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A dessert made with black rice brings to life the flavours of chai and toast and the magic of the rains. This is just one of the many surprises you’ll find in Aragma’s new monsoon menu. What started with a simple process of people in the kitchen sharing their favourite monsoon memories, soon became an attempt to translate these memories and feelings into heart warming dishes. “When you're sitting in the dining room, it should feel like Pune’s monsoon,” says Chef Amit Ghorpade who helms the kitchen.
Aragma first opened its doors to discerning foodies in 2019. The restaurant whose name means small joys of life, in Greek, offered masterclasses and private chef’s tables. Today, it is a 24-seater restaurant with a degustation menu while it continues to offer cook-along sessions.
“We want to showcase who we are and to give credit to the food ecosystem, farmers and their produce. We want to take everyday vegetables that people have stopped eating and make a dish with it, hoping that they look at it in a new light. Each ingredient used here has a story,” says Poornima Somayaji, the founder of Aragma.
While the restaurant’s earlier menus showcased thoughtfully sourced ingredients such as Indrayani rice and honey from a tribal community in Bhima Matta Shankar in the Western Ghats, Mahua from a village in Central India and Bandel Cheese from Bengal, this time the focus is on the monsoon and the bounty it brings with it.
What’s On The Menu?
The meal begins with a tartine made out of matta rice from Goa, and black jaggery, which is stuffed with celeriac puree. “The celeriac is locally sourced from Trikaya in Pune. While celery leaves are used often, celeriac doesn’t get its due,” Amit explains. The tart also uses fresh, seasonal Indian plums which are sliced and then seasoned with a little bit of mustard oil and some randuni salt.
The second snack is a street style puffed cracker, which looks like a pani puri, but isn’t. It is stuffed with a pineapple chutney made in house, fresh chunks of sweet lime, a pickled Bhavnagri chilli, and then garnished with lemon and chive. The first of the mains is inspired by Amit’s hometown. “We created our version of the Pandhra Rassa. It is inspired by the South-West of Maharashtra - areas such as Sangli, Kolhapur, Satara; the region where I come from,” Amit shares.
“We also made an umami broth with fresh coconut, poppy seeds, ginger, garlic and onion,” he adds. The dish also features ground akha masoor (whole brown lentils that are a Maharashtrian staple) soft chicken meatballs, seaweed sourced from Goa and yellow tomatoes, which are blanched, deshelled, and marinated with salt and sugar. The dish with charred smoky flavour is almost too pretty to eat.
Next up is the restaurant’s version of Maharashtra’s pasta style dumplings called Shengolya. “The traditional dish is a curry that is made in the Marathwada region and in areas towards Nagpur. It is eaten with bhakri or rice. We have given it our twist and converted it into a pasta shell. Underneath it is some dill (shepu) puree, a little bit of chilli and garlic oil and a sweet tangy green apple puree,” says Amit. The non-vegetarian version of the dish also features prawns.
Making Matki Great Again
Next up is another quintessential Maharashtrian ingredient, matki (moth beans). The dish includes beetroot cooked and marinated with oil. This is then layered with thinly sliced grapefruit and topped with spicy, smoky bell pepper chutney. The dish finally comes together with an umami matki puree. “To give this dish added textures and different flavours, we add golden fried onion, chives and crispy matki which is dehydrated in a dehydrator and then fried so it becomes crunchy, like a murmura,” says Amit.
Another treat for non-vegetarians, is the pork belly marinated in vinegar and seared on a charcoal. The dish comes with crunchy barnyard millet (samak) fries which are topped with Bandel cheese from Bengal. The fries were added to acknowledge the craving for fried food particularly when the weather is gloomy in the monsoon.
On A Sweet Note
The sweet courses include a pre-dessert, which is made with pineapple, celery and coconut. The fresh coconut gel at the bottom of the bowl is balanced with a granita. This sets the stage for the star dessert. “Everyone loves chai and toast in the rain, right? So what we do is, we make in-house bread, which is nice and soft. We dip it in reduced milk and sear it on a pan, on both sides. It is like our version of the French toast. Then we add house-made cheese and ginger cream. For texture we added crispy back rice on top and some fresh mulberries along with a warm spiced caramel sauce.”
There is also a tribute to the Maharastraian version of the Daliya or Lapsi where broken wheat is cooked with jaggery and cardamom. The Lapsi is dehydrated, fried and then coated with dark chocolate. It’s like a biscuit which is then sandwiched with Lapsi mousse and pickled lychee. The flavours are deep, the textures are complex and each highlighted ingredient is showcased in a hearty dish which will make you want seconds.
