Punjabi Confidential

Star chef Vikas Khanna on why he writes books and how he gets his recipe ideas

He’s the boy from the land of the Golden Temple. And he has a golden touch too, for whatever he cooks is said to be delicious and exquisite. His visa interview earlier in the morning at the UK Embassy in Delhi was nothing unusual. “They asked me how to make chicken and bhindi in a different way,” he complains. Even at his US green card interview, he was asked different ways to cook lamb. Clearly, this is something he’s used to. “I told them I’ll send them my book,” he laughs.

I’m here to meet Vikas Khanna, easily the darling of many kitchens and as many hearts, who’s on a rollercoaster ride (a multi-city tour in India) to promote his latest and sixteenth book, Amritsar: Flavours of the Golden City, based on his birth place. When you ask him why he came out with the book right now, he says he feels the time was right, as it’s important to tell people stories about how someone from a small town can also make it big. The book is interesting in that it’s a ready primer for anyone who knows nothing about Amritsar and its tempting food—right from the city’s historical importance, to its culture, lifestyle and of course its recipes. “This book has only 86 recipes, I can write an entire thesis on Amritsar,” he says with conviction.

Khanna dedicates the book to the one lady who is perhaps the reason he has reached where he has—his Biji (paternal grandmother). When he left for the US, his Biji had told him, “Parivaar da naam raushan kar” (Do your family proud). And you can see that he’s made quite a name for himself when in the middle of our shoot at a roadside dhaba, two young girls and a middle-aged man request a photo with him. The young girls watch his TV show (Twist of Taste on Fox Life India) and are big fans, while the middle-aged man confesses that his plan of opening his own restaurant has been inspired by Khanna.

Khanna loves the attention and has worked hard for it. Over the last few years, he has transplanted his celebrity from America to India, and from the kitchen to various other spaces, including television and book shops. It’s easy to see why. Resist if you might, it’s tough not to be charmed by this star chef’s demeanour. He greets you with a firm handshake and an infectious smile that reaches his eyes, Khanna’s first question (perhaps habitual) is, “Kya lenge aap, chai ya coffee (What will you have, tea or coffee)?” Settling for a cup of lukewarm, saccharine tea, our conversation moves from Punjab to New York to Lahore and back to Punjab—of course, with a lot of food interspersed.

If you’ve seen the Helen Mirren and Om Puri starrer The 100 Foot Journey, you can’t help but notice the similarity between the lead character Hassan Kadam (played by the endearing American actor Manish Dayal) and Khanna. Both come from a small town, started out in their home kitchens, become star chefs in an alien country, and are inspired by a woman. While for Hassan it was his mother, Khanna says he owes it all to his grandmother.

Talking about the movie, he says, “[Dayal] trained in our kitchen. Those vegetables that he chopped and the omelette he flipped, he learnt all of it here.” While Khanna doesn’t quite relate to Hassan, he does admit to relate to the movie Ratatouille. His Twitter bio quotes Anton Ego, the acerbic food critic from the movie: ‘Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere’. Khanna claims to live by this philosophy.

Prod him further and he says that’s how the idea of Amritsar also came to be, a book that took around three years to write. He talks lovingly of how his Biji was present for every shoot of his, her eyes just following him wherever he went. “I wish she was alive for the release of the book,” he laments. One can also see the micromanager in the chef when he says he personally looks after the design of every book he writes and also takes some of the pictures that you see in them.

Khanna’s main passion is Junoon, his New York restaurant that has had the honour of a Michelin star rating for four years running. “I didn’t know how to react. I just cried, while my staff was celebrating.” The phones wouldn’t stop ringing. “People were booking tables for a year in advance. It was something else.”

He’s known to isolate himself while experimenting in the kitchen. For a restaurant that changes its menu every season, the chef and his team have to reinvent dishes all the time. Being by himself is the only way he can do it. Khanna uses New York’s lean summer period to get cracking on new recipes. “People now expect something different every time they walk in,” he adds. Contrast this with his initial experience at Junoon, where people refused to even look at the menu and walked out on being told that they wouldn’t be served the usual Punjabi fare of ‘butter-chicken- saag-naan’. “But we didn’t budge.”

And you know he’s a bit eccentric in the kitchen when he talks about things like ‘garlic kheer’ and caramel strands that are three feet tall. And he goes out looking for novelty. He speaks of the ‘meetha seekh’ he had at a roadside restaurant in Lahore. “The beef is boiled in four different flavours, from salty to sweet to cardamomy. This is done to eliminate any smell of the meat. Post the boiling, the meat is mashed with sugar and made into seekh, which is then stuffed with khoya,” he says.

Khanna says he just wants to spread the Punjabi love of food. “Ask any Punjabi where he’s coming from and you’d hear, ‘Bas abhi khaana khaake aaya hoon’ (I’ve just had my meal); ask them where they’re going, ‘Bas lassi peene vaaste ja raha hoon’ (I’m about to have a lassi)… All our conversations revolve around food, always.”

He began his first restaurant when he was just 17. He struggled for 21 years in an unfamiliar place to get his first Michelin star (the equivalent of an Oscar for an actor). He also hosts MasterChef India, a vastly popular TV show. People recognise him everywhere he goes. What’s the best part about this fame? “The best part is that I can enter any kitchen and nobody can refuse me,” he laughs.

foodMichelin starVikas Khanna