A Marriage Sweet as Halwah: Thoroughly modern Indian desserts by a Michelin-starred pastry chef
Surbhi Sahni is a Michelin-starred pastry chef who has lived roughly half her life in India and half in the United States, so it’s fitting that she specializes in innovative sweets that fuse both countries’ flavors. Her exploration of unexpected ingredients and texture hybrids is unsurprising for such a groundbreaker.
“My first job back in India was at a hotel, on the grill and in the kitchen,” Sahni said. “It was an all-woman-run restaurant, so it was a trailblazer. But when I joined the industry back in the ’80s and ’90s, it wasn’t considered cool in India to be an Indian chef. Because of colonization, there was this idea that anything Western—French or Italian or American—was ‘better.’ When I came to the United States, I never dreamed I would work in an Indian restaurant.”
Sahni’s home in Jackson Heights, a neighborhood with strong Indian roots, has helped develop her innovative fusion baking style. She moved to Queens directly from India 18 years ago, and feels that the borough’s sense of community affected her baking too.
“I sold baked goods at the Jackson Heights CSA market,” Sahni said. “As a chef, you don’t get to meet people face-to-face in this sort of up-close-and-personal way where you’re baking stuff and you’re right there meeting every buyer. Even though I don’t sell there anymore, people still stop me on the street and ask how I am and how my business is.”
When she moved to the United States, she thought she was done with restaurant work, but needed a job and found one baking cookies. She laughs, remembering a dispute with her then-boss, now a close friend. Sahni had made a batch of cookies deep-brown and crispy, like she would in India.
“I didn’t know yet that Americans like their cookies soft and cakey,” she said. “I was so proud that the cookies were perfect and I just couldn’t understand why he was so upset.”
Years later, a catering client requested treat boxes for an event, and Sahni broke into a new market. But when she wanted to expand her repertoire beyond the familiar, she approached Indian sweet makers—who all said they couldn’t mentor her because they didn’t allow women in the kitchen. So she forged her own path.
In 2010, Sahni started a catering company called Bittersweet NYC, focused on wedding cakes and Indian confections. She’s currently rebranding, and plans to relaunch as a new wholesale business this year, specializing in an expanded repertoire of Indian and Indian-inspired desserts for gifting. Ever the entrepreneur, Sahni and her husband, Chef Hemant Mathur, co-founded and launched Manhattan’s Saar Indian Bistro in May 2018, and it’s doing so well that they have pending plans to open another restaurant in Miami.
With reluctance, Sahni admits that one of her favorite things to make is a childhood favorite and a bestseller: chickpea besan ladoo. It combines just three ingredients: chickpea flour, butter and sugar, cooked over a low flame until the mixture turns brown. Then it’s hand-rolled into truffles—a traditional recipe, until Sahni rolls them in dark chocolate and cashews: a “grown-up peanut butter cup.”
Another one of Sahni’s specialties is Dal Halwa Burfi, a riff on a lentil halwa. Sahni starts with lentils and rabri (milk and cream reduced slowly on a stovetop until thick), and then mixes in white chocolate for a creamy, fudge-like sweet, without halwa’s graininess. In India, spices and other flavors are then added; Sahni uses saffron and fennel.
It’s apt that Sahni’s sweets are popular at weddings, as she’s made a career out of marrying two cultures.
Surbhi Sahni | @surbhisahni
Jackson Heights CSA market
Saar Indian Bistro
