A robust meal is all about eating balanced, tasty and simple food, says Chef Michel Nischan

It's all about putting together a perfect meal using the base ingredients in their full glory. What is important is to achieve balance in every meal, eating what is ripe and best and enjoying the pure pleasure of eating simple and well. Here, I would like to introduce you to cooking methods that are healthful and completely basic and that, which culminates in a tasty meal.
Simply follow these basic rules.

Rule No 1
Use vegetables and fruits that are in season. Tasted apples in June? They are bland, juiceless and tasteless. So, if you are out to buy Kashmiri apples, the time is NOW - till the end of March. Remember, when vegetables or fruits are available out of season, it simply means that they have been artificially produced using fertilisers and inorganic ingredients or stored for a long period using preservatives, both of which do not contribute to your health.

Also, they lose their nutrients before and after their natural season. Thus, to begin with, eating fruits and produce in season is the most important step towards cooking a healthful meal. So, wait for summer's ripe tomatoes, July's golden corn and winter's carrots and cauliflower, to enjoy their lusciousness with no more embellishments than say, a sprinkle of salt and pepper or a few spices, at most.

Rule No 2
Buy local. From a market. Not the packed stuff available at the grocer's. Large manufacturers, who sell their produce through supermarkets and grocers, do not allow vegetables/fruits to grow and ripen naturally. Vegetables are picked when semi ripe, forced to ripen in rooms with artificial temperatures, filled with gases to enable maturing and then tinned, canned or packed off to stores! They naturally have no flavour, leave alone nutritious elements.

Rule No 3
Listen to Nature. Nature tells us what to eat depending on where we are. Why else would Eskimos lead a healthy life despite consuming a whole lot of whale fat? Eaten anywhere else, this fat could only prove hazardous to health. In tropical countries like India, vegetables, fruits, spices and herbs, sea and river fish are available in plenty. There is a reason for this.