Is Indian Culinary partially native to Latin America?

By M Andre

Note: The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of RetoxMagazine.com

The culinary artesian Chef Avinash Bamania

The Roots and the Culinary Concept

Can you imagine yourself never to have been subjected to the potato, chilly, corn or cassava, and living life without passion fruit, guava, pineapple or papaya? Mumbai without the roadside snack stalls selling corn on the cob? A city without chocolate or coffee? A world where cacao is unheard of? Have no tomatoes, or tomato sauce - forget about your French fries and Ketchup! There would be no peanuts in your local bar nor tequila and there would be no tobacco smoking outside the bar. The tropical orchid – Vanilla would not be traceable in your pastries and avocado or kidney beans would have never existed. If you take Latin America and the existence of the American continent away you take half of the contemporary Indian dinner away. Sounds strange? - Yes it does.

Thanks to the discovery of the American continent in 1492, we can now include these fabulous ingredients in our way of life. But as Retox Magazine is known for its quarks, we’ll take you to the imaginary world of Mumbai where Central and South America has never been discovered. With the help of the culinary artesian Chef Avinash Bamania we will deliver you a contemporary recipe of an Indian dish without using any of the ingredients that have drifted to India from Central and South America post the discovery of the American continent. With the chilly, potato and tomato being amongst some of the most popular ingredients in Indian cuisine today, this will be a difficult task, and so we only challenge the best!

Please meet the Culinary Artesian and Chef Avinash Bamania!

Chef Avinash Bamania is a young aspiring chef who started his career in culinary arts as an apprentice with the luxurious 5 star Oberoi Rajvilas hotel in Jaipur. There, Avinash spent three years learning about all the sections of the kitchen. In 2008 he joined the pre-opening team of Trident Bandra Kurla – a 5 star hotel in Mumbai later following on to JW Marriott. JW Marriott is another 5-star hotel in Mumbai where Avinash is now Chef De Partie. And so for our readers’ delight, in between of his busy schedule of 5-star-hotel-kitchen-hopping Avinash agreed to rustle up a dish exclusively for Retox Magazine. As Avinash puts it, “Cooking might be a pain for other people but it’s exciting and fun for me!”

Now that you met our Culinary Artesian and Chef Avinash Bamania it is time to tickle your taste buds!

Name of the dish: MEEN MOILEE

It is a South Indian preparation of prawns, simmered in mild cocunut gravy, served with rice.

A note from the young Culinary Arts Genius:

As the theme of this dish is to use no ingredients from Central and South America that arrived to India post the discovery of the American continent I chose to search for my inspirations in the south Indian style of preparations, which use a lot of ingredients native to India. I am also a big fan of seafood, especially prawns, and seafood is available in Mumbai at any given point in time and it is fresh. Various preparations of prawns are now included in most of contemporary non-veg menus in Mumbai and prawns usually do not take long to prepare. So mixing the old with the new, traditional with contemporary, I give you the recipe for MEEN MOILEE.

Ingredients:

PRAWNS: 500 GMS
GINGER: 50 GMS
CURRY LEAVES: 10GMS
MUSTARD SEEDS: 10 GMS
TURMERIC POWDER: 10 GMS
CUMIN POWDER: 10 GMS
BLACK PEPPER POWDER: 10GMS
CORIANDER POWDER: 10 GMS
FRESH CORIANDER
COCONUT MILK: 500GMS
ONOIN: 100GMS
SALT: TO TASTE
COCONUT OIL
LIME: 1no

Directions:

Clean the prawns, devein them, and wash them thoroughly. Marinate the prawns with turmeric powder, salt and lime juice. Keep them aside for a few minutes.

Take a frying pan, heat up the coconut oil, then add mustard seeds, curry leaves and ginger to make your tempering. Sauté it for approximately 30 seconds, then add the chopped onion and let it cook until translucent but not yet brown.

Now add cumin powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and peppercorn powder. Again, sauté it for 20 – 25 seconds and then add the coconut milk. If the consistency is too thick adjust it by adding some water to it. Then add the prawns and salt and let it simmer till the prawns are cooked.

For the finish add chopped coriander and a dash of limejuice.