From ordinary to haute: how to dress up yam

Seeing a common household vegetable featured creatively in a dish is a delight, especially for someone like me who often laments that the vegetarian menus in restaurants are restricted to paneer and potatoes.

- NANDITA IYER

I understand that the economics of running a viable restaurant business means that they have to rely on produce and dishes with mass appeal. The good news is that some restaurants have begun focusing on local produce, creating dishes that celebrate the diversity of vegetarian ingredients. Take the humble suran (in Hindi), senai kizhangu (in Tamil) or elephant foot yam. This desi tuber has been dressed up in glamorous settings that would surprise even its most loyal fans.

At Sienna Store and Cafe in Kolkata, Auroni Mookerjee served the Baata & Bhaat'r Congee Bowl, a dish that combines Radhatilak rice and Bonolokhi ghee with three types of baata (pastes): yam, broad beans and cauliflower. It had crisp shards of okra, potato matchsticks and a wedge of gondhoraj lime.

The best way to enjoy this is to massage the yam paste into the rice and ghee with your fingertips, squeeze a couple of drops of Gondhoraj lime, top it with crispy okra and potatoes, and scoop up a mouthful of pure bliss.

Earlier this week, I encountered yam dressed up in haute couture at Farmlore in Bengaluru. The dish featured a chunk of yam, steamed and seared to golden perfection, nestled on a bed of soft rice, draped in a silky sauce made from mixed greens, and crowned with a flash-fried knol khol leaf and a crunchy seed mix. This exquisite creation is the brainchild of chef Johnson Ebenezer, who is committed to showcasing local farm produce with flair.