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On the lighter side
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Sitangsu Chakravarty on his book, ‘No Added Fat’
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Desi flavour Chef Sitangsu Chakravarty
Chef Sitangsu Chakravarty is not new to Indian cuisine or to cookbook writing. This former Taj Group master chef has just put together three decades of experience in churning out Indian food to produce No Added Fat, his second tome
in three years. The name, No added Fat is the defining factor. Explains the chef, “The focus of my earlier book, Best of India was on regional recipes but my latest book features dishes which are not fat-free but have ingredients that cook on their own oil. There is no added fat in them.” The book, published by Pearson Education, has a good blend of traditional dishes and recipes born out of the chef’s attempt at combining interesting ingredients to avoid added fat.
So along with the likes of idlis, avial and dhoklas, which traditionally have zero oil, the book has dishes like jhinga chaat papita, sabzi salad, sabut moong ka gosht, posto murgh, safed machhi, dahi ka shorba, matar ki roti, etc. with not a drop of added oil.
“With this book, I want to highlight the fact that we always have had recipes which need no extra oil. We have always used ingredients that have natural oil like poppy seeds, mustard seeds, yoghurt and coconut paste, etc. which are used as a base for a dish. In many of our traditional dishes, we roast the ingredients instead of frying them,” says the master chef with a degree from Culinary Institute of America in New York. His version of matar ki roti is not basted with oil, the nariyal chawal has roasted mustard seeds, curry leaves and red chillies and oil is replaced with water. There are many examples.
Since meat has its own fat, cooking it becomes easier with mustard seeds, yoghurt, coconut paste, roasted til seeds or poppy seeds as the oil base.
SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY
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