Dean's academy of fine food

FOODIE

The executive chef at the Park, Delhi, employs an artist's palette for his edible creations.

Bakshish Dean, executive chef at the Park Hotel, New Delhi, just can't stop grinning. He has, after all, just brought home a trophy for the "chef of the year" from a PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Indian Culinary Forum and Indian Federation of Culinary Association initiative, now into its fourth edition. It's not the Oscar, not a Michelin Star either but it is certainly a big achievement in the pan-Indian context and comes at the right time for our chef, long regarded as one of the best stylists in the restaurant business.

If you have been to Fire, the chic Indian restaurant (considered by many to be much ahead of its times) at the Park, you would have certainly noticed the presentation of even traditional Indian recipes. I have long been immune to the charms of baigan ka bharta masquerading as pate and the like, but this time Dean does manage to shock me. He proffers a tall glass filled with what could be chocolates and fruit but, of course, isn't. Instead, here is a stylish take on the humble churee, grandmom's favourite in Punjabi "" or Rajasthani, where it takes the form of churma "" households. The fruit is there to break the monotony, and "the sweetness of Indian desserts" but Dean has embellished the concoction further by putting in two tiny gulab jamuns in the same glass.

Suitably wowed, I ask Dean the secret to his eye for styling and learn that he dabbles in art. "I was good at it in school and my sense of colour probably helped me," he says. In catering school "" where he landed from Shimla, the son of a Punjabi-Christian government employee, quite by chance "" his food always looked the best. (It also tasted reasonably good since he had been managing the household with his father and sister ever since he lost his mother at an early age.) The appreciation was one reason why he chose to work in the kitchen, specialising in Western food.

Now with one of the trendiest restaurants in his hotel being "modern Indian", Dean says his specialisation comes in handy as he teaches the boys how to cook the same recipes using "better" techniques of Western cooking. For instance, the chef has put "duck mussalam" on his menu, a take on the "murgh mussalam". Dean's version is cooked using a traditional French technique of slow cooking: where the duck is marinated for a long time and then simmered submerged in oil. For our main course, the chef rustles up one of his easier recipes but with a twist: mushrooms in Chettinad masala.

Favourite Recipes

Banana, sprouts, coconut salad

250 gm banana stem, diced
2 gm turmeric
2 gm garlic, bruised
2 gm red chilli powder
10 gm bean sprouts
Juice of 2 lemons
2 tbsp grated coconut
2-3 fried red chillies
Salt to taste

Put the diced banana stem in boiling water along with turmeric and salt. Drain and cool. Add garlic, red chillies, lemon juice, sprouts and coconut to this. Toss the salad well. Serve in a banana flower petal. Add some banana wafers if you like.

Chettinad mushrooms

300 gm whole red chillies
4 cinnamon sticks
1/2 kg coriander
50 gm cardamom
2 nutmeg, grated
100 gm whole peppercorn
50 gm cloves
25 gm curry leaf
50 gm poppy seeds
100 gm fennel
100 gm cumin
100 gm star anise
1 kg button mushrooms
1 coconut, grated
400 gm chopped onions
200 gm chopped tomatoes
5 curry leaves
20 gm ginger-garlic paste
50 ml coconut oil
Salt to taste

Heat oil in a wok and saute grated coconut and onion till brown. Add ginger-garlic paste and tomatoes and cook till well done. Now add the masala paste, whole mushrooms, curry leaf and salt. Cook till the mushrooms are done. Serve hot.