Having been invited to this interview/exploration of Indian cuisine held at the Hyatt Regency, Chennai, I was eager to attend. I'd never heard earlier about Chef Raghavan Iyer and his efforts to unravel Indian cuisine to those eager to master it. During the interview hosted by Rakesh Raghunathan (more about him below), the Chef revealed to us interesting stories of his time in India before he left for the States to pursue his dream at the age of around 21. Although he started with a degree in Chemistry in the US, he ended up in the food industry out of his passion for food.
Chef Raghavan hails from a typical Tambrahm (Tamil Brahmin) family but moved to Bombay with family due to personal circumstance. Being the sole male in his family, he spoke of the incredible strength his mother and sisters had shown while raising him. His culinary style is influenced from the early memories he has of the varying vegetarian cooking happening in a traditional Indian household. Cooking starts right from early morning with preparation for many dishes planned days in advance. Ex: Dosa and its batter that needs to be fermented.
Favorite Indian Dish?
Even after all these years he holds the humble rasam in highest regard. It is his favorite Indian dish he says, one that satisfies on all counts. And he loves the humble potato in its various avatars in the Indian kitchen. He hates the word curry being used carelessly sometimes and explains that a "curry" is the culmination of the magic that spices and the cooking process yield! Definitely share his views on that!
Some cooking wisdom from the Chef during the interview and later the short cooking demo we had:
- Spices are a complex lot. You get EIGHT different final flavours depending on how you treat the spice. Always buy whole seed spices where you can either use them plain, roast em whole and grind em, soak em in water and grind, saute them in fat and grind them. Indeed, powdered spices lose most of their potency after a short while as I've found too.
- When cooking a favorite dish of yours for a larger number of guests, one has to be extra careful. It's not just the recipe that has to be scaled when cooking a larger batch since there are more factors affecting the cooking process! Watch for how the spices change color or aroma and cook proactively rather than blindly following a recipe without understanding it. Cooking utensils, heat of the flame everything changes in a different kitchen as well so be careful!
If you want to learn a lot more such interesting techniques that define Indian cooking, you should try his award winning cooking course on Craftsy or get one of his much acclaimed cook books that's on Amazon that teach you to make an authentic Indian curry, in fact hundreds of them! He touched upon the arduous yet rewarding journey of testing these recipes. He's personally tested every single one of the printed recipes over a period of 18 long months for his acclaimed book "660 curries" (Highly rated on Amazon.com by hundreds of customers.) Chef Iyer definitely knows a thing or two about how to achieve the perfectly flavoured curry! Beginner and even experienced learners of Indian cooking will benefit from one of his cook books. The other acclaimed cook book he's written is "The Turmeric trail: Recipes and memories from an Indian childhood" that's influenced by the Indian food that shaped his palate at Bombay (where he grew up.) He's even written a book under the Betty Crocker banner on Indian home cooking, an achievement he finds amusing due to the brand primarily focussing on American cooking.
More about Chef Raghavan
A highly awarded person in the food industry, he's hosted Emmy award winning food shows, consulted with numerous restaurants and associations. He's also the winner of the coveted James Beard award also known as the "Oscars of Food" for his video webcast, "Indian curries: The basics and beyond."
About the event's host Rakesh Raghunath:
Our host Rakesh is another interesting person actively exploring the length and breadth of our country scouring for authentic food preparations. He has a venture called Puliogare travels where he traces and explores traditionally Indian foods made in kitchens and temples across South India. He hosts a food/culture based TV show called Sutralam Suvaikalam on News 7 Tamil channel. A very interesting show that seeks to in his own words present Indian cuisine from the point of view of an Indian rather than the usual foreigner who presents it to us. Planning to watch more of the episodes of this show thats available on youtube.
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