Chef Tananya Hanain has spent the last 13 years cooking in kitchens in places as far-flung as Japan, Australia and later South Korea. So it’s no surprise that as she spearheads Lotus at The Park Chennai, her all-new menu for the restaurant draws inspiration from her world travels. The Ched fe Cuisine, who hails from Thailand, tells us that some of the signature dishes you can look forward to are the Gang phet ped yang (roast duck with spiced red curry) and Pad pong karee poo (stir-fried curried mud crabs). When she isn’t in the kitchen, the chef tells us she’s usually practising on her ukulele or reading Japanese comic books.
Crispy fried lamb
(Ghae hor bai bua)
Ingredients:
■ Shredded lamb - 150 gms
■ Salt - to taste
■ Cornflour - 100 gms
■ Lotus petals - 6 pcs
■ Lemongrass -1 pcs
■ Fried onion to sprinkle
■ Chopped garlic - 1 tsp
■ Fresh red chilli - 3
■ Ginger - 5 gms
■ Fried cashewnut for garnish
For sauce
■ Tamarind juice - 1 tbsp
■ Tomato ketchup - 4 tbsp
■ Palm sugar - 1 tbsp
Method
Put the lamb in a mixing bowl. Season with salt and sprinkle some water, dust with cornflour, then fry until crisp. Heat
the oil in a wok. Put chopped garlic, lemongrass, fresh red chilli and ginger, and sauté till the ingredients are aromatic. Next, add tamarind juice, tomato ketchup, palm sugar and a pinch of salt cooked till thickened, then add crispy lamb to it. Arrange the lotus petal on the plate, and place the lamb in the centre. Serve hot with fried cashewnuts and browned onion.
Tips
■ Considering the lamb is cut into juliennes, flash frying them in piping hot oil to perfection is the key to this dish. If the lamb is fried too much, the juiciness and texture will be lost.
■ Picking the freshest of herbs for this dish also determines
the taste — galangal, ginger, lemongrass, mint and shallots are all used in their raw forms and combined to give a burst
of flavour.
The new menu launches July 1.