How regional condiments get a gourmet makeover

Confined at home during the covid-19-induced lockdown in Mumbai last year, Velton Saldanha, former sous-chef at the city’s O Pedro restaurant, recreated a small batch of his grandmother’s Mangalorean style. galmbyachi chutney (dried shrimp and red pepper chutney) in his home kitchen, guided only by memories, but with fresh shrimp. The chutney was an instant hit among all who have tasted it. A few months later, Saldanha launched Chutney Collective with just one chutney – the shrimp and chili chutney. Over the past year, Saldanha has expanded her repertoire of chutneys to include options such as Bombay Duck Sukke and Fried Chicken Thecha which are inspired by regional condiments.

Indian cuisines boast a mind-boggling variety of condiments: stone-ground chutneys and podishot, spicy pickles thokku, hand pounded thecha and what’s more, it increases the flavor quotient and adds taste and texture, even to ordinary meals. Yet, once reserved for family kitchens, regional Indian condiments are taking on gourmet avatars in the hands of artisan brands that are doing good business thanks to a loyal and growing clientele.

Saldanha, originally trained in French cuisine at Kendall College (now National Louis University) and later at New York’s famous seafood restaurant, Le Bernardin, uses uniquely French techniques to create gastronomic interpretations of desi chutneys. To make his prawns and chilli chutney, for example, he confit the prawns in prawn oil infused with spices – Byadgi peppers, peppercorns, cassia bark and bay leaves – before mixing them with an emulsion. of tamarind and jaggery made using the same technique as a French Gastric (sweet and sour emulsion of caramelized sugar and vinegar) which transforms it into a silky paste. His Thecha Fried Chicken is a mixture of spicy chicken shreds and crackling pieces, mashed with chili peppers, onions and garlic. He combines his love for savory fried green chili peppers, a crucial part of Mumbai’s iconic street snack, the vada pav, and fried chicken and hot sauce from his time in the United States, studying and later working at restaurants, including Chicago’s Acadia which closed during the pandemic.

Like Saldanha, Urvashi Mirchandani designed his condiment brand The Kitchen Project in Mumbai during the lockdown last year. It was a bite of her mother Girija’s ham sandwich covered in homemade yellow mustard late at night that resulted in a moment of epiphany. “My mother is a resourceful cook, and while I had already tasted her homemade mustard that night I was struck by the fact that we had to bring it to people,” she says.

So, at The Kitchen Project, the mother-daughter duo offers a range of preserves, pickles and condiments, mostly family recipes from Girija’s kitchen, some passed down from generation to generation. “Our sweet and spicy colonial mango pickle, for example, comes from a decades-old recipe for a mango pickle sprinkled with raisins that my grandfather, a former zamindar in Uttar Pradesh, acquired from a British caregiver. Over time, in our kitchen, it took on an Indian accent with the addition of spices and seasonings to suit our palate, ”explains Mirchandani. In addition, there is an asafoetida flavored mango pickle imported from Kabul, a sweet and spicy tomato chutney, and a tangy chicken pickle. “These recipes are exclusive to our kitchen,” she adds.

In Bengaluru, Chef Gautam Krishnankutty, who gave the town Smoke Co and Café Thulp !, has been distributing his specialty sauces and condiments from his home kitchen since his restaurants closed following last year’s lockdown, via his Instagram page (@ gonzogarbanzo), on a first come, first served basis. “It was a continuation of our cooking philosophy at Smoke Co, where we made all of our homemade sauces and condiments from scratch,” he says.

In addition to the classic Kerala beef and pork pickles and his ever popular fermented red chili sauce Lal Salaam, Fermentation enthusiast Krishnankutty has a few quirky acts that combine the flavors and sensibilities of Asia from the Is with indigenous ingredients, especially from the Northeast. So, he made a version of Thai giant water chili paste with red ants from Odisha, mixed his version of salt of Xinjiang Sichuan pepper with Sichuan peppercorns and roasted and crumbled Sirarakhong peppers. of Manipur with dried prawns in Kerala. chamanthi to make his Chinese Karuvadu Podi. His mustard pork and bamboo shoot fermented pickles garnished with green and red peppers, garlic, black cumin and fennel seeds and spicy mustard oil, says Krishnankutty, is inspired by the Bengali style. shorshe maach (fish in mustard juice).

Native Tongue, based in Mumbai, launched in December 2019, led by Ruchira Sonalkar and her husband Rohan Sonalkar, is based on an ingredient-driven philosophy that highlights regional ingredients from across the country and presents familiar flavors in new ways. exciting shapes. On offer is a range of chutneys, pickles and preserves and nut butters which Ruchira says “celebrates native produce and local flavors.” Thus, their peanut butter enriched with Byadgi peppers is a reinterpretation of the so familiar shengdana chutney, while their Caramelized Onion & Fig Relish gets its fruity flavor from Coorg’s signature vinegar, Kachampuli, and uses IG-labeled Purandar figs. Native Tongue XO, on the other hand, is a tasty concoction of locally sourced dried shrimp called jaw and Goan’s star sausage, Choris.

Read also | Go beyond the “choris” of Goa

Goa Choris is also the star of Nomad Food Project’s thick chorizo ​​jam in Pune, where sausages sourced from Goa are slowly cooked with onions and tomatoes, to a sweet, spicy and sticky finish. “This jam is all Goan and savored best smeared on some cobblestone“Says Advaith Inamke, who founded The Nomad Project, along with Institute of Hotel Management colleague, Mumbai alumnus Aditya Rai.” In fact, it started as a research project in our days of culinary school in 2016 and eventually turned into a full-fledged business, ”says Inamke.

At The Nomad Project, bacon is in the spotlight. In addition to the tasty bacon jams enriched with bourbon and smoked stout, they incorporated bacon into the traditional Maharashtrian. hirvi mirchi cha thecha (crushed green chili chutney). The bacon, sourced from ancestral farms around Pune, is melted and pounded with local green chili peppers fried in bacon fat and garlic to make a fiery condiment that could add spice to any meal. “Our goal is to create unique recipes that use simple, fresh ingredients, proper techniques and are steeped in nostalgia,” says Inamke.

“I like experimenting with flavors, pushing boundaries and looking beyond the basics,” says Ruchira. Earlier this year, Native Tongue entered the Global Mustard Competition hosted by the National Mustard Museum, Wisconsin, USA, with its own take on a mustard condiment that is inspired by the pickled mustard relish of the Bengal-Kasundi. Stone-ground mustard flavored with amba halad or mango ginger, a rhizome of the ginger family, and panch phoron (blend of five Bengali spices), gets a spicy kick from the yellow chili peppers. “Mustard has made it into the bottom five of 65 competing global brands,” said Ruchira.

Saldanha, on the other hand, took the darling Bengal aam kasundi, a delicious union of tangy pickled mustard and tangy raw mangoes, and intensified its brio by adding pieces of pickled pineapple. However, he admits that he made a milder version of the original relish to suit various palates. At Chutney Collective, Saldanha focuses on sustainable cooking and reducing waste in the kitchen. The pineapples of his Ananas & Aam Kasundi are first marinated in a fruity vinegar that Saldanha prepares with pineapple kernel, mango seeds and zest, etc. which gives her signature shrimp chutney an exciting depth of flavor.

Those desi chutneys and podis can, in fact, be used in unusual and novel ways, not only as condiments but also as ingredients or flavor enhancers. Native Tongue’s smoked Aam Panna Cordial, for example, can also serve as a salad dressing or brighten up regular salsa. The Chutney Collective Instagram page is also full of ideas—bhel puri garnished with fried chicken thcha or sev puri processed with umami-rich black garlic and tomato thokku. Saldanha also hosts pop-ups where he beats special numbers featuring one or more of his chutneys, in a unique way.

Inamke and Rai are set to bring their podi bacon to the shelves while Saldanha is set to launch six new chutneys to mark Chutney Collective’s first anniversary in October, taking inspiration from the ‘touch’ of the south. ‘India (sea bass bites) with Japanese seasoning. The wait is coming to an end.

To buy
Chutney Collective, @chutney_collective on Instagram, ?? 300 and more for 200g
Native Tongue, @ nativetongue.in on Instagram, ?? 275 and more for 200g
Nomad Food Project, nomadfoodproject.com, ?? 350 and more for 200g
Gautam Krishnankutty, @gonzogarbanzo, ?? 350 and more for 200 g (approximately)
The Kitchen Project, @ the_kitchen_project.in on Instagram, ?? 350 and more for 200 g (approximately)

Read also | Try making Bombay duck chutney with this recipe

Priyadarshini Chatterjee is a Kolkata-based food and culture writer.