I am a true Punjabi through and through: chef Dipna Anand

The chef won National award from The British Nutrition foundation for The Best Food Technology project in UK and focussed on low fat Indian cooking aimed at people who had heart disease.

Cooking is all about experimenting with flavours and pairing together ingredients, chef Dipna Anand believes. She says, “It is about making everything work together. It’s also about enjoying the experience of creating new innovative dishes and I have always found that to be quite addictive.” She grew up in London among a family of chefs and has been cooking passionately since the age of 18.

Chef Dipna Anand, a celebrity chef who belongs to a family of chefs believes in experimenting and fusion.

The chef visited India recently and shares her secret of cooking. “I am one of these chefs who does like a little bit of fusion, however if you ‘fusionise’ something so much, it confuses the dish and over-complicates the flavours, thus when I am cooking a dish and want to give it an Indian twist, I believe in doing so by adding the maximum amount of flavour yet without muddling up tastes too much. This theory for me has always worked. A classic example is my mandarin cheesecake which is lightly spiced with spices such as green cardamom and fennel and the flavours work wonders together,” says Anand.

The chef won National award from The British Nutrition foundation for The Best Food Technology project in the country. She says, “The project focussed on low fat Indian cooking aimed at people who had heart disease or were trying to control their diet. I wanted to prove that Indian food could be tasty without causing strain on the waistline and problems to your health and by doing this project I did just that. My award winning dish in the project was soya and aalu stuffed giant flat masala mushrooms. A baked dish stuffed with a masala flavoured soya and potato mix, packed full of flavoursome spices giving the dish taste and added health benefits that our Indian spices give. In the project I experiment curry dishes also, for example managed to make a low calorie chicken tikka masala, a few Indian vegetarian dishes and also a few dessert dishes. I chose to carry out this project as my dad had suffered a heart attack during that time and this was due to his diet.”

The chef’s father was born in Kenya and her grandparents were from Gujranwala, now in Pakistan. “My grandfather, Bishen Dass Anand was known as the king of all chefs. A true Punjabi and a master at his game. My grandfather passed his Punjabi roots and recipe on to my father and in turn my father has passed those down to me. It’s fair to say cooking is therefore in my blood and that I am a true Punjabi through and through. My specialist area as a chef is Punjabi food and our restaurant in Southall in UK which was established in 1975 is known to serve some of the best Punjabi food in the country. We were recently awarded the ITV Food and Drink Award for Best Family run restaurant in the UK.”

Celebs love to visit Anand’s restaurant. “We have been fortunate to have many celebrity guests and public figures dine at our restaurant including Bollywood and Hollywood celebs, Royalty, Political Figures and Sporting heroes. His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales has visited us three times. Gordon Ramsay has visited twice for two of his famous television shows and another frequent visitor is Sir Cliff Richard. Kevin Kostner has also dined at the restaurant, Ted Heath, Princess Anne and Chris Tarrant to name but a few. The late Jagjit Singh would not leave London without dining at The Brilliant and Lata Ji has also dined with us on several occasions.”

Author tweets @ruchikagarg271

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