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Relishing Indian dishes
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Zhang Zhiyong
WILD, exotic smells waft into your face as soon as you step inside Tandoor, an Indian restaurant in Luohu District. The waitresses are dressed in native Indian clothing while Indian music fills the room, transporting me to the hot, mysterious land on the other side of the Himalayas.
Exotic is a word which often comes to mind when speaking of India, and this word most certainly applies to the amazing array of herbs and spices used in that nation's cooking.
Indian food is usually prepared in a unique style of cooking, Dum, as it is called. For example, mutton or fish first get well coated in herbs and spices and cooked an air-tight container, as Murli, the chef of the restaurant, explained. Only in this way, he said, the flavour of the herbs could be fully absorbed by the food.
To convince me, Murli presented a dish named biryanis which was mutton cooked with flavoured rice in Dum. The moment he lifted the lid, the air became saturated with an amazing fragrance. My curiosity aroused, I tried a piece, and was startled by an explosion of exotic flavours.
Of course, curry is also a key ingredient of Indian food. The word "curry" was originally an Indian word for sauces. It gives flavour to chicken, lamb and vegetables. Onion, tomato, cashew nuts can be used to make curries.
The manager of Tandoor told me with pride that his restaurant serves the most authentic mouth-watering Indian delicacies in the city. Murli is an experienced Indian chef who once worked in the Marriot and Holiday Inn, world-renowned hotels.
Murli was not at all self-effacing. He said: "Indian cuisine is the food prepared in herbs and spices. Since the amount of herbs and spices can't be precisely measured, the skill of using them is the most essential to the quality of Indian dishes. And that depends on a chef's creativity and judgement."
"I do it with a passion, just like playing a game of ingredients. Something must be running in the blood. My father was a kitchen supervisor and he taught me cooking when I was 15."
As Indian food is still strange to most of the locals, Murli is eager to communicate with locals and get their opinions on his cooking, and he sincerely hopes that SZ people will grow to love Indian cuisine, which is wildly popular in many nations.
"I love Shenzhen. It's like my hometown in India. I am working to make Shenzhen people to accept my cooking and myself. "
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