Sunday mid day chats with legendary Chef Satish Arora about his life and memoir

Raan served to former US President Bill Clinton

‘J, this is Indira. I am very proud, J. Your boys have made this country proud.' These words by former Prime Minister of India, the late Indira Gandhi, on a phone call with the chairman of Tata Group, JRD Tata, referred to Satish Arora, the world's youngest executive chef in 1973 to handle five-star hotel kitchen at the age of 26. Now, 55 years down the line, Arora is out with his memoir, Sweets and Bitters (Bloomsbury India Rs 599).

A legendary chef, Arora has cooked for many dignitaries - royalty included - and also trained over 5,000 young chefs, who've gone on to work in or start prestigious restaurants around the world. He is the pioneer of modern cooking, showing the world how regional Indian food and scrumptious home-style cooking can be recreated to suit restaurant menus. Since retiring in 2016, Satish Arora's family has been eagerly pursuing him to pen down his experiences in a book that would be his legacy. "I initially laughed it off, but they remained persistent," he tells us. A few of his close family friends encouraged him as well, but things changed when, five years ago, he got introduced to writer Chandrima Pal. "A few sittings over coffee, and she convinced me to start recording my experiences from the past. I invested in a dictaphone and started referring to my old newspaper articles and handwritten menus, which my wife had conserved well. All this took me down memory lane, and I would sit for hours recording sweet and bitter instances."

Safed murg pulao

Much of Arora's career has been spent designing kitchens and training chefs across over 40 properties of the Taj in multiple countries. Interacting with the who's who of the world - from heads of state to celebrities, recruiting chefs, it was tough for Arora to compress all this into 179 pages. He struggled initially, but then structured the book across critical phases of his life, which include his childhood memories (helping his mother in her kitchen), followed by school days where he was never academically driven, and then the turning point in his life when he joined the Institute of Hotel Management New Delhi. The book further takes you through the milestone achievements after joining what he calls his temple - The Taj Mahal Hotel Mumbai.

On a phone call from Kolkata, where writer Pal currently lives, she tells us how the two were introduced while working on her previous book, At Home in Mumbai. "As a journalist, I knew of his legacy, but I found it interesting that all this while, he was completely under the radar; only a few notable journalists - who admired his work and were cognisant of his role in modernising Shamiana, Taj Coffee shop and revolutionising Indian cuisine - wrote about him as a pioneer of Modern Indian cuisine."

Lobster kika

Thanks to COVID 19, the book took a long time (five years) to publish. Arora was stuck in the UK for a long time. "During my research, I learned how the hospitality industry has evolved. He was from one of the first batches of IHM, the first catering institute in the country. From there to setting up five-star kitchens, to setting flight kitchens when they were at their prime, to working with the Starbucks launch team - it's a fantastic story," says Pal.

The book is filled with the tiniest of insightful details - like cooking continental cuisine without wine during the Prohibition and sourcing exotic ingredients like fresh parsley and broccoli, and red and yellow peppers back in the day when they weren't as common - chefs like Arora worked around limitations. They devised some of the best dishes, serving celebrities, statesmen and dignitaries alike - things that fascinated Pal as a journalist. "I haven't known anyone with such an immense legacy to be so grounded. He is still the same person who came with stars in his eyes to work at the Taj, and still calls it a temple. Through his story, it's amazing to see how Taj as a group invests in people to nurture talent and gives them that kind of training and exposure," says Pal, who flew down to Mumbai to meet Arora while they were working on the book.

Chandrima Pal

"He's my father's age but still calls me madam; he is very old school, organised and meticulous," adds Pal, who toured around Taj's flight kitchens with Arora to witness the giant hive of activities, which Arora is responsible for standardising and implementing systems. "His penmanship is fantastic; he keeps copious notes, and his handwriting is beautiful. He has many firsts to his credit, but only a few know of it because he is so low-key. It takes a while to draw him out of his shell, but after that, he's happy to talk about his childhood and adolescence-the mischievous kid who bunked school and grew up enjoying street food," laughs Pal.

The recipe selection is focused on his signature dishes, which he has been credited for over the years, like the JRD club sandwich, mutton burger, and cannelloni Arora, to name a few. Besides this, there are menu references which were created for dignitaries and celebrities to add flavour to the book. "A chef's life is filled with constant bursts of adrenaline-managing situations, delivering food on time, meeting guests, solving issues, creating menus, doing food trials, creating new restaurant concepts, and learning about new cuisines and ingredients. There is never a dull moment. This was my life for 50 years. My biggest challenge was to stay put in a confined space; think of the past 50 years, and extract the best experiences that I wanted to share with my audience. I would often go into la-la-land as one story would lead to another, diluting my focus, which was a challenge besides staying put in a place I was not used to. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this experience and re-living my journey, and feel truly blessed to have the privilege to document it."

Next up, Arora is keen to compile and share tried and tested recipes. "Indian cuisine unfortunately lacks standardisation. It has always been my desire to promote standardised core recipes across regional cuisines as well as popular fare, which can be consistently replicated. This can be part of the curriculum of Hotel Management Institutes as that is the starting point of the culinary journey."

Cannelloni Arora

INGREDIENTS
16 pasta sheets

For stuffing
40 gm chopped onion
30 gm chopped chives
20 gm chopped garlic
15 gm chopped celery
A pinch of thyme
600 gm chopped spinach (boiled)
1 tbsp crushed black pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
400 gm grated paneer
100 gm pineapple
(brunoise cut)
50 gm red pepper
(brunoise cut)
200 ml fresh cream
60 gm butter
Salt to taste
40 ml olive oil

For cheese sauce
700 ml milk
2 tbsp flour
80 gm butter
80 gm grated cheddar cheese
60 gm cream cheese
150 ml fresh cream
3 gm chopped parsley
Salt to taste

For tomato sauce
500 gm chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
400 ml tomato juice
30 gm chopped onion
15 gm chopped garlic
1 pinch oregano
1 tbsp sugar
Salt To taste
20 ml olive oil

To finish
100 gm grated cheddar cheese (to bake)
3 gm chopped parsley (for garnish)

METHOD
Heat water in a pan. Add a few drops of olive oil. When the water boils, add pasta sheets. Simmer for almost 20 minutes, stirring at times. When done, replace with cold water. Keep aside. Do not place sheets one on top of the other. For the stuffing, heat oil and butter in a pan. Add onion, garlic, celery and sauté till translucent. Add thyme.

Add spinach and sauté on low flame for 15 minutes. Add paneer and sauté. Add black pepper, nutmeg and red pepper. After four minutes, add salt and pineapple. Add cream. Stir well. Adjust seasonings and keep them aside. For the cheese sauce, heat milk in a pan. In another pan, heat butter and then add flour.

Sauté for three minutes.
Add parsley followed by milk. Stir till it starts to thicken. Add grated cheese and fresh cream. Adjust seasoning and take pan off the flame. For the tomato sauce, heat oil and sauté onion and garlic in it. Now, add chopped tomatoes and oregano. After five minutes, add tomato puree. Then, add tomato juice. Add sugar and salt, take off the flame after five minutes. To present, grease a serving dish with butter. Arrange cannelloni rolls with stuffing. Cover with cheese sauce, pour tomato sauce on top. Sprinkle with grated cheese. Gratinate till the top is brown and bubbling. Serve sprinkled with chopped parsley.