A Special Dish to Celebrate Diwali in New Zealand | Study with New Zealand
Two talented Indian chefs – Vaibhav Vishen and Varun Toorkey are celebrating the festival of lights in New Zealand with a special dish, served as homage to their Indian heritage and adopted homeland.
Their dish – Goda Masala Paneer Stuffed Kulcha, with a Kiwifruit Panch Phoron Chutney, doffs a chef’s hat to the flavours of Vishen and Toorkey’s respective childhoods in Kashmir and Mumbai in India, alongside their time in Wellington, New Zealand.
Chef Vishen is owner of Chaat Street, an authentic Indian food eatery in Wellington that brilliantly showcases the complex, lip-smacking combination of textures, flavours and spices that go into Indian street food. Chef Toorkey is an actor who left behind a 13-year career in the glitzy world of Indian television to follow his culinary study dream in Wellington.
Both chefs are (or have been in Vishen’s case) students of Le Cordon Bleu, New Zealand’s Bachelor of Culinary Arts & Business programme.
The dish they created is a suitably festive one to add to any Diwali table but isn’t too decadent to be off limits. The creative and emotional aspect of cooking is what inspires Chef Vishen to play with flavours and textures.
“Food not only allows you to be creative, it’s also a canvas where you can showcase your emotions, what you feel, not just by cooking, but also by looking at someone consuming your work of art. That relationship of cooking and feeling is addictive. I love how a community can come together with food,” Vishen says.
For Toorkey, creating this dish with Vishen was a wonderful way of reliving fond Diwali food memories.
“Food is the perfect way of bringing together family and friends. What better reason to get family together than food? We’d love to celebrate Diwali every year, lighting up the house, stuffing our faces with treats and visiting friends and family,” he says.
This year, the chefs are looking forward to creating some new Diwali memories in their adopted home of Wellington.
“It’s brilliant how Wellington has embraced a wide range of cultures. You can see it in how the community comes together to celebrate. The special Diwali fireworks display on the Wellington waterfront is a definite highlight,” says Vishen.
About Vaibhav Vishen
Vaibhav Vishen is an award-winning chef and owner of Chaat Street, an Indian street food eatery in Wellington. A former software developer from Srinagar in India’s Kashmir valley, Vishen came to New Zealand in 2014 to pursue his dream of becoming a chef through Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand culinary school based in Wellington.
About Varun Toorkey
Varun Toorkey is a former Indian television actor who has taken a big leap towards pursuing his dream in the culinary industry. Varun has left a 13-year career in television to study Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand’s Bachelor of Culinary Arts & Business.
Recipe
Goda Masala Paneer Stuffed Kulcha, served with a Kiwifruit Panch Phoron Chutney
Serves 2
The stuffed kulcha (or flatbread) is the dish’s Kashmiri influence, while the goda masala (literally ‘sweet spice’) is a spice mix traditional to Western India, where Mumbai is located. The panch phoron spice chutney has distinct Bengali roots, but the chefs have opted to use tangy-sweet kiwifruit over the traditional tomato to bring a classic New Zealand flavour to the dish.
Ingredients
Kulcha
1.5 cups plain flour
1tbsp instant yeast
100ml milk
100ml yoghurt
50ml water
Pinch of salt
Sugar to taste
Goda Masala Paneer
1 litre whole milk
50ml vinegar
1 tbsp onion, finely chopped
1.5 tbsp Goda masala – a Maharashtrian toasted and ground spice mix of stone flower lichen, dried red chillies, star anise, caraway seeds, cumin seeds, dried coconut, asafoetida, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, black and green cardamom). Goda masala can be purchased in Indian stores in New Zealand.
Salt to taste Kiwifruit Chutney 250 grams of diced kiwifruit 1.5 tsps panch phoran (Bengali five-spice mix made of equal parts toasted cumin, nigella, fenugreek, fennel and mustard seeds) ½ teaspoon of ground red chilli or cayenne pepper 250 grams sugar Chopped coriander, to garnish Method Kiwifruit chutney
- Add panch phoran spice mix to the oil in a pan. Add 250 gm of diced kiwifruit and red chilli/cayenne. Stir in the sugar. Turn the heat up a bit and simmer for about 25 mins to let the chutney reduce. Let cool and pop into the fridge. Garnish with freshly chopped coriander.
Goda masala paneer
- Add a bit of oil to pan, and the milk. Heat to 55-60 degrees. Pour and stir in half the vinegar. Once the milk starts to curdle, turn the heat off and add the remaining vinegar and mix it in. Strain the mixture into a cheesecloth and gently press out the whey as best you can. Cover with a weight and rest. Mush up the paneer in a bowl with chopped onion, coriander and the goda masala. Divide the mixture into golf-sized balls.
Kulcha dough
- Combine the kulcha ingredients in a bowl and mix well by hand. As the dough comes together, add a splash of oil to finish kneading. Cover the dough and let it rest.
To make the kulchas
- Flatten each dough ball into a small, thick disc. Stuff the paneer into each of the dough balls, pinch, and seal. Roll out each kulcha gently, avoid rolling them out too large, small is good.
Toast the kulchas in a heated pan and brush with ghee to finish (clarified butter). Serve with the kiwifruit chutney.
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