He cooks food without oil, serves dishes raw. Tamil Nadu chef’s healthy cooking style is making foodies curious

We all must have heard about how important it is to eat clean and pay attention to what we put on our plates. Some experts recommend cooking with little oil, while others advice eliminiatig sugar from your diet. But imagine you are eating food, suppose a rice dish, which is cooked without oil and served completely raw. Sounds impossible? Well, a quaint restaurant in Coimbatore, named Padayal, adheres to this unconventional ‘no oil, no boil’ formula while preparing meals for customers, an initiative launched by culinary stalwart Chef Padayal Sivakumar.

Chef Padayal Sivakumar’s journey

Padayal Sivakumar has revolutionised the way people typically consume food through his innovative approach. During his extensive travels across India, the chef worked with farmers and visited renowned, late agriculture scientist G Nammalvar’s non-profit organisation, Vanagam Ecological Foundation, where he learnt the art of cooking raw food.

As per Padayal Sivakumar, during his time at Vanagam, he worked with organic farming pioneers across India, indulging in raw meals. Drawn towards this unique form of preparing food, Padayal started gathering more information on the technique. Gradually, Sivakumar started formulating his own recipes, with each dish taking at least 5 years to attain perfection. The chef added that the secret ingredient to making tasty curries without oil is to add cashews and coconut paste, giving them a smooth consistency.

Chef Padayal Sivakumar’s food philosophy

Padayal Sivakumar had one motto in mind when he decided to take up this non-traditional cooking style. According to him, oil masks natural flavours of food and the essences of ingredients, eliminating which can offer a more authentic and healthy gastronomical experience. Similarly, Padayal believes that boiling food can strip off its essential nutrients, which can ultimately be bad for your overall wellness.

Instead of oil or boiling, Padayal resorts to practises like steaming, grilling, and baking to preserve the nutritional value of ingredients and enhance their taste. These methods ensure that each dish retains its natural goodness. So far, he has developed 2500 fresh vegan recipes without the use of oil. Some of the popular foods at his Coimbatore restaurant are sambar, puli kuzhambu, rasam, poriyal, kootu, aval, biryani and sandwiches.

Inside the restaurant, patrons can find wall paintings of Padayal’s mentors, including G Nammalvar and farmer-activist ‘Nel’ Jayaraman, reflecting Padayal’s philosophy that ‘food is medicine.’

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