Chef TZac Celebrates Pakhala Dibasa On Cooking With TZac

Chef TZac Celebrates Pakhala Dibasa On Cooking With TZac

Chef Thomas Zacharias has been promoting regional Indian food for the last 7 years. In 2019 he visited Odisha for two weeks as part of the ‘Chef On The Road’ series to explore the food here and tried to understand the nuances of Odia cooking. On this trip he got to have pakhala here at its birth place. 

While he was at The Bombay Canteen, they celebrated pakhala a few times. “This time around I decided to put up a recipe for pakhala bhaat and get more people to know what it is, understand it, appreciate it and hopefully to get some people to try it at home as well,” said the chef who shared a recipe of pakhala as part of the ‘Cooking with TZac’ series.

He shared the video on his social media handles on Saturday, which was Pakhala Dibasa. In the video he prepares dahi pakhala with chunka while explaining in typical TZac humour the technique and process of preparing and fermenting the dish.  

Talking about his tryst with pakhala, Zac said, “My first experience with pakhala was in the summer of 2016. I put it up on the menu of The Bombay Canteen. That was purely based on research. When I found out about this dish, I thought it was really interesting. The story around the dish was intriguing and I wanted to showcase it in the restaurant but at that time I didn’t have anybody showing me the dish. So it was created by talking to food experts and understanding how it is cooked and then trying to recreate it and put it on the menu. That was the first iteration where we made the chunka pakhala.” 

He further added, “The next year I did an updated version of the pakhala bhaat where I tried to showcase pumpkin in different forms along with badi chura. This was well appreciated. The first time I actually got to taste it at the source was in 2019. That was a very special and unique experience for me. I have a fond memory of that and a fond association with Odisha because of my time there.”

Chef Zac thinks that pakhala is one of those really simple dishes which anyone can make anywhere in the country. “Odia food is highly underrated and underrepresented and this is one fun way of getting people to recognise Odia food,” he said about representing Odia food. 

“Through my travels over the last 7 years I have realised that there’s nothing that can replace the tasting and experiencing of a dish where it originates from,” signed off Chef Zac.