Spice May issue ipad LR

FOOD
NIGELLA
Kalonji
Maach and
Naan
LAVASH PIZZA
Recipe and image courtesy: Megha
Kohli, Head Chef, Lavaash By Saby
INGREDIENTS
Lavash bread
Tomato and heeng sauce
Salted bandel cheese
Smoked bandel cheese
Kalimpong cheese
Cooked lamb keema
Raw onions sliced
Kalonji
1 pc
10 ml
10 gms
10 gms
10 gms
80 gms
10 slices
1/4th
tsp
METHOD
Spead the tomato sauce on the
lavash bread.
Crumble the bandel cheeses and
spread on the pizza evenly along
with the grated Kalimpong cheese.
Add the kalonji and the cooked
lamb keema.
Bake the pizza at 250°C till it is
crispy (5 mins).
Garnish with the raw onions and
slice and serve
Serves 2
can do to a dish.”
But in the hands of a clever chef
kalonji is like a potter’s mud ready to be
moulded into whatever palate value one
wants to give it. Take the Lamb Pizza in
Lavaash By Saby for instance. This dish,
says head chef Megha Kohli, gets its
bitter-pungent taste from the raw kalonji
used, which is sprinkled over the dish
when it is just out of the oven. Between
that and by the time it reaches the eater,
it develops its own flavour profile and
adds to the lamb pizza.”
Yet another nigella seed wonder is
the egg and cheese bread, where the
seeds work much like they work with
pickles, giving the bread a peppery taste.
For Meet Singh Malhotra, Executive
Chef MOB, it is the go-to spice whenever
he is looking to add an “extra zing” to a
dish – fish, bread, Indian curries or
even when pickling an ingredient for
further use.
And the reason, adds Malhotra, is
the 38 per cent essential oil content that
the spice has, which gives it that special
aroma despite its slightly overwhelming
bitter bite. “The other thing that makes
kalonji or nigella seeds such a fascinating
spice for not only Indian but also
MINISTRY OF BEER
80
MAY 2017