Home Chefs Of Mumbai – Part 1- Introduction

Lockdown means stay at home, be with self and introspect, and do the unlimited household chores.. Lockdown is also an learning experience for me. It has taught me many things.  There have been many obstacles that has kept me on edge. But food has never be a problem at all. It has been available from day one itself. I am not talking about restaurant/hotel foods, not even street food that we love so much but it is about home cooked food. Ingredients were available almost everywhere, some of the shops had even changed their business. The kiosk that sold newspapers or fresh flowers were now selling vegetables. It is demand and supply mantra.

 Many people, specially home chefs, have devoted their time in cooking meals and sending it across the city to many families. During this pandemic, with no helpers at home and the family member always hungry, home chefs have been a God-sent angels, their food, cooked with care, hygiene and love is reaching every home.

 

I am so happy to start this series on 'Home Chefs of Mumbai'.   I have been thinking about this for a long time, we have so many talented home chefs in our city of Mumbai and still when we want to order food, we only select a few whom we know personally. Of course friends are always dear and we trust them the most, but I want to dig into the jewels of Mumbai city, the most talented home chefs, whose food is “Must Have, I don't Wish To Miss This” that kind of attitude. And I will be featuring them, their food stories, their recipe and some details with most honesty and sincerely, I promise…..

 

During my growing up days, I remember, there were always visitors in my house and food was plenty, mainly fried stuff to entertain the guests. Nobody cared about health issues, or the food they could eat or what they should avoid. Everybody cleaned off the plates, relishing good  meals and the food was always tasty (or so because everybody enjoyed it) nobody really cared about jotting down the recipes and reproducing the same....a verbal information was shared and people cooked to their own preferences of taste. 

 

Since food was always very tasty in my house (tasty meant spicy till the eyes and nose leaked) which I still enjoy  But my first eureka moment ( the taste is still fresh in my memory) was when I was in Hong Kong about a century ago. I was having a sleepless night and I was restless. It was 5am and everybody was fast asleep. I quietly woke up, changed into decent clothes and decided to go for a morning walk. I walked down the streets and hopped into a bus to enjoy the ride..Dawn was slowly creeping in. I alighted the bus at the last stop and there was a big crowd, a small distance away. 

That was a street food hawker selling a rice congee that was the most tastiest breakfast I had ever tasted in my life and its taste linger till now. It was a simple bowl of broth garnished with thinly sliced pieces of chicken, pork, fried eggs, spring onions and chiilie sauce. That was the day, I developed my taste for Chinese food....

 

I am no home chef, but I have great passion for food and I appreciate people who spend time in their kitchen cooking for their family and friends. From the little  knowledge that I have about food, I happily share my recipes to the last detail if they enjoy my food.

 

Like I always say, the taste is not in the list of ingredients that you use, it’s the thought process and the interest that goes into the food to give it a real flavour, being in good mood is the best ingredient for churning out a memorable food. Rest is the normal recipe that you can easily get on social media or on u-tube.

 

But yes, recipe is also important. I will share a simple recipe that I cooked for me last week

 

Hara Bhindi Aloo (In english you can call it Okra Potatoes in green Masala) It is cooked regularly in every Sindhi Home. (In Sindhi, this dish is called Sayal Bhindi patata in saoo masalo)

 

Main taste in the gravy.

 

1.     Grind green masala with 4-5pods of garlic, small bunch of coriander leaves, small bunch of fenugreek leaves, lots of green chilies, 1tsp of turmeric powder, 1tsp of coriander powder.

2.     In a pan, use one tbsp of oil/ghee, fry the masala that you had prepared in step i.

3.     Add 2 chopped tomatoes, cover and keep on low flame for 5 minutes

4.     Mash the tomatoes in the mixture, add 250 gms of Okra and 2 medium sized sliced potatoes

5.     Add salt, mix it well add 1cup of water

6.     Cover and cook till potatoes are tender.

7.     Serve with rice or chappatis.

if you don't like Okra, you can substitute it with cottage cheese or even with fish.

My journey with Home Chef is about to begin.....watch out for my next post......

Ladies finger! Hmmn..Okra for you, Bhindi for me…

One of the things that I missed the most on my dining table in Spain was 'Bhindis'. This veggie was available only on certain days and that too at Indian Super-market which was far away from my home. These were imported from London and the stock would finish on the day it arrived. Since we lived in the rural regions of Tenerife, (at Icod de Los Vinos) going to Indian Super-market at Puertos de la Cruz was a weekly event, if we were lucky, then we would be able to grab just a kilo of it. We counted (4-bhindis-per-person) and cooked, the rest we stored in the freezer

I wished somebody would locally plant this vegetable so that it was readily available at all times. 

 Since we lived in rural areas, our clients were mainly tourists or farmers, who would visit our shop to buy some electronics from our store. The local natives of the place were very friendly with us and sometimes sold us veggies and fruits that they grew in their farm. One day, I asked them to bring Bhindi and he looked surprised. He had never seen it. I showed him and he looked at it curiously. I asked him to plant it in his farm, but Bhindis need warm climate so he was not sure if he would be successful. Nevertheless, he did plant for me in his warm nursery and brought a big basket full of bhindis for me. But it was just an experiment for him and since Spanish don’t have this veggie on their dinner table, it was not profitable for him. I enjoyed this veggie till his passion lasted and then back to Indian supermarket, once in a while........

Believed to be originated in African regions, it is enjoyed in stews in most parts of the world. In Africa, the bhindis are normally short, thick and quite hard, they are grated and put into chicken and mutton dishes to make stew or thick gravy.

During one of the chats on BlackBerry, my cousin sent me the picture of Bhindi that grows in his garden in Texas. They were quite long, some of them longer than spoons, and they weighed heavy, bending the branch. He said that it was quite tasteless and people just chew and then throw it away.They are mainly used for medicinal purpose.

Bhindis are chopped and soaked in water overnight and drinking its solution early in the morning is good for health, it reduces cholesterol level, blood pressure and it also helps to stabilize the blood sugar by curbing the rate at which sugar is absorbed from intestinal tract. (and Oh..I tried drinking this Bhindi solution too but yucks! I could not continue this slimy stuff, I puked..sorry!)

My cousin in Malaysia says her maid uses bhindi for stuffing fish, it is a part of young ‘tau foo’ cuisine whereby it is stuffed with fish paste and boiled with a selection of vegetables and tofu, interesting recipe I must say, and sometimes they use pork too...

The few years while we lived in Surinam, mom grew many vegetables in her kitchen garden. The soil was very fertile and the weather was warm. We had Bhindis, tomatoes, coriander leaves and also chillie and avocado trees. While she cooked I would go downstairs and pluck out bhindis, tomatoes and chillies, just enough for the cooking, during those days I didn't know how to make Gaucomali, so we just cut avocado and spread it with bread like butter with just salt and pepper (it was so delicious that I can still remember the taste).

In India, Bhindis are served at every home and everybody has their own unique style..

There are so many different ways that one can cook this vegetable that every time I buy it I am set thinking. There is finely chopped deep fried bhindis, stuffed bhindis, bhindi potatoes in green masala or in onion masala or just dumped in Sindhi curry.

In some restaurant they also serve thinly sliced crispy bhindi (have you tried those?, yum..!!)

Even if you simply deep fry it and add dry masalas, it makes a nice accompaniment with dhal and rice. You could add dry powder like coriander powder, mango powder, lots of red chillies powder, jeera powder and coriander leaves.(cough! cough!

My favorite recipe is Bhindi with potatoes. Why? because its easiest to cook......and its quickie like Masterchef's fifteen minutes pressure challenge..lol

I deep fry chopped potatoes and Bindhis till tender

Make an onion masala separately by cooking onion, tomatoes, garlic, green chillies, turmeric powder and coriander leaves.(dump them in the pan and let the low flame do its work)

Mix the fried bhindi and potatoes to the onion masala and cook on slow flame for five minutes.

Lunch is ready..... I have it with chappatis and chopped cucumber….. always tastes good and I love it.

 BTW did you know that the world's most beautiful women, Cleopatra of Egypt and Yang Guifei of China loved to eat Bhinids ??

Mirror, Mirror on the wall........