These are the exercise of both my culinary skills and passion for teaching, in the hope of raising the quality of modern European cooking in the Indian home kitchen, whilst championing the small & intimate sit down & served dinner party format that advances interesting dialogue, cultivated debate and enduring friendship … do try your hand at these recipes, for they are easy yet impressive, and above all delicious!
Inspired by my two walkabouts in France this year, and a homage to the versatility of chicken liver, which as it happens is quite easily accessible for the Indian palate…
A tribute to one of my favourite – if not absolute favourite – Venetian dishes, “Baccala Mantecato” i.e. creamed salt cod, served with polenta, but not usually in the form of fat fries so this is an India, or rather Indian palate friendly version, and whilst the tuna is no substitute for salt cod, I suspect it is far more accessible to the local palate, besides which these perfectly crunchy fat fries with their preciously airy interior take precedence in this assembly…
I have indeed returned to the pork ribs, for they yield the most succulent meat, and I have been able to source blocks of ribs locally from www.artisanmeats.in, which allows me to cut and use them in a variety of ways…
Believe it or not, the first time I myself tasted this soup, for I had never felt particularly inclined to do so during my many trips to Spain, was at the Lodhi hotel in New Delhi in 2011, at a dinner hosted by my late father for the then foreign secretary. The Head Chef at the time, who has since very sadly passed away, was an extremely talented young man called Bhargav, and I would like to present this as a tribute to him …
Now I just love this starter, and it happens to be one of the very few dishes I make, which I have not, till date, tired of eating, the symphony and subtlety of bouquet, texture and flavour unequivocally beguiling, beginning with a faint scent of dill, orange and star anise, followed by a bite that is somewhere in between a ceviche, sashimi and smoked salmon, and ending with the ever so slight tastes of almond and garlic, leaving the palate feeling both bewitched and bewildered…
In the month of May this year, (i.e. 2025) at a gelateria in Rome, Italy, I tasted a Zabaglione semi-freddo for the very first time, and it absolutely blew my mind hence my version, in the absence of a churner, frozen & then unfrozen, chaperoned by a filo pastry cigar that is part of an old repertoire of mine and not only adds texture but also a little bit of ‘je ne sais quoi’ best enjoyed in a micro dose, on to the recipe I go…
A recent creation and a little bit of mix and match using recipes I have already provided on DiyaSethi.com, such as the dry pork rub and sesame tahini dressing, but this time for a pulled pork shoulder salad, once again using local Indian pork from artisan meats, which is slow cooked in the oven until it easily pulls apart…
Yes, I do have a passion for duck, and in my youth, each time I travelled to France, this is a dish I ordered without fail whenever it was available on a restaurant menu. A French classic, ’Canard a l’orange’, even though the Italians like to take credit for it, as they do with a number of French dishes they claim were bequeathed to France by the Medici court…
Never have I come across a listed recipe for Nobu’s Rock Shrimp Tempura, Creamy Spicy Sauce that actually works, and yet it has been widely and successfully reproduced so I set about fiddling and finding a fool proof recipe for you, and that too using easily available local Indian ingredients (other than one, the Lingham’s Garlic Chilli Sauce, but it can be ordered on Amazon), and without any fancy equipment or technique…