Famous celebrity Chef Thomas Zacharias ( popularly known as Chef TZac) was bowled over by Odisha cuisine on his recent trip to Odisha. He has now created Odisha inspired menu 'ODISHA UNWRAPPED' - A FEAST FROM THE EAST! At The Bombay Canteen which Explores The Culinary Secrets From Eastern India. I caught up with him to know more about his visit, experience and the cuisine which delights him the most in Odisha.

Tell us about your trip to Odisha.

Part of what we do at The Bombay Canteen is to explore and celebrate regional cuisines from around the country and the way we learn about the different cuisines is through travel. So, for the past five years every few months I travel to a different part of India to explore the cuisine I learnt and I have always known about Odia cuisine and it had always been on my list of places to go and explore and then I finally figured out a plan to make it happen. I am very well aware that Odia is very under-represented, when you generally talk about Indian food nobody really mentions Odia cuisine and even when in the past I have done a few Odia inspired dishes like "Pakhala Bhata" the response is that they are completely unfamiliar to what Odia cuisine is. If you ask anybody here in Bombay what is Odia cuisine they won’t be able to tell you or give you an answer. So, it was very important for me to do this trip and do it properly and kind of, at least explore as much of Odia food in a week's time. So, it was kind of the right to do it.

Which is your favorite Odia dish and what do you like about Odia food in general?

What I like about Odia food in general is that it has really clean and crisp flavors, like every dish has one particular flavor profile to it , its not a cuisine that is muddled , so it what I refer to is an "evolved cuisine". Its been molded over for centuries and refined within the state and you can tell what you taste in the dishes because usually there aren't so many ingredients being squished and the flavors are very clear and I love the fact that there is a lot of diversity in the cuisine, like each region of Odisha has a different dishes that is unique to that region. I really like a lot of ingredients and techniques that I use, like the Patrapada technique that I use. As a chef it is a really cool idea. Even the idea of using ingredients like badis for texture, so, when I think like a chef I think of like say am example when I think of ways to incorporate texture in the dish and it is inspiring to see cuisines that have already discovered such techniques many many centuries ago. Because a lot of chefs these days think it’s a modern idea to balance dishes with textures and flavors but a lot of Odia cuisines have already figured that out. I would say the favorite dish I tasted would be "Machi Haldi Pani" that was really really nice and it’s also one of the dishes we incorporated in our menu.

Tell us about your recent Odisha inspired menu at The Bombay Canteen.

So everytime we do a menu like this we usually try and get someone from the region who is a cuisine expert to collaborate with us because we want to do justice to the cuisine. So during the trip we were introduced to a college junior whose name is Rachit Kirtiman who is a chef as well who introduced us to Alka Jena who actually invited us to her home and showed us how Odia cuisine is prepared and we learnt a lot from this one afternoon. So when we decided to do this as a full celebration at our restaurant we got in touch with her, flew her down a month ago to test about 60-70 recipes with her and then decided on 30-35 dishes to showcase on our ala carte menu. We also do a full four course Odia menu so guests can come and have a full Odia experience with around 25 dishes.

Which Odia dish you think you can prepare the best?

I hope I can prepare all the dishes pretty well but the basic idea is to stay true to the cuisine and do justice to the cuisine. We served our first Odia inspired meal to 25 Odia guest at the restaurant and the response from them is that they really liked "Chakuli pitha" "oou khata" "ghee anna". And some of the dishes were interpretation so a part of the menu is kept in a traditional form and the other part is interpretations or are the inspired versions of the original dishes. We take inspiration from home style Odia dishes and also street food dishes so we have our version of the classic "dahi vada aloo dum" and also our version of Behrampur fried chicken. I think the "Chenna Poda" is really really good. That’s one Odia dish that is very hard to replicate and I am really happy with the way it has turned out so we actually made it into a chenna poda cheesecake with strawberry compote and a crush of granola that is really really nice .

If you were to suggest 3 best places to try some of the variety of Odia food in Odisha , what would they be ?

So the 3 places to try Odia food I think one would be there is a place called "Kaka hotel" inside Ekamra hat, they serve simple Odia food and then you get fantastic meals at "Odisha hotel" in Chandrashekharpur in Bhubaneswar and I would say at Alka Jena's home because no matter where you go home food will outshine everything else.

On the Odisha Inspired Menu at The Bombay Canteen is –

Kadali Monja Bora (poha-crusted banana stem croquette with a raw banana chutney); Behrampur Fried Chicken (Badi-crusted chicken wings with Odia ambula rai); Bhaja Chenna Tarkari (Pistachio-filled paneer kofta in a tempered yoghurt curry, served with Ekbarni rice) and Kankda Jhola (mud crab with tomato and khada masala).

Celebrating the lesser-known cuisine of Odisha through a special menu that gives a real insight into seasonal, home-style Odia cooking as well as street food that influenced Odia food. The menu will have a combination of both traditional recipes as well as our contemporary interpretation of some; highlighting unique Odia ingredients and cooking techniques. While the traditional Odia meals are rich in flavours and spices, as we move towards the East, the flavours are less spicy and more nutritious. From sal to banana, colocasia, pandan and turmeric to rare local varieties, Odias use a wide variety of leaves to cook their food in.The abundant sal leaves are used to wrap and roast food especially Chhena Poda which give this cardamom-scented cottage cheesecake, a distinct aroma.

The Odia Experience menu, a four-course feast, is available only at dinner and serves classic dishes starting with Kadali Monja Bora- poha-crusted banana stem croquette with raw banana chutney and Ambula-Cured Chowchow- cured winter chayote squash with raw mango, fermented chilli, & dried mango and cumin broth for vegetarians or Ambula-Cured Prawns- cured prawns with raw mango, fermented chilli and dried mango & cumin broth. The second course is small bites of Pithau Bhajaor deep-fried winter gourd in crispy rice batter; Habisa Dalma– raw banana, arbi & elephant apple simmered in moong dal, tempered with ginger & chilli; Potol Rassa- pointed gourd stew with kalonji, tomato & coconut milk and Gota Baigana– comprising baby eggplant with khada masala & reduced milk. An option of Bhaja Chenna Tarkari or pistachio-filled paneer kofta with tempered yoghurt curry for vegetarians or Machi Haldi Paani an incredible boneless Pabda fish in a fresh turmeric & buttermilk gravy. Accompanied with Ghee Anna or steamed rice flavoured with ghee; Badi Chura– essentially crushed dried lentils with chilli, onion & mustard oil; Oou Khata– a chutney of elephant apple tempered with panch phutana and Chakuli Pitha or soft rice pancakes.

Followed by the third course, the much loved Pakhala Bhata– the famed fermented rice and curd, tempered with ginger & mustard seed, Jahni Pura Bhaja- stuffed baby ridge gourd with mustard & poppy seed, Chatu Patrapoda- that’s mushrooms with mustard & chilli, wrapped in sal leaves and charred over open fire. On offer for the non- vegetarians are the Checcha Chingudi or dried shrimp with onion & chilli kachumber and Chingudi Patrapoda a delicious combination of prawns with mustard and chilli, wrapped in sal leaves & charred over open fire. With Badi Bhaja– which is crispy fried assorted dehydrated lentil cakes and Odia Winter Carrot Pickle. Ending on a sweet high, is the Rasabali- deep-fried chhena soaked in sweetened condensed milk.

To add to all this is the a la carte menu that will be available for lunch and dinner. A selection of lip-smacking dishes like Sambalpur Mansa Poorga (braised mutton shanks with caramelized onion, served with chakuli pitha; Macha Haldi Pani- boneless Pabda fish in fresh turmeric and buttermilk gravy; Kancha Lanka (Desi) Kukuda or country chicken curry cooked in coriander & green chilli and Kankda Jhola- mud crab with tomato and khada masala. For those with a sweet tooth, the famous Chhena Poda "Cheese cake"– the traditional Odia milk cake baked in sal leaves, served with fresh strawberry jam is a must try.

Along with this, the bartenders have been inspired to create a few cocktails including the Ambula Tiki a mix of dark rum, white rum, orange juice, pineapple juice, Ambula or salted dried mango reduction, saline solution with lime juice and mint leaves; Indian Lady made with gin, Annapurna wine, betel leaf tincture, litchi cordial, egg white and a beer made with Ambula by Greatstate Aleworks.