Good food spreads

LENA PEACOCK and SHERYL DIXIT get ready to plate up, because it’s that time of the year again: Good Food Month

It’s October, which means it’s time to get ready for The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Month presented by Citi, as it overtakes dining tables across Sydney, regional NSW, Canberra and Brisbane. Oh, and for the first time, there’s going to be a little sister food festival too, The Age Good Food Month, which will be held in Melbourne and regional Victoria in November.

Indian Link chatted with Festival Director Joanna Savill, as well as some of the chefs involved with the Sydney festival, including Ajay Mathur, Ajoy Joshi, Kumar Mahadevan and Nasir Siddiqui.

“It’s a celebration of great food and restaurants,” Joanna Savill told Indian Link “And is Australia’s is a fantastic event which is an amalgamation of a variety of cuisines and restaurants in both India and Australia.

“I accumulated a wealth of knowledge across various cuisines and have gathered a breadth of experience over the years,” says Ajay. “The culmination of this experience inspired me to open up my own restaurant, one which followed the meticulous training which I learned in my earlier years, yet celebrated my own history and Indian background,” he explains.

Ajay admits that he has a different outlook when cooking Indian food in Australia. “We have incorporated the healthy, low calorie, Australian way of life into our cooking by making leaner meals with reduced fat quantities,” he says. “Modern Indian Australian cooking is a lighter, healthier version of the traditional way of cooking Indian food. There is an emphasis on minimising the calorie content, yet we have incorporated modern Australian cuisine through our sophisticated presentation style of innovative dishes”.

However, it is helpful that there is such a wealth of fresh produce available here, that enhances the culinary experience. “Australia’s fresh local produce, and premium quality meat and seafood has allowed us to create more flavoursome dishes,” he says. “We use a number of fresh ingredients, such as blueberries, mung bean sprouts, snow pea sprouts, mesculan lettuce, fresh mangoes, raw papaya, beetroot, lime leaf, dill and chives. These ingredients would not generally be used in Indian cooking in India, yet we try and capitalise on the abundance of wonderful produce available to us,” states Ajay.

There is one signature dish for which Ajay is renowned.

“Barramundi Tawa Kebab is our signature dish. This is a combination of local seafood with traditional spices, ingredients and flavours, which summarises the innovation Bijolias strives to achieve,” reveals Ajay who is rather coy about sharing the recipe. Instead, Ajay invites readers to come and experience a night at Bijolias. “Our wide variety of Indian flavours fused with a modern twist, along with our monthly specials, offer an unusual gourmet journey to please the palates of a wide range of diners,” he claims. “Bijolias offers sophisticated Indian cuisine, out of the ordinary and sensationally modern, but the tools of the trade are age old in concept. It’s the style, ingredients, flavouring and delivery that sets it apart from any other,” he adds in conclusion.

“It’s a celebration of great food and restaurants,” Joanna Savill told Indian Link.

“And is Australia’s largest food Festival”