- Every place I go, I can find some culinary inspiration; Chef Ruchit
Musaafer Houston has been featured in Time magazine as one the best Indian restaurants in the USA. Chef Ruchit Harneja is one of the most recognizable chefs today as a chef traveler because of the most ambitious 100-day food journey which he embarked across the 29 states of India. As they say, if you want to know more about unexplored traditional recipes, then one has to travel to go to the roots of its origin. And that’s what Chef Ruchit Harneja did to explore nuances of Indian cuisine.
This journey was made to explore varied Indian desserts and pastries and learn ancient and traditional recipes from each region. The knowledge he gathered from his journey has not only added depth to his expertise, but helps him thoroughly in achieving his mission to provide an educational tour to American diners. He strives to set a benchmark for Neoteric Indian cuisine in the United States through the dessert menu at Musaafer Houston.
Chef Ruchit completed his schooling from Maharaja Sawai Mansingh Vidyalaya, Jaipur. To complete his culinary dream, he joined the prestigious Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) Bangalore and completed his Bachelor of Science Degree in Hospitality Administration/Management.
Mishti Doi creation by Chef Ruchit
Chef Ruchit began his culinary journey with the Taj group of Hotels. He was looking after the pastry operations at the Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi. To enhance his culinary skills, he moved to work at the Andaz Delhi –a concept by Hyatt as well for a short stint before joining the most magnificent Indian restaurant in the United States – Musaafer Houston.
While travelling from one place to another, learnings of his food trail made him a master of delicacies from courtly cuisines of India which were relished by Nawab’s. these cuisines Rampur cuisine from the Mughal era and Awadhi cuisine. He got an opportunity to learn in the royal kitchens from the khansamas (Cooks who prepared food for Nawab’s and Kings). To be precise, these Khanasamas never shared their recipes and has been secretly preserved for centuries.
During his journey, He travelled to plenty of tucked away places to fetch recipes which are not in the mainstream and those dishes are barely found on any menu card here in the United States like bebinca from Goa, Ghevar from his Hometown Jaipur, endless varieties of Halwa from North India and Mishti doi from Bengal.
Another very engrossing fact about his desserts is the use of his unusual ayurvedic spice blends he invented for Indian desserts and superfoods like millets and grains, Moringa leaves, Lotus seeds, etc. He brings back the long lost Indigenous Indian grains like Bajra (Pearl millet), Jowar (sorghum), Ragi (finger millet), Kangni (Foxtail Millet) to the modern world of gastronomy and is doing extensive use of them in his desserts. They all are categorized under high nutrient density grains conferring with a lot of health benefits.
Chef Ruchit is acclaimed for his concepts of heterodox food pairing, roots of which are linked to Rampur cuisines. He is very notorious in using ingredients like fresh green chilies, garlic, ginger, fish, meat and masters some of such atypical preparations. He elucidates some of the fabled preparations of kheer for his seasonal summer menu at Musaafer.
He names his few of his favourite delicacies which he picked during his culinary journey. He says summer is the season for irresistible sugarcane juice sold street side in every part of India with a dash of lime and ginger. ‘Roah ki kheer’ is a summer kheer from villages of Punjab, made with sugarcane juice and basmati rice. Another legendary version from the kitchens of awadh is ‘Benami Kheer’, which means ‘without a name’ as a chef who made it didn’t want to reveal the secret ingredient that is garlic. ‘Benami Kheer’ shatters all preconceived notions you have about the milky pudding, and yet makes for a marvelous fare.
Chef Ruchit says people eat with their eyes first, meaning how food looks and is presented is just as important as how it tastes. He pairs it with summer super foods like honey crunch foxnuts, chironji enrobed in ruby chocolate and pumpkin seed clusters. He feels surprise is an important element of a meal. Guests have certain preconceptions when coming to a restaurant. He likes to toy with that notion. To astonish, to surprise, to shake up his guests and see a childlike sense of wonder on their faces is what he lives for.
Is eating desserts unhealthy? No, not at all. To burst the myth which says eating desserts is unhealthy, he has been diligently working. In moderation, a sweet treat after a meal aids easy digestion. Eating sweets triggers the release of our saliva, which loosen stomach muscles to make the food we’ve eaten to settle easily. Hence, eating the desired quantity of sweet food is always nourishing for the spleen, however eating an unbalanced meal leads to an uneven blood sugar level, which needs to be blamed.
What’s in the pipeline? Every place I go, I can find some culinary inspiration. My plan is to showcase our homeland in a manner that authentically honors the country’s culinary diversity. I want to show people what it’s like to experience, there are so many interpretations of Indian cuisine which need to be explained in a better way. I want to show a more nuanced version of Indian cuisine than what people see in the media. There are so many interpretations of Indian cuisine. At Musaafer, Chef Ruchit’s intention is to showcase our homeland in a manner that authentically honors the country’s culinary diversity.
Editor in Chief : Mewati SItaram
