Expert Eyes

Vikas Khanna's culinary experiments combine ingredients familiar to his audience in New York, like fresh asparagus or bunches of rhubarb, with the flavors and cooking techniques of his native India. With the aim of making Indian cuisine approachable for a Western audience, he breaks down and rebuilds traditional Indian fare using seasonal ingredients and his unique understanding of flavor and spice. Here Khana discusses smokey jaggery sugar, the boom in Indian food in America and the beauty of consuming cultures through their cuisines.