Anamika Singh's Iced Teas With A Twist Pair Well With Tanveer Kwatra's Symphony of Mangoes

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

ANAMIKA SINGH infuses passion into tea and Tanveer Kwatra has mastered the art of turning everyday food into extraordinary creations. When the two announced that they were coming together on what turned out to be a rain-swept afternoon at Sen5es, the all-day restaurant at Pullman Gurgaon Central Park, there was bound to be some serious gourmet action.

Salmon ceviche on toasted bread with chilli
roasted coriander and mango salad.
All images courtesy of Anamika Singh. 

So, I rushed from a food tasting at Fio Cookhouse and Bar at Epicuria, Nehru Place, where I was over-indulged by the naturally hospitable Vineet Wadhwa, sleeping through the one-hour drive (the Anakena Sauvignon Blanc had had a soporific effect!). The nap had a miraculous effect on my senses, as did Anamika's natural warmth and the presence of a number of friends, including the accomplished bloggers Parul Pratap Shirazi (The Shirazine) and Nachiketa Chandra (The Variable Nachiketa). Together, these multiple good influences prepared me for the treat ahead.

Warm and buttery scones packed with raisins
and served with a delectable mango marmalade

And what a treat it was. I have often wondered if there were ways of having iced tea apart from falling back on the instant-use concoctions flooding the market, but Anamika, who has turned Anandini Himalaya Tea at Shahpur Jat into a destination for connoisseurs, showed us the immense  possibilities of a drink with a huge potential in India. With Anamika working really hard to promote her Anandini Tea Club, and with some of the city's leading restaurants backing her initiative (she last did an event at Guppy by Ai), I'm sure it'll happen faster than we can imagine.

Tea Sommelier Anamika Singh (second from
right) and Pullman Gurgaon Central Park's
Executive Chef Tanveer Kwatra pose for a
photo-op with the Sen5es team and
Anupama Khanna Mukerji (in maroon sari)

She first served a green tea with mangoes, peaches and ginger (the third ingredient uplifted the flavour profile, releasing it from the burden of predictability). Then came a fuller-bodied autumn flush tea with fresh lychees and chilli, followed by the most popular aam panna with green tea and black salt -- it may have been a delightfully unusual combination, but the balance of flavours was so delicate that it instantly won our heart.

Kwatra, meanwhile, had laid out a delectable spread centred around mangoes. When I dug into his reinterpretation of the palak patta chaat with quinoa, pine nuts and mango salad, I knew the best was yet to come. The guests were drooling over the BBQ pork and raw mango taco, I loved the ceviche of salmon on toasted bread with chilli roasted coriander and mango vinaigrette.

My other favourites were the mango rice pudding (a preparation I won't forget in a hurry) and raisin-studded scones served with mango marmalade. I could have had a jar full of that mango marmalade! People around me were 'just loving' the smoked chicken and rocket sandwich, and I was eyeing the Mango Danish and Mango Swiss Rolls, but my stomach was working at a '110 per cent load factor'!

With the mango season in full bloom, having a 'Mangolicious Tea' was a brilliant idea. And if a brilliant idea is executed with perfection, it can only be a symphony of finer tastes.

Leading Delhi-NCR Chefs Welcome Grown-Up Meat Products from Indo-Australian Venture

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

Le Carne Cuts is wholly owned by Primo Foods,
which is backed by one of the country's leading
meat exporters, Moin Akhtar Qureshi. Its
Master Butcher, Sigi Maletzki, has previously
been associated with Top Cut, Australia's
quality meat producer, and its East Asian
subsidiary, Tender Plus.

IT WAS Tanveer Kwatra, the extremely creative Executive Chef of Pullman Central Park Gurgaon in whose passion I see shades of Bill Marchetti, who first volunteered to take me to the Le Carne Cuts production facility in Manesar, the upcoming industrial suburb of India's 'Millennium City', Gurgaon. He said he knew the Le Carne Cuts Master Butcher Sigi Maletzki from his days in Melbourne, Australia, and showcased sausages from the company on the popular Sunday brunch menu of Sen5es. Maletzki, whose wife Gilly is the Head of Sales at Le Carne Cuts, previously had a long stint with Australia's quality meat producer, Top Cut, and its East Asian subsidiary, Tender Plus.

The conversation came back to me a couple of days back, when I visited Aahar 2014, India's premier food show at Pragati Maidan, and met the gregarious Tarsillo Natalone, the owner of Flavors, who was effusive in his praise for the chicken pepperoni that he had sourced from Le Carne Cuts for his pizzas. It was finally the busy restaurant consultant, Ramindar Bakshi, who put me in touch with Bharat Singh, a former executive at the independent private equity advisory firm, Campbell Lutyens, and now one of the five directors of Primo Foods Private Limited, the holding company of Le Carne Cuts.

Primo Foods is a privately held Indo-Australian joint venture company led by Moin Akhtar Qureshi, one of the country's leading meat exporters and President of the Doon School Old Boys Society. The company's Australian directors are Marvin Fayman, Joshua Fayman and David Joshua Grajzman. It was incorporated on January 18, 2013, and its production facility, an out-of-work garment-manufacturing factory, is studded with state-of-the-art German and Australian machinery.

Bharat and I connected at the busy Hall No. 10 at Pragati Maidan, he took me to the Le Carne Cuts stall, and then started what I can only describe as a meat feast. Tanveer was around and so was Andrew Parsons, Executive Chef at the Official Residence, High Commission of Canada. What struck me instantly was that I was having sausages that actually tasted and felt like meat in the mouth and not like some rubbery, synthetic mock meat.

My favourite was the juicy pork kransky, a sausage that's hugely popular in Australia -- mildly hot and best eaten in a roll with rustic mustard. Giving it competition were the chicken chorizo sausages, which my boys polished off in a matter of minutes; lamb kabana, which are modelled after the Polish sausages made with pork drawn from pigs fed on potatoes; and the pork krakauer, sausages made from cuts of lean pork, seasoned with pepper, allspice, coriander and garlic, and packed into large casings. The winner, though, was the birchwood-smoked whole chicken, which you can simply microwave and add to your Caesar's salad, or just have by itself. I preferred the second option -- the chicken was too wholesome to need any sexing up.

Finally, we have grown-up meat products in our city. Let us fall in love with them -- like I have. You can get them at Modern Bazaar outlets and at the Japanese store, Yamatoya, in Humayanpur, in the neighbourhood of Safdarjung Enclave.