Curry on, Karl: Meet the man behind Vadouvan, the French-ified curry powder

The issue with curry is that it has gone so global at times it’s unrecognisable even to the Indian eye. It may take the liquid form, it may appear dry. Once, at a Berlin cafe, when I asked for Currywurst, little did I know that the star ingredient of the dish, after which it was named, would be used just for garnishing two fresh-out-of-a-packet pork sausages and a dollop of fresh-out-of-a-tin tomato puree. Curry here meant just the curry powder. It was a lesson I learnt at the cost of 15 Euros!

So, during its winter menu launch at Olive Cafe and Bar in our own City Beautiful, British chef Karl Whittaker asked me to try out his signature dish, Vadouvan Chicken, which is chicken cooked with French-ified curry powder. I decided to trust him for two reasons. First, Karl is from York, UK, hence familiar with curry, though the British variety does not match up to our desi fiery type. Still, it’s curry as we know it. Two, if it survived two successive seasons in the land of butter chicken and tandoori chicken, it had to have some substance.

When Karl’s Vadouvan Chicken arrived, it was a surprise alright. Pieces of chicken hooked on a skewer and delicately balanced over a bowl that contained cauliflower couscous and roasted beans, it looked like a culinary bridge between the eastern and western flavour paradigms. It looked familiar, yet exotic.

“I have always loved this spice and greatly appreciated how a different cuisine can interpret ingredients otherwise unfamiliar to them. The combination of flavour and history really drew me to it,” he said, to set us off on the trajectory of vadouvan and its origin. Vadouvan originated in French-occupied Pondicherry (now Puducherry), when the earthy blend of Indian spices acquired the refined edge of French cuisine. With 10 to 12 ingredients, including onion, garlic, cumin, turmeric, cardamom, mustard seed, thyme, coriander, fenugreek and red pepper, vadouvan has a really unique flavour profile.

When the French went back, they took along with them the vadouvan recipe. However, one major difference between French and Indian vadouvan is the use of onion and garlic. The French use these liberally.

So, does vadouvan symbolise the transformation of local ingredients under the influence of foreign tastes, or should we call it simply existential instability which is integral to this genre — curry? The answer may lie in the fact that colonisation not only played a critical role in transporting Indian food out of India, it also reclassified classic dishes of its adopted country. Indian food changed during its course of travel and in turn, changed itself along the way.

Coming back to the tasting session, the aroma was heady, the chicken pieces were tender, with a super-savoury blast of spice. Subtle, unlike our strong curry masala. The cauliflower couscous was delicate and refreshing while the roasted beans added crunch to the mix. The combo was just right—Indian-ness wedded to French refinement.

My appreciating nod made Karl happy; happy enough to share his secret. “I use onion and garlic for my vadouvan. I add them in my butter and confit them with spices for hours. Another addition that sets mine apart is the use of orange skin, which is cleaned of any bitter pith and left to cook. It complements the flavour.”

Karl is not a novice when it comes to playing with vadouvan. As a sous chef at Le Cochon Aveugle in York, he gave a twist to the classic French dish Sole Meunière by using vadouvan-spiced butter. “Vadouvan really does seem to follow me around,” he said with a sheepish grin.

During his stint in Italy though, Karl had to somehow distance himself from his beloved spice. As the head chef at Badia A Coltibuono in Italy, he had little scope to experiment with vadouvan. “Italian curries are somewhat similar to the creamy, tame variety found in the UK. In fact, curry in Italy is a little misunderstood. Italian cuisine by and large relies on the freshness and purity of the produce, not the technique of cooking. In fact, covering a particular ingredient in spice and cooking it until soft does not appeal to the Italians,” he elaborated. Now that Italians and their aversion for curry is behind him and Chandigarh has given his experiments the thumbs-up, he is all kicked up, “Vadouvan will feature in my future projects in other incarnations.”

Carry on Karl. This city could do a fresh French connection. Le Corbusier would approve!