BENGALURU: While a regular chicken curry was always a staple on his menu at the hotel, two months ago, executive chef Rohan Malwankar introduced a new dish at Courtyard by Marriott Bengaluru Hebbal. The Malvani Chicken Curry is spicy and eaten with brown rice. But there’s another ingredient here – a whole lot of love, especially since the dish has been a part of Malwankar’s family since ’82, when his grandmother first started cooking it. Now, the chef, whose hometown is Malvan in Maharashtra, recreates the same recipe for his guests in Bengaluru, sans any change from the original recipe.
Like him, other chefs in star hotels too are relying on recipes from their family archives. This, they believe, is them doing their small part in preserving the Indian food culture. “Inventing new dishes or crafting fresh recipes is important for a chef,” says Naren Thimmaiah, executive chef, Vivanta Bengaluru, Residency Road.
“The actual feather in the cap lies in mastering one’s traditional dishes,” he adds. Which is why, while setting up Karavalli 30 years ago, Thimmaiah spent weeks in Goa, Mangaluru and Kerala, learning heirloom dishes.
The one closest to his heart is the Koli Barthad, a chicken preparation that has been a staple in his own house in Kodagu. “Cooking this dish reminds me of my childhood. I used to fetch curry leaves from our backyard and peel ginger to help my mother during this preparation. Only if I knew that years later, I would be making the same dish for my guests and they would enjoy it just as much as me,” says Thimmaiah.
The key to nailing such dishes lies in no trial, no error. Dirham Haque, executive sous chef, Four Seasons Hotel Bengaluru, explains that his Awadhi Biryani – a “family treasure” that has been a part of many Eid celebrations – tastes “just the same as it would if it came from a grandmother’s kitchen”. “Traditional dishes are best not tampered with. Using quality ingredients and letting those shine is the best way to pay homage to tradition,” he adds.
While there’s love, there’s also equal amounts of labour that goes in. Malwankar explains how the star of the Malvani Chicken Curry is a paste of dry and wet coconut. “This needs to be freshly prepared. It takes 35 minutes and is done with a grinding stone,” he says, adding that the other ingredients, like the Malvani masala, are locally sourced.
It is this quality of being made from scratch that makes home-style cooking popular with guests, believes Sandeep Kalra, the executive chef of The Ritz-Carlton, Bangalore. “For restaurant-style cooking, half our preparation is done beforehand. But for home-style cooking, it’s done from scratch, there’s less butter and oil, and a lot of love,” says Kalra, who whips up recipes from his childhood for guests upon request. These include dishes like Kurkure Bhindi, Amritsari Pulao and Wadi, Baingan Bharta or Murgh Tariwala. “I make these dishes the way it has been consumed in my house for years,” he says, adding that these are served with a side of nostalgia. “Sometimes, you get emotional and end up calling mum in the middle of cooking,” he says with a laugh.