Life is all about colours and Holi keeps reminding us of this truth. And when we are talking about colours, how about adding them to our food?
Did you know that you could create colours using veggies, fruits and tea to make some of your favourite dishes?
Veeraj Shenoy, vice president, F&B and Retail Merchandise, Imagica, says that an entire plethora of dishes can be curated via the naturally occurring pigments present in fruits, vegetables and spices which makes them perfect for homemade food colouring. “You can get red from pomegranate juice, beetroot juice, beetroot powder, Kashmiri chilli. While cranberry juice can give you pink, carrots juice, saffron, carrot powder and paprika can give you an orange tint. You can use turmeric, saffron, mango puree, papaya puree to create yellow and spinach juice, spinach powder, matcha powder, parsley juice/ powder and wheatgrass juice to make green colour. Those who love red-coloured food can use red cabbage while baking juice can create blue colour. Blueberry juice, purple potatoes, grape juice concentrate, red cabbage juice concentrate and jamun help you achieve purple colour. You can even use cinnamon, cocoa powder and espresso to make brown and squid ink and activated charcoal for black,” suggests Shenoy.
He adds that all these natural food pigments/dyes are lower in concentration, mildly flavoured and do not have strong taste, except turmeric which has naturally strong pigmentation. And if you thought that these colours only add aesthetics to your food, you are mistaken. They have medicinal properties too! Says Shenoy, “Natural fruit/vegetable/spice dyes have associated health benefits and are utilised in the preparation of simple batter, curries, marinades, frosting, icing and Indian and Western breads. Keeping the festive theme in mind, regular Holi specialty dishes can be given a fun and colourful twist. Make pakoras with your choice of coloured batter to enhance the look and appeal of the dish. Adding activated charcoal to Thandai would give it a distinguished black colour, also aiding digestion after the heavy festive food. Similarly, adding fruit colour to Puran Poli dough would give the product a layered look and adding a tinge of pink to the Dahi Vada, would add excitement to the entire dish. Colours can be added to various types of sweets like Gujiya, Jalebis, Pedhas which can give a different appeal to the entire assortment of food.”
KEEP EXPERIMENTING
Chef Satish Reddy from Courtyard By Marriott Pune, Chakan feels that colours like green, yellow, red, purple, black etc can be created by using natural food ingredients like vegetables or fruits as required either in the form of extract or puree. “For example, for red colour, tomatoes come handy, green colours can be achieved from grapes and black from blackberries. Any dish you make, whether it is a starter or main course, if you want to make it unique, you can add colour to it by either using them as a garnish or a plate liner depending on what you like and how much colour you want,” suggests Reddy.
However, chef Siddhartha Sarmah of Novotel Pune, Viman Nagar, feels that one can even create new colours and textures by mixing two ingredients together. “For example, if you want to get purple colours, you can mix the juices of black grapes and jamun, diluted with water to remove stickiness. Black isn’t a very regular colour in Indian cuisine but because of the popularity of activated charcoal, a lot of Indians are using it to add black beauty to their food. It can be diluted for water based colour or used as powdered colour. Similarly, greens are fun! You can boil spinach and coriander leaves in water to get fresh green colour,” he adds.
THINK COLOURFUL
What fun it would be to eat Biryani which is purple in colour! And don’t you think Jalebis in green hue will look more exciting or black Kulchas (not burnt) will add a lot of fun to our food during Holi celebrations? Chef Arindam Bhattacharya, executive chef, Le Meridien Mahabaleshwar Resort & Spa, shares a few tips to experiment with food colours:
Pea Butterfly Tea: Pea Butterfly tea has a naturally bright blue colour when infused in water. This ingredient can be used to make any rice preparation, which will give it a natural blue colour. The same ingredient turns into a pinkish-purple colour when lemon juice is added along with it. So it can be used to create lovely Holi-themed cocktails as well.
Saffron: Indians are no strangers to this exotic and expensive spice. It can be used to add a delicious yellow or orange colour to many dishes. It can be used in Biryanis, Kheer, Gujiya and Thandai.
Black: Over the last few years, activated charcoal has become a very trendy ingredient. It can be used in many different recipes such as Kulchas, Burger buns, dumplings etc.
Pink/ purple: Beetroot has a deep pink hue to it and can be used as a food colouring in Halwas, Cakes, Kebabs.
Green: There are many natural ingredients which can be used to add a green colour to food. Spinach can be used to make green colour Parathas or Pooris (Pooris make for a festive dish). Basil can be used to add a green colour to Paneer Tikkas or used to make a delicious pesto-based pasta dish. Lastly, Matcha can also be used in different desserts — Barfi, Cham Cham, Jalebis etc — to add a subtle green colour.
MAKE THEM AT HOME
Chef Krishnendu Banerjee, sous chef, Four Points by Sheraton Hotel & Serviced Apartments Pune, Nagar Road, has created some of the special dishes where he has used natural colours instead of chemical ones. You can take some cues from him to make colourful dishes at home:
- Prawn Stuffed Spinach Ravioli with Orange Saffron Reduction where he used spinach to make ravioli and orange and saffron to make the sauce.
- To make Pan-fried Chicken Breast with Olive Balsamic Puree and Beetroot Foam, he used black olives and balsamic reduction for black colour
- For Red Velvet Cake with Fresh Strawberry, he used beetroot pulp for colour.
- He used blueberry puree for the the purple colour to create Purple Blueberry Roulade (a dish of filled rolled meat or pastry).
