you to fall more in love with food in general.
In the image the dish we can see is ‘Passion Fruit Pillow Strawberry Meringue’ which is a perfect pairing of the flavours of passion fruit, strawberry and coconut. Passion fruit is a difficult element to pair with other ingredients and I have spent days and nights creating and trying class- apart recipes in perfecting my culinary art.