OM Indian Cooking Academy Opens in Leinfelden with Authentic Classes

Ritika Blankenhorn has opened her new cooking school and event location in Leinfelden and is happy to share her knowledge and recipes.

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Everything needed is already prepared on the work surface: butter, cream, fresh coriander, and the famous Indian spices that make the dish special. In the fridge, the chicken is waiting, which has been marinated overnight in yogurt, ginger, garlic, and spices. Today, Ritika Blankenhorn is cooking with the reporter butter chicken - a well-known dish of Indian cuisine that is almost always on the menus of Indian restaurants. "In India, this is only prepared for special occasions," reveals Ritika Blankenhorn. Chicken is eaten a lot in India, as well as lamb and fish. Beef and pork are hardly ever eaten - Hindus consider the cow sacred and therefore do not eat beef, and Muslims do not eat pork. The marinated chicken is now going into the oven at high temperature.

We are standing in the new kitchen of Ritika Blankenhorn's "OM Indian Cooking Academy" in **Leinfelden**, which is both a cooking school and an event location. Here she offers cooking courses for small or large groups, also for bachelor parties, Christmas or birthday celebrations. Those who wish can also rent the rooms and hold their own event. "We signed the contract three years ago," says Ritika Blankenhorn, but the construction was delayed, and it's only now that everything is finished. At the previous location in Steinenbronn, she was a tenant, "this is really ours now, we're staying here." Ritika Blankenhorn started cooking "30 years ago" when she was a student in Heidelberg. "There were many student parties, and at some point, I was asked if I wanted to cook Indian for that," she remembers. She has been running her cooking school since 2015. She learned to cook from her grandmother and mother in her childhood in India and has refined her recipes over the years.

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So also the butter chicken we are tackling now: Butter is melted in the pan, then the ginger-garlic paste prepared by Blankenhorn is added. "That's browning slowly now," she explains. Then come the pureed tomatoes, more butter, cream, and more spices: Blankenhorn uses spice mixes from India, which are made in New Delhi. "I remember my grandmother sitting among all these spices and mixing everything herself," she says. At least she can make this work easier. One thing that must not be forgotten is to wash the rice: "At least six to seven times," says Ritika Blankenhorn, "until the water is clear." This washes out excess starch and prevents the rice from sticking later. "It's very important to use good rice," says the chef, "and please don't salt it! Otherwise, you won't taste the rice anymore."

Then the chicken comes out of the oven and into the sauce spice mix in the pan. "That needs to simmer for two hours now," explains Ritika Blankenhorn. The rice is also already cooking; we are now making lentil bread, Blankenhorn calls them poppers: They are labor-intensive to make, have to dry for a long time in the air, and are then briefly fried in hot oil in the pan. And even this has its challenges: I take the lentil bread with a pasta tong and put it into the hot oil - only very briefly, so it doesn't burn. A corner has been overlooked, and Ritika Blankenhorn doesn't miss a thing: "That still needs to go back in." So it goes back into the oil bath, but only with the previously uncooked corner, so the rest of the flatbread doesn't get too dark. We are almost done now - the fresh coriander still needs to be chopped.

Garnishing in the OM Indian Cooking Academy

Now it's time to plate: A few spoonfuls of rice go into a cup, which is then placed on the plate, creating a neat little mound. Surrounding it is the butter chicken with its sauce, and around the edges, a garnish of fresh coriander and extra chili powder. A piece of baked lentil bread is stuck into the rice. It looks quite presentable! I try to do the same, but I fail at the rice: Instead of a neat mound, the rice slides across half the plate, the sauce line doesn't look nearly as elegant as Ritika Blankenhorn's, and the lentil bread refuses to stay stuck in the rice, constantly falling over.

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Whoever wants to get a table at Cédric has to plan half a year in advance. But how does it taste at the chef who was crowned Rising Star of the Year by Gourmet?** Never mind - it has to taste good, and it does! I've eaten butter chicken many times in Indian restaurants - this one tastes much better, the spiciness is just right, and the spices unfold their power in the sauce. It tastes wonderful. Blankenhorn gives me what we didn't finish for my children's lunch - and they are just as enthusiastic as I am: "Mom, are you going to cook for work again soon?