Home Chefs Of Mumbai – Part14- Shilpa Seth Bhambri

Our parents and grandparent hardly ever went on diet, they ate everything, Ghee, Mithai, Malai, Samosas, Bhajiyas, Briyanis, Badam Puris, Kulfis. Kheer and celebrated every festival with a rich variety of food. No fuss, no guilt nor shame in choice of food, no restrictive food rules. And yet they were quite healthy, their skin glowing with happiness of life lived well.

Now these diet fad! So what is the difference?

It’s the sedentary lifestyle we live today. We have 24 hours live-in helper at home. All the bills are paid online, we get home deliveries at the dwindling of the thumb, and we always use lift to go upstairs. We tire easily because we have lay-back attitude, we are always on phone, checking endless messages and forwarding the silly ones, crouched on couch like a potato, ordering junk-food, watching endless TV serials AND we give big head ache to our parents, with continuous jargon of words like ‘can’t eat this’ ‘don’t want that’ ‘I am watching my diet’, ‘this is too fattening.’ and the endless ramble of the latest trends.

Poor parents, they love us too much, so they tolerate all our NaatakBaazi

But luckily, we have home-chefs, who care for our health and create healthy cakes/Ice-creams that everybody can eat guilt free. Bindass!

Shilpa Seth Bhambri is the home chef who understands it all.

Shilpa Seth Bhambri is baker and trained chef practicing her expertise over 28 years. She has mastered the craft of baking and cake decorating by learning from some of the best International and local culinary artists. She is founder of  ‘The Cakeline,’ a customised cakerie with extension to all things sweet. The recipes have been curated and developed with lot of research by her. She has added a healthy range of confections and desserts that are endorsed by her own philosophy of nutritionally enhanced eating. She also works as a culinary advisor to ‘Baskin Robbins India’ and has created a line of products in their range. (Remember the Icecream cake at Baskinrobbins?..Her creation!) She also works as a food photographer, stylist and recipe developer.

She specialises in cakes and desserts with a focus on egg-free, low calorie products. During lockdown2020, she is personally baking a limited range to offer all a safe and risk free menu, taking utmost care to prepare  clean and hygienic bakes.

She is always fascinated by her Mom’s style of cooking ‘Andaaz Sey’-the Indian way of weighing by sight method of cooking. Her Mom is a pure vegetarian, cleans meat/seafood with tongs but cooks wonderful dishes for the family. Her Mom’s hearty wholesome cooking forms the base and her large part of her food memories that include Doodhwalla Mutton, Pishori Cholle with Aloo Puri, being her classic favourites till now.

The best eureka food memories are from the corridors and kitchens of the Taj Mahal hotel, Mumbai.

“When I trained in its banquets and kitchens, I tasted some of the best culinary creations made by its senior chefs. From Pate de Fois, to Caviar on Blinis, hand churned Ice creams, Devils on Horseback, Baklava to the finest chocolate creations, Duck l'orange, Peking Duck with pancakes. Always encouraged by my mentor to taste what was cooked and served. My fine sensory palate was formulated in these initial years of my culinary school training.”

She is happy to share the recipe of Ragi Banana Cake 

(This is one of her oldest signature recipes which is “Maida free, Sugar free, Egg free”. She has replaced refined sugar with Jaggery and made this delicious ‘anytime healthy tea-cake’.

1. Sift both flours (100gms Ragi/Nachni flour) and (100gms whole wheat flour) with ½ tsp baking powder, 1 ½ tsp baking soda and pinch of salt. 

2. In the warm/melted 100gms butter, add 150gms Jaggery powder. 

3. Mix well with a spatula. This will help the jaggery to dissolve. 

4. Add 150gms whisked yoghurt and 120gms banana pulp(about 2 ½ bananas). 

5. Mix well. 

6. Mix the sifted flours into the butter mixture (of step 2).

7. Add 1tsp Cinnamon powder and 1tsp Vanilla extract. 

8. Do not over mix. 

9. Pour batter into a greased and lined 7x7inch tin. 

10. Bake at 170 degrees Celsius for about 35-45 minutes. 

11. Cool cake completely before cutting into slices to serve.

Shilpa Seth Bhambri was awarded Home Chef and Baker's award 2020 for the contribution to India's Home chef & Baking Industry in the category of 10 years+

Other than that she is also an avid food photographer and food stylist. Her new venture curates an expression of all her learning in the food world that is passionately expressed in the series of food tales in the form of mini video stories featuring home chefs, foodies and passionate cooks. You can view them all on her U-tube Channel at foodtaleswithShilpa.

 

 You can order her signature items on preorder; DM or call at 9930987989

Follow her at Instagram at Shilpasethbhambri

Home Chefs Of Mumbai - Part 13 – Shanti Petiwala

Sometimes food can be boring if we have to eat the same thing day-in, day-out. Everybody likes change and being creative in the kitchen is the best adventure one can have. You don’t need any talent to think out of box, you just need imagination and courage to try something new.

Have you tried sea food with pork? Or served mince Karela inside the pasta shell and coat it with sour cream? The idea might repel you. Imaginations can turn wild. Sometimes they just stay in our mind, refuse to emerge, but sometimes, you pick up your courage and try something weird.

The creativity sets in.

You start playing with ingredients, whipping them, curdling them, tossing them and the result is strange tasting sauces and dips. Sometimes experiments fail, but a successful one becomes your signature dish. Only you know the trick. You start using un-usual appliances and utensils for cooking, bake a soup with a loaf of bread in an egg shell, prepare spicy utappam in a waffle maker, or make seafood pies in muffin cones. The ideas are endless, some silly, some weird. But you are excused if you are able to conceptualise at least one original recipe of your own.

Creativity is having fun with intelligence.

And I love food creations of Shanti Petiwala.

Shanti Petiwala wears many hats. She is writer, editor, home cook, culinary blogger. Riot of Flavours is her canvas, and she celebrates food in all its glory. Food is very personal to her, so every dish that she cooks is made as though she would eat it all by herself.

On a regular basis, she shuttles between Mumbai and Dubai, writer and editor for business magazine in Dubai and home chef in Mumbai. The lockdown has kept her rooted inside her home and she is having the best of the time, planning, prepping and delivering meals since past two months.

Shanti specialises in home cooked Bohri food, Chitrapur Saraswat food and many of her own creative dishes.

Tomato Saar and Bhindi Bhaji, are the earliest memories of good food she remembers that was prepared by her mom, and continues to be her favourite.

She talks about many ‘first time’ memories of food

“The first time I had a real Italian pizza was in Verona. It was a mushroom pizza and it ruined all pizzas for me thereafter, after that no other pizza I had ever came close.”

She fondly remembers Surnoli, a sweet Indian pancake, known to be Saraswat Brahmin dish, it has puffy textures with holes and is traditionally eaten for breakfast “I vividly remember where I was and how amazed I was the first time I ate this Konkani sweet Dosa preparation way back in 2000.”

Being creative in kitchen, she loves to experiment with different ingredients. In one of her experiments, she used eggplant and Labneh (a smooth creamy yoghurt with no whey) and baked this amazing dish.

Shanti is happy to share her recipe of Roasted Eggplant with Labneh and Pistachio

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.

2. Cut the 1 large eggplant into two halves, lengthwise.

3. Score them with a knife and rub some salt into them and keep aside.

4. In the meanwhile, in a pan, put in 1 tbsp oil.

5. Add 2 clove garlic (minced) and 1 onion (minced).

6. Mix it well.

7. Once the eggplant releases some water, wash it and pat it dry.

8. Marinate in a little oil and salt (adjust according to taste).

9. Put it into the oven for 20 minutes or till just done but it holds its shape.

10. Scoop out some of the meat from the middle (take care to not tear the skin at the bottom).

11. Cut up the pulp and mix it with the onion-garlic mixture.

12. Stuff the whole mixture back into the eggplant.

13. Put it back into the warm oven. Grill it.

14. Whip 1cup labneh well. Spoon gently over the grilled eggplant.

15. Sprinkle 2tbsp of slivered pistachios and 3tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.

She announces her menu every week and deliver over the weekends.

You can follow her on @riotofflavours for new menu updates Call on her WhatsApp no 9152292940 

Follow her on her Instagram handle @riotofflavours