Chef Amina Imtiaz: Eat, Pray, Love Chocolate

Chef Amina Imtiaz makes the world’s most widely craved food the basic ingredient of Coco creations.

LAHORE:

“Invention, my dear friends, is 93 per cent perspiration, six per cent electricity, four per cent evaporation, and two per cent butterscotch ripple,” remarked Willy Wonka in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Journalist-turned-pastry chef, Amina Imtiaz of Coco — the closest thing that we have in Lahore to Willy Wonka — would probably say that a delicious invention is 100 per cent chocolate.

A recent graduate of the prestigious French Pastry School in Chicago, Imtiaz refuses to cook with anything else but dark French chocolate that tastes nothing like the bitter, attractively packaged bars that one finds at stores. “I never eat chocolate by itself,” she reveals shockingly, but defends dark chocolate by saying that, “It is the foundation of great food and has immense potential for creating different tastes.” Unlike other chefs, Imtiaz loves eating her own food and says she just makes what she loves. Aptly titled Coco, her home-based cakes and pastry service offers a delectable menu that includes novelties like the traditional French macaroon and truffles amongst eclairs, fruit tarts, rochers, pastries and cakes. One bite into her sinful sweet creations and you’re lost.

Spare me the sugar coating

Unlike the ostentatious sugar creations that are very much en vogue these days, Imtiaz discourages elaborate decor on food, and despite the explosive trend of cupcakes, she vehemently states, “I honestly don’t understand the hype and don’t like cupcakes at all. They’re just too easy and not fun at all. I just do it for my friends on their insistence.” She does admit though that fancy iced cakes are her biggest challenge. “I want to educate people about good food and want them to stop going for looks and eat something for its taste,” she says. She also gives stern warnings that, “Your food is as good as its ingredients are. So don’t use substandard stuff.”

Saying goodbye to stereotypes

In a country like Pakistan, where cooking is considered a woman’s innate duty and where every little girl’s kitchen victory is a batch of cupcakes, Imtiaz made the effort to elevate the skill by acquiring technical expertise — something most people never think of doing because of the general assumption that good baking is a natural talent. “Baking is very different from cooking,” she says. “Cooking is an art; baking is a science. There is a whole science to ingredients that I was taught at the pastry school. Everything that is part of a recipe is there for a reason. If it doesn’t add to the taste of the dessert, it adds to its texture.” She cites the example of how her French chefs would threaten students saying that, “You can go to jail in France for using oil in your cake instead of butter. Pastry was their religion and everything was measured to the last grain.”

Imtiaz learnt a whole new reverence for food, a sublime respect that one can sense in how she says she has changed as a person because of the attention to detail that was taught to her. “It takes a lot of passion, interest and patience to make something as tricky as the traditional French macaroon or a croissant,” says Imtiaz recounting the myriad times she threw away entire batches of macaroons that didn’t turn out well, or how easily a croissant fell apart in her hands and she had no clue what went wrong.

When passion and perfection collide

While many would disparage or discourage training for something as radical as baking, Imtiaz rightfully asserts, “Institution and coaching transforms passion into skills. Such training makes a professional out of you.” Who knew for instance, that there are certain colours that complement food? “Lime, certain hues of red, orange, brown and white,” lists Imtiaz, concluding with yellow of course, to point out to the sunshine-hued boxes of her brand Coco.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18^th, 2011.