At her restaurant, Mediterranean dishes, usually cooked in olive oil, are mixed with spices and steamed without oil to retain their authenticity. In dishes where the use of oil is unavoidable, Kukreja’s master chefs fall back on the tried-and-tested extra-virgin olive oil. At Ploof, the seafood restaurant in Delhi’s Lodhi colony, Kukreja’s other venture, customers get to choose the medium of cooking in the Oriental cuisine section.

To initiate her guests into the tradition, Kukreja has also introduced classes to demonstrate zero-oil cooking at Saltz twice a week. “It’s easier to substitute oil for Continental dishes but we teach our guests to cook everyday Indian fare like dal makhni with no oil or butter,” she says.

Which is precisely what Anjan Chatterjee, owner of the Oh! Calcutta and Mainland China chains around the country, has been trying to do at his restaurants. “Our clientele base is very cosmopolitan. At Oh! Calcutta, we have as many foreigners and non-Bengali customers coming in as Bengalis, and many of them want a meal that is not fattening. Which is why we have been experimenting with the way we cook,” he says.

So, the rich, oily paturis—fish marinated in oil and mustard paste and cooked in a banana leaf wrapper—is now steamed without oil. Crabmeat and prawns are melted together and steamed with spices to come up with an unique starter, called kakra-chingri bhapa. The taste, too, has impressed customers. “The food is as authentic as it gets but because of the minimal use of oil, it’s much easier on the palate,” says 34-year-old executive Sayon Majumdar, who has been a regular at Oh! Calcutta since it was set up in Delhi.

... contd.