Baked Cheese Crab
Fish Market, Paradeep
Crab off the morning's boats, baked and sent out in its own shell with curry leaf and dried chilli.
Signature dish
Mati Handi Mangsa
Kanika · Mayfair Lagoon, Bhubaneswar
Mati handi is the earthen pot and mangsa is the meat, and between them they are the whole dish. Mutton on the bone goes into unglazed clay, which holds its heat gently and lets a gravy reduce for hours without catching, a thing steel will not do and a pressure cooker cannot be persuaded to do at all.
The spicing is Odia and deliberately held back. What is being tasted is the meat and the pot, not the chilli. Kanika plates it rather than bringing the handi to the table, finishes it with ginger and a few drops of cream, and sends rice with it, which is the only way it makes sense.
