My Butter Chicken has 50 pc less cream and butter: Chef Saransh Goila – Times of India

Tell us about your journey as a chef. How exciting or challenging has it been?

My 15-year journey as a chef has been thrilling and nothing short of incredible to date. Starting at Leela’s as a trainee and budding chef to today being able to launch my cookware range that I’ve co-created with Roposo and simultaneously running Goila Butter Chicken is a dream come true! Of course, every journey has its own challenges and one of my biggest achievements has been to be able to prove my mettle as a young chef in the industry because we are always considered and regarded as artists with lots of experience. For me, as a young chef, it was a challenge to be able to convince my peers and other chefs in the industry that I had my own outlook and take on food as well. I’ve achieved a lot of accolades along the way, and I’m really grateful for the same.

Would you agree that in the age of food blogging and social media, it is quite challenging to be a chef?
On the contrary, I think social media and food blogging have given all of us a voice and I don’t find it challenging. Chefs can choose to cook what they like, advocate recipes, try something new, and share it with their audience instantly through social media. Earlier, when digital assets weren’t as relevant, you could not share your ideas directly with people. It would take years for you to be able to share your thoughts or your artistic outlook on food with food enthusiasts. So, I think social media gives chefs an incredible opportunity and a level playing field to innovate and share it with their audiences, thereby helping us rather than making it challenging.

(Image courtesy: Instagram/@GoilaButterChicken)

I think one would be innovation, as any great chef would aspire to keep coming up with new signature dishes. The second would be persistence because as a chef you’ve to keep building on what you have created and reinforcing or cooking something that you are good at. I believe one of the best ways to learn is to go on food adventures, so the third and very important trait would be a zest for travel. The fourth trait that I think the world’s top chefs have in common is that they are a people’s person or a team leaders. A solid team is a must in order to create great restaurants or food ventures, so you’ve got to be a people’s person. I think the fifth one would be the chef’s X-factor. What makes you different from any other chef? Is it the way you cook? Is it the way you think? Is it the way you conduct your kitchen? There has to be something unique about you as a person and that X-factor is very critical for a chef.

Tell us about your new venture – Delishaas that you have co-created with Roposo.

I have joined hands with creator-led live entertainment commerce platform Roposo to co-create a modern cookware brand called Delishaas that makes cooking fun for all. The product range includes pans, Dutch ovens, and kadhais, in pop colours and contemporary designs, using Tri-Ply and Greblon Technology. I have always had a fun, passionate relationship with cooking and I wanted to conceptualize a simple, smart, and enjoyable cookware range that helps make cooking more accessible to all kinds of cooks. Focusing on the consumer’s health as well, they are free of Alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEO) & Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and other harmful chemicals, so the food is potentially safer and healthier. The vessels are ergonomically designed with a state-of-the-art interior coating which helps avoid spillage and scratches.

The thought of launching a cookware range struck me a few years ago when I was looking for a new set of pots and pans for my kitchen. However, I couldn’t find any high-quality products that were both durable as well as aesthetically pleasing to me. That’s when I realized that a clear gap existed in the market and decided to create and curate a product range that made cooking easy as well as enjoyable. Also, the pandemic played a role as people started exploring cooking at home, and demand for aesthetic cookware saw an increase, especially amongst younger generations. Delishaas aims to meet this rising demand with stylish yet healthy, durable, easy-to-clean cookware that appeals to modern consumers.

What does the word Delishaas mean?

I had come up with the term Delishaas a few years ago as a wordplay to the word ‘delicious.’ I wanted to use it when I was cooking or trying out a dish, which I like a little more than usual, and words like tasty or delicious just weren’t good enough to describe it. Delishaas could mean so many things to different people, but for me, Delishaas truly is an emotion, it sort of connects me with food. Hence, I started using ‘Delishaas’ as a hashtag on my social media handles and it soon became popular amongst my community and the larger audience.

(Image courtesy: Delishaas)

What’s your favourite food?

Sindhi Kadhi and Matar Wale Chawal with some Aloo Tuk is my absolute favourite! My mom is a Sindhi who loves to cook Sindhi food. I have been brought up eating that, and which is why it has to feature as my favourite.

How is Goila Butter Chicken different from other butter chicken recipes?

Goila Butter Chicken is a smokier version of the classic butter chicken as we smoke the butter that we use in the recipe. It has almost 50% less cream and butter in comparison to the classic recipe which makes it stand out. We do not add sugar or colour – we sometimes use a touch of honey to add sweetness, and all the colour comes from the tomatoes and Kashmiri chilli powder. Moreover, we cook it down for almost three hours, which makes our recipe very rich in terms of flavour. We use some good old tomatoes and turn them into a concentrate, which is used to make the butter chicken. This allows us to make it slightly tangy, while keeping it super fresh.

5 tips for home chefs

My first tip for home chefs would be to follow your passion before you make it into your profession. Enjoy it thoroughly first, then think about anything else. The second would be to build your own community at home. It is very important to have your own set of people who believe in your journey and to hold that community close to you. You should constantly take feedback from them, so that you can keep improving on your skill set and dishes. The third tip for home chefs who have started sending out food from their kitchens would be to be very particular about hygiene. They should also be very particular about being professional in terms of packaging because these are small things that can make a big difference. Fourth would be to have your own social media identity and keep pushing your page or your home chef account to millions of people across the globe. I think that this is critical for any home chef to be able to pull through. Last but not least, would be to keep experimenting with your recipes, share something daily with your fans or followers, and with your community, because innovation is the name of the game.

(Image courtesy: Instagram/@savlaniskitchen)

3 tricks most cooks don’t know

I will share some kitchen hacks that most home cooks don’t know. The first is that for an easy ginger-garlic preparation, you can make your ginger garlic paste, freeze it into cubes in your refrigerator and use it for months.

The second one is important and useful for many people. When you make lentils at home like rajma and chhole and if you forget to soak them overnight, what you can do is use a roti box or an airtight container and add hot water on top of the lentils and leave it for one hour. They will fluff up, and you will not have to worry if you’ve forgotten.

The third thing that most cooks won’t know is a very basic thing. A lot of people still ask me how to keep the coriander chutney green and I fail to understand how everyone does not put ice cubes every time they blend a green chutney. Ice cubes really change the way any green chutney looks like and I must mention that it continues to be fresh for a long, long time due to that. So, use ice cubes while blending a green chutney in the grinder.

What is maa ke haath ka khaana for you?

Maa ke haath ka khaana for me is very seasonal and regional. Every time the season changes, my mom gets very excited. Whether it’s winter shopping for Sarson Ka Saag or making cool mango desserts and shakes in summer is what she loves. If it’s springtime, she would ask us to eat food that is made with millets and is light on our tummy. Clearly, maa ke haath ka khana for me means eating fresh, clean, seasonal food.

How do you manage to stay fit?

I mostly love to run, and running is my mantra to stay fit. In fact, I enjoy running marathons as well. However, these days I am also experimenting with weight training as I’m trying to lose weight. I play tennis as well. So, all this put together helps keep me in shape.

For scrumptious recipes, videos and exciting food news, subscribe to our free
Daily and
Weekly Newsletters.