Back home to cook up something really special

Kumar Pereira of MasterChef fame who kicked off his local tour at Jetwing Lagoon in Thalahena is rediscovering his culinary roots

By Smriti Daniel

Kumar Pereira dons his white MasterChef apron with a flourish – he grinds up a few ingredients and cooks it in a clay vessel, lightly deep fries chunks of turmeric-coated fish in another, mixes them both together and voila – puli meen. Kumar’s take on the classic south Indian dish is a little sour, a little sweet and just right.

Here’s how it’s done: Kumar demonstrates

Two of his dishes, puli meen and uppuma. Pix by Mangala Weerasekera

The event at Jetwing Lagoon in Thalahena this week kicked off Kumar’s 10-day culinary tour. Organised by Sri Lanka in Style, the tour will see Kumar cooking for fans at luxurious properties across the island – next up is Jetwing Vil Uyana in Dambulla followed by a dinner at Park Street Mews in Colombo. The latter is already sold out and Kumar says it will be a personal highlight of the trip. He intends to do an interpretation of his life through food over the seven-course meal. “It takes people through the places I’ve lived and the things I’ve done.”

Born in Sri Lanka but now based in Australia, Kumar first became famous as one of the 12 finalists in Season Three of MasterChef Australia, where contestants playfully dubbed him the ‘Kumanator’. At 62, he was one of the show’s oldest contestants but determined to show his children that it was possible to reinvent yourself and chase your dreams at any age, Kumar gave it his all. Though his Sri Lankan prawn curry was one of the best received on his stint in the show, Kumar also drew from the years he lived in London and Hong Kong as well as his background as a graphic designer to create a range of dishes inspired by other culinary traditions.

Despite having survived the high pressure environment of the MasterChef kitchen, Kumar confesses that he’s a little bit nervous tonight. “This is something I’ve never done here, so it’s kind of daunting,” he told the Sunday Times. “I’m just doing what I like doing and I just hope that people like it.” He was also excited by the opportunity to incorporate techniques he had learnt in the MasterChef kitchen. Recently on the MasterChef All Stars series, Kumar rose to culinary icon Heston Blumenthal’s challenge of cooking with dry ice. For that Mystery Box, Kumar decided to serve a crab and asparagus salad with asparagus ice cream topped with sea urchin. The dish won praise from the judges and a place for Kumar in the top three. “It’s very tasty, it’s completely inventive, it’s something I wouldn’t have dreamt of doing even two years ago,” says Kumar.

Now he says he’s applied lessons he learnt on that episode as well as others to creating the nearly 100 recipes required for his culinary tour. “I’ve learnt interesting new techniques and I’m actually putting them into practice and they’ve worked very well so I’m just taking it one step further,” he said, using the night’s starter as an example. By clarifying and straining rasam he created a clear, light consomm, quite unlike the robustly murky servings of mulligatawny. While his take on uppuma and kesari did not impress, his puli meen recipe is sure to be sought after. You’ll find it in the soon to be published ‘Kumar’s Family Cookbook’ which should be in stores by Mother’s Day.

Kumar’s recipes were replicated by the Jetwing chefs for diners and Kumar says he profited from their advice on what was in season. “Tonight is about going back to my roots and ancestral South Indian food. It’s food that I grew up with, but I’ve put my own spin on it�I think people can be very used to traditional food and fixated on how it should be done. I think they need to be a little more open and see what can be done. That’s where I come from, I just like to take something traditional and do something else with it,” he said. The tour, which has been a year in planning, brings Kumar up, close and personal with his local fans and he says he’s enjoying the experience. “I love talking food.”

In the meantime, Kumar has found doors opening to him because of his time on MasterChef – he now teaches students how to produce ‘a Sri Lankan banquet’ at two institutes in Sydney and his illustrations have also found new buyers. Last year he visited Singapore, Fiji, Seoul and Kuala Lumpur to share his cooking and after his stint in Sri Lanka, he’ll be visiting India before returning just in time for his book launch. Of his experience in MasterChef, he says: “I would never have imagined it to have turned out this way. It has transformed what I do.”

Source:http://www.sundaytimes.lk/130120/plus/back-home-to-cook-up-something-really-special-29316.html