The art of the kitchen
Cooking with love and summer fruits are the successful ingredients of the latest In Season session. Virginia Winder hears a story of passion for food.
Every Valentine’s Day, Witt chef tutor Goonjan Gupta’s mind is on her greatest love – food. ‘‘I think food is love,’’ she says, sitting at a table outside the institute’s Impressions Restaurant, gazing at a green landscape and a twinkle of the Tasman Sea.
‘‘It could be that you cook for your family because you love them and want to feed them right.
‘‘As a profession, you cook because you love it and you are able to nourish another person, despite the gruelling hours.’’
Goonjan admires Italian chef Massimo Bottura, who says: ‘‘Cooking is about emotion, it’s about culture, it’s about love, it’s about memory.’’
‘‘When you cook with love, you are really mindful of what you are doing,’’ Goonjan says. ‘‘I think you have to be in a happy space when you cook; if you are unhappy or angry, it just doesn’t taste right.’’ Students learning to cook at Witt are always given the passion message.
‘‘From the first day we instil in them, ‘you have to love what you are doing because it shows’.’’ For In Season, Goonjan’s offerings are clearly created from the heart. ‘‘In summertime, there’s so many things available in terms of fruit, particularly stone fruit – they are so ripe and juicy.’’ Using apricots, she has made a versatile apricot compote infused with saffron and cardamom, which can be kept refrigerated for a month in an air-tight container.
For starters, she’s served the sweet, tart, aromatic mixture on crackers with Ka¯ piti Kikorangi blue cheese.
To begin the day, she has spooned the deep orange fruit atop granola, added Greekstyle yoghurt, dehydrated yoghurt crisps and, for Valentine’s Day, thin slices of dark chocolate.
Not only does this decadent breakfast taste amazing, it looks stunning. ‘‘I think cooking is an edible art form,’’ Goonjan says. ‘‘You can build up colours and textures. It’s like an oil painting or a Picasso in a bowl.’’ She also paints a picture about what to do with an abundance of plums.
Rather than leaving them for the birds, she recommends turning them into a chutney to store for winter or give as a gift. ‘‘Plums are falling off the trees.’’ Goonjan’s chutney is made using the stone fruit, along with figs, chilli and rose petals. She has served the condiment on crackers and a gorgonzola cheese.
The dried figs (fresh if you’ve got them) give body and texture to the chutney and the rose petals can be picked fresh or found at an artisan food store, like Vetro in New Plymouth.
Her final recipe is a cleansing smoothie using pineapple and mango, coconut water, mint, ginger and chia seeds. Although not locally grown, the tropical ingredients evoke thoughts of beaches, sunshine and island paradises.
And home.
Goonjan grew up with her grandparents in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), in the southwestern Indian state of Karnataka.
Her love of food was inspired by her mum and the family’s home cook, named Khayli. ‘‘He made the most amazing food ever. He cooked with a lot of love. It wouldn’t matter if there were five people at home to cook for or 25, he was always the same,’’ she says.
‘‘He was only 16 when he came home to work – mum taught him how to cook and I think he became a better cook than her.’’
Later, Goonjan moved to Mumbai and was working as a pastry chef when she attended an education forum. There, she learnt about the hospitality courses at Witt in a far-off place called New Plymouth, New Zealand.
‘‘I talked to the people at Witt – that’s where I’m going and I haven’t looked back. It’s been an amazing journey, that’s for sure.’’
She was a student at the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki 13 years ago and returned to become a teacher five years ago. Now she is the chef tutor of the Level 5 Diploma of
Professional Cookery. ‘‘Students come and they learn from us and then go on to be really successful chefs – better than us.’’
Their success comes down to love. ‘‘If you care about the process, the ingredients and the end result speaks for itself,’’ Goonjan says.
APRICOT SAFFRON AND CARDAMOM COMPOTE