Recipes from home and far away

CHENNAI: Once you master the basics of a particular cuisine, you can always play around and experiment later on that seemed to be the main point that all the chefs at Times Chennai Food Festival made on Tuesday.
At Raintree in Taj Connemara, sous chef Ganesh Kumar focused on Chettinad cuisine, while at Azulia in GRT Grand Hotel executive chef of GRT F Vigil James and sous chef of Azulia Abhiram Gona taught Mediterranean dishes.
At both the hotels, the chefs made sure that the participants got the proper grasp of the dishes. Question and answer sessions made the sessions fun and lively.
At Azulia in GRT, the ingredients were passed around so that participants could get a feel of them. "Every ingredient has its own smell and character, you need to know it thoroughly to use it properly," explained James. The audience too was full of curious and lively people who came with all sorts of queries regarding the ingredients, the food being cooked and the food that they cooked at home.
"The chefs are so patient. They even answered questions that did not relate to the dishes they were demonstrating. They also gave the local names of the ingredients so that we wouldn't have trouble understanding what they were making," said Sundari Aaramugam, who had come to watch the demonstration at Azulia.
Even young college students and men were busy taking notes and asking questions. "I live in hostel and my friends and I are tired of eating out. That's a good reason to learn a few new dishes," said Amit Kumar, a student at the government dental college, as he meticulously jotted down how to make Mediterranean falafel chickpeas and favas seasoned with cilantro, garlic, red pepper, green chillies and cumin.
At Raintree, Ganesh Kumar and his assistant Thiyagarajan created kuzhi panayaram (griddle cooked rice and lentil dumplings) and kozhi melagu (pan-tossed chicken morsels with crushed peppercorns, onion, tomato and spices) as the starter, and meen manga kozhambu (fish and raw mango cooked in a mild Chettinad curry) as the main course. They too patiently answered all the questions from the crowd.
"I found that there were many north Indians in the group as well. So we made sure to go slow as there are certain ingredients they might not know as Chettinad is essentially south Indian cuisine. The sessions are all about learning after all," said Ganesh Kumar.
"The uniqueness and simplicity of the recipes is what draws me to this food festival every year. The chefs teach according to the knowledge of the crowd," said Hema Gaba of Vepery who loves cooking and food.