Yellow chilli man

He’s a cook on the move. Not because he jumps from one jobto another but for the simple reason that he’s in Mumbai one day to grace theopening of a fine dining restaurant, in Dubai the next day to launch his latestbook, in Singapore the third day to present a talk, and so on. Does it tire himout? “No, I quite like being a celebrity cook,” he says with a big smile duringhis recent visit to Pune to launch a new menu for his flagship restaurant ‘TheYellow Chilli’. And surprisingly, when you ask him next what his favourite dishis, he says that it is ‘Puneri Thalipeeth’ made by his mother-in-law. That’stypical Sanjeev Kapoor. Real and earthy.

And as 2012 takes its dusky bow, for Kapoor it’s going to bea busy 2013. That’s because after a marathon run of earlier seasons of‘MasterChef Australia’, followed by ‘Junior MasterChef’ on Star World, whenfans of the show were left wondering whether the next season of the Indianversion would launch anytime soon, the news is that Kapoor will replace AjayChopra in the panel of judges in the third season of the show. His reaction is:“I am all charged up to be a part of the show. It’s great fun to observe freshtalent coming up with such creative ideas.”

Meanwhile, the other good news is that Kapoor’s ‘The YellowChilli Cookbook’ has won two more titles – ‘Best Indian Cuisine Book’ and ‘BestChef Cook Book’ at the Gourmand World Cook Book Awards 2012. Earlier this yearit was declared a winner at the International Book Awards 2012. Kapoor isobviously quite elated. “Some years ago people asked me why I didn’t set up myown restaurant if I claimed to be such a good cook. That’s how the first of‘The Yellow Chilli’ came to be in Ludhiana, which has now become a chain acrossIndia. Then patrons requested us to share ‘The Yellow Chilli’ recipes with themand thus the seed for this book was sown,” Kapoor reveals.

It was a tough time though to choose the recipes that wouldgo into this collection. “All the outlets had to be surveyed and tested and theimportant fact is that when you cook in a commercial kitchen it is done on adifferent scale and in different types of cauldrons whereas the scenario is notthe same in home kitchens. Therefore the recipes had to be adapted for homeuse. All this required a lot of hard work. Fortunately, our judgments turnedout to be good,” he says. And so what does all this fame and glamour mean tohim? “The celebrity status is a means to an end. It has been helping me to makeIndian food the number one cuisine in the world and on a more serious note, ithas been empowering Indian women through cooking,” he replies.

Elaborating about Indian cuisine, Kapoor says that thetypical perception is that cooking Indian food is complicated. “A single dishcan use 10-15 ingredients and it can be challenging but the fact is that itboils down to a simple procedure in most cases,” he says. As for the finerpoints of running a restaurant, Kapoor explains that the trick likes increating a menu that pleases a wide variety of people. “Essentially, the staffhas to be trained well not only in suggesting the right kind of dishes to thecustomers but also in preparing it to suit individual taste buds. For instance,it is not as if every Indian likes spicy food and similarly there are manyforeigners who love hot Indian curries,” he points out.