Home Chefs Of Mumbai. Part 42 - Moumita S

 Slowly but surely, life is creeping back to normalcy. Although people are still behind their mask, washing their hands with soap and water, several times a day, they have started going to malls, theatres and restaurants. There is fear behind the walls but life must go on. 

Restaurants have suffered the most during pandemic. Those who had innovative ideas, started home deliveries in attractive packing, fit enough to entertain few guests within four walls of their home. The food industry went through intense restructuring to adapt to the challenges posed by Covid. There has been surge of cloud kitchen in major cities and many home chefs came to rescue of their neighbors, especially senior citizens who depended on cooks for their daily meals.

Moumita S has been a savior for many such neighbors. Not having enough space in her current home, she couldn’t do anything in a big way. She formed a home-chef group in her society and started a small cafeteria. Every weekend, various home-chefs prepared breakfast, snacks and sold at particular fixed time. During festivals, they posted their menu and took orders in advance.

Being Bong, (forefathers from Dhaka Bangladesh), Moumita S has grown up around food since childhood days in South Kolkatta, Bhowanipur.

“My father was a great foodie, since childhood along with home cooked Bengali dishes at home (hardcore non-vegetarian), he used to take us often to Mughlai, Chinese cuisine outlets. Street food is an integral part of growing up days. Egg chicken kathi rolls, jhal muri, phuchka are like daily dose of happiness. We used to visit some popular South Indian cuisine outlets too, in South Indian dominated areas of Kolkata.” Says Moumita

Moumita S is a self-taught Home-Chef. 

Having lived in 17 cities of the country, she has learnt several specialties from locals of the city she lived in. 

“My life journey, traveling, living in many states has given me opportunity to learn and adopt from various cultures and traditions. Those have enriched me. My creative mind and soul - I believe in making own identity.” She adds

She specialises in simple Bengali traditional curries and pulav, traditional Bengali freshly prepared cottage cheese sweets, 

“For last three decades, I am following healthy lifestyle and food habits (except the reviews) I develop, cook, share recipes, deliver to the people who want to have traditional food with more healthy way.” She informs. “I use Jowar, Bajra, Nachni, lentils, quinoa, oatmeal a lot in my daily cooking. Oatmeal eggs veggies savoury pancakes Jowar Bajra Nachni dosa, uttappam with veggies, served with sesame seeds and dahi dip.”

Baking is her passion. She experiments with healthy ingredients to make chocolates at home. Her freshly prepared sugar-free smoothies are quite popular

She has dined in numerous restaurants and has many unforgettable food memories, so it’s difficult for her to pinpoint any particular favorite dish. However she did mention about ‘Chicken Kobirali’ at Onadi restaurant, of Anadi Cabin, Esplanade, Kolkata.

“It's an iconic, nostalgic small restaurant, nothing fancy there, except people are waiting to enjoy hot Kobiraji. It's basically a flat chicken cutlet, deep-fried with a Crispy covering of well-beaten eggs-whites. Till date, I couldn't prepare it like Onadi's.” she admits

Food photography and trying out various restaurant food of different cuisines is her passion. You may visit her instagram to browse her art work

Moumita is happy to share her recipe of

“MilkKanten with Juku Shita Mango “

This is a popular traditional Japanese dessert. She has followed the authentic recipe step by step.. 

1. Cut cubes of fresh sweet ripe mango   (you can use any other sweet fruit - fresh or canned) 

2. Boil full fat 2 litres milk on a low flame for a long time, till it becomes almost half & gets a light pink colour. 

3. Mix 2 spoons of Agar -Agar powder to milk 

4. Keep on mixing, till milk thickens 

5. Add 200 ml of condensed milk, sugar or sugar-free concentrate as much sweetness you want in the vessel in which you want to set the Milk Kanten

6. First put a layer of chopped mango pieces 

7. Pour one thick layer of milk, which was prepared 

8. Add another layer of mango pieces 

9. Pour thick milk layer as much thick as you want the milk Kanten

10. Repeat the same process 

11. Freeze it for an hour

12.Cut into pieces and serve with fresh sweet homemade mango puree... 

you can follow her Insta account link - http://instagram.com/moumita0904

Chokha - An Eggplant Chutney

On my last visit to Aamby Valley with my friends, we had an opportunity to invite the locals to cook food for us.  It was a wonderful evening, we sat in the patio, under the moonlight, enjoying the food. The local lit the fire and started to BBQ. In went the tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, and eggplant into the fire one by one. they kept tossing the roasted vegetables that we ate while we sipped on wine.  They also made Litti Chokha.

It was my first experience of eating this meal. Actually speaking, I have never been to Bihar, nor do I personally know somebody from the state Jharkhand or eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh. But Litti Chokha is the complete meal cooked in many households over open chulas. Litti Chokha is eaten with ghee and so I found it quite heavy, but sometimes its okay to indulgent.

Litti is rough wheat dough balls stuffed with spice mix of Gram flour or sattu, also roasted in open flame.

I would say Chokha is actually an eggplant chutney that is spicy and very tasty. It is normally made of  vegetables like potatoes, tomatoes, onion, and eggplant that are roasted over open flame.

Garlic, salt, cumin powder, black pepper, lime juice are added for extra flavors. They used pure ghee to cook the whole meal, but I have tweaked a bit to my preference of Olive oil.

and No, I would not eat Litti, too heavy for me I enjoy it best with Bakhri roti, bread, lavash or any snack too The ingredients that I have used are 2 tomatoes 2 boiled potatoes 2 medium size onions 6 medium size eggplant 12 garlic pods 4 green chillies 1tsp red chilli powder 1tsp black chilli powder 1 tsp cumin powder Juice of half lime 2 tbsp olive oil.

Method

1. Roast tomatoes, boiled potatoes, onions and eggplant on an open flame.

2. Mash and mix together

3. Add Chillies, salt, cumin powder, red chilli powder, lime juice and coriander leaves.

4. add olive oil

5. Serve with toast or Bakhri roti

do hop on to my video channel for live recipe at

Vegetarian BBQ - Litti Chokha

Back then, eating fried food was an indulgence one had while entertaining friends and relatives. People were more healthy eating food cooked over open fire. Pure ghee was the preferable for making chapattis, sweets or snacks. Women spent hours in the kitchen over chula and food had that peculiar taste of smoke.

Now, we can enjoy such traditional food during food festivals, or if we go to villages or create such atmosphere at home.

I had this opportunity of having a traditional Litti Chokha when I went for 2-days out-of-Mumbai trip with my friends.

The cooks were arranged, a fireplace was organised in the open veranda, surrounded by greenery and cool breeze and sound of droplets of heavy rains.

I didn’t understand what was all this excitement about, because I had never before tasted this dish except once in a restaurant, and I had not liked it at all.

Like it is always said, most of the food is enjoyed when you are in good mood, good company and good ambience. 

So the formula was perfect. 

Mood bhi, Mehfil bhi

So, here I was, in the smoke filled portico, watching people fan flames by adding dried manure and twigs. Everybody eagerly waited to eat Litti Chokha

Litti is the traditional Bihari dish made of flour dough, stuffed with spicy sattu (roasted gram flour) and Chokha is the side dish made of roasted ingredients that include brinjals, potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, pickle and spices.

Recipe:

1. Make the stiff flour dough by taking 1Cup of wheat flour, add 2tbsp ghee and salt as required.

2. Spicy Sattu is prepared by mixing crushed 1tsp cumin seeds and 1tsp fennel seeds to the roasted gram flour. 

3. 1tsp Ajwain and 1tsp nigella seeds are then added. 

4. Grate 7/8 garlic pods and 2inch ginger  and add to it. 

5.Add 4 finely chopped green chillies, 1tsp of red chilli powder and finely chopped coriander leaves.

6. Squeeze 2tbsp of lemon juice. 

7. Finally add 2tbsp of mustard oil. 

8. Mix it well. Sattu filling is ready.

9. Flour dough is stuffed with this spicy sattu, rounded up as small patties to seal from all sides 

10. Litti is roasted in an open fire till charred.

11. Charred roasted Litti is slit and generous amount of pure ghee is poured on it. 

12. It is allowed to soak in ghee for 5 minutes. 

13. This is served with Chokha.

Chokha is the side dish made of all the roasted veggies like brinjals, potatoes, garlic, chillies, tomatoes, pickle and mustard oil. The mixture is mashed together and served.

While they roasted vegetables for chokha, some roasted veggies were served to us, as we sat by the fireplace. We feasted on roasted sweet potatoes, roasted tomatoes, roasted garlic, roasted potatoes that were served to us. It tasted delicious with salt, red pepper and thecha (a garlic-chilli chutney)

It was a memorable evening, having Litti Chokha over glass of wine, with conversations and laughter.

Check my recipe at my #Vlog at papadchai

#IndianCuisine #liverecipe #food #recipe #Litti #Chokha #littichokha #BihariCuisine #Uttranchalcuisine #BBQRecipe #BBQ #Vegetarian #Vlog #Vegetarian

Home Chefs Of Mumbai – Part 41- Vinika Lakhiani

Dinning at a restaurant is preferable than to order on phone. Unless you are a food critic, or a known personality in the food industry, the food that arrives at your table at home from a restaurant may not meet its standards. Because, a special attention is paid on presentation and packing only when sending it with some purpose of good review, but for the common person, the service is completely different and mediocre.

In restaurants, different types of gravies are already pre-prepared, so all they do is to just stir fry the meat/veggies, add the prepared gravy and pack. Different kinds of sauces, such as chilly sauce, sweet sauce, vinegar, pickle etc are packed and you just have to adjust the taste as per your choice. Depending on courier service, (ranging from 35-45 minutes,) the food that arrives is lukewarm, has lost its crispiness, the veggies are completely soaked into gravy and it has no visual delight. The containers are filled upto brim, tightly packed, so very messy sometimes. Reheating is not a good option and the family is impatient and hungry.

Of course, the pandemic has been the biggest blow to their business but then ordering food from home-chef is the better option. There are been high rise in home-chefs and many of them have upgraded themselves to a professional level. Some of them have adhered to their traditional cuisine, some for cultural,  some for vegan, some for only salads,  and some as per preferential cuisine, if you order one day in advance, that is. But one thing you are sure, that the food you ordered was cooked specially for you.

Vinika Lakiani of ‘Vini’s Soul Food’ started her home-food business in July 2021

Vinika specialises in multi-cuisine food. She has items from different cuisines on her menu, such as Korean, Indonesian, Thai, Italian, Mexican, Sindhi and of course Indian. She is very passionate about desserts and recently, she has expanded into making Indian mithais as well. Especially since the pandemic started, she hoped to prepare everything that she used to crave for at home.

Growing up, her mother would cook delicious homemade meals for the family. 

“I was very lucky that my mother was an excellent cook. She taught me the basics and I also ended up learning how to cook well. My mother and my mother in law have been my biggest role models when it comes to cooking” she says. 

“I then got married to my husband, who was a huge foodie. He pushed me to try out new dishes and that is when I began to enjoy learning new recipes. We used to travel frequently; hence, I ended up exploring various cuisines and trying out new food that I had never even heard of before. Food became my passion!” she beams

She remembers of the time, many years ago when she had travelled to Seoul in South Korea for the first time. Her husband took her to a small restaurant for lunch in one of the markets over there. There was a huge wok kept above a flame on the centre of the table. She had never seen anything like that before. An extremely delicious meal was being prepared right in front of them. 

"It ended up tasting just as amazing as the entire process and experience! Cooking food on the table itself in a restaurant was a totally new concept to me! The dish was called Jjigae. It is a Korean curry with noodles and vegetables in it. It is served with rice and side dishes like kimchi" she brightens up

 After her trip to Korea, she fell in love with Korean food. “I am proud that I learned how to cook many Korean dishes and now it is a part of our regular meals at home.” She says

Vinika is happy to share the recipe of Sail Pav that is normally enjoyed in every Sindhi homes during breakfast.

1. In a mixer, take 3cups of coriander leaves, 9-10 cloves of garlic, 4-5 chopped green chillies, one sliced onion, 1tbsp turmeric powder, 1tbsp coriander powder and salt. 

2. Add very little water and grind it to a paste. 

3. Next take a pan or kadai and put 2 tbsp oil. 

4. Add the masala paste and saute for few minutes. 

5. Add about 3 cups of water and give it a boil. 

6. Add 1tbsp tamarind pulp and mix. 

7. Taste the gravy and adjust with salt and red chilli powder if want more spicy. 

8. Once its boils, break the bread (Pav) in half and add in the pan and let it soak well. 

9. Lower the flame, cover, let cook for 5 - 7 minutes and if need more water then add little. 

10. Serve hot.

You can follow her on her instagram handle  @vinissoulfood

Send a direct message on her watsapp at 9967446231

Papad Rolls With Fried Potatoes And Capsicum

 VSSS..Vishwa Seva Sindhi Sangam are celebrating 'International Papad Day' on 27th August by bonding our culture on common platform.

I am happy to share a bit of my memories and recipe of Papad Rolls with Fried Potatoes and Capsicum.

I have a very fond memories of my childhood when I lived with my Amma (my maternal grandmom) she would regularly invite her friends at her home in the afternoons and have papad making activity. She would give me too a small dough and ask me to roll out the papad. She would always instruct me to roll on the sides to make a perfect circle. I would help in spreading the papads on a sheet for drying in the sun. The papads would be stored in huge steel containers. There are normally two methods of serving papads..deep fried or roasted. It was practical solution of serving papad and chai to the guests, specially when there were no biscuits or toast at home..

Papads got more common when they started serving in restaurants as 'Masala Papad' that was simply deep fried papad topped with onions tomatoes and masalas. Later people made innovative snacks and now they even cook it.

I have one recipe on papad in my book called #SindhiCuisine. I decided to make something different this time, something that I have never made before. So I went into my kitchen, deep fried long strips of potatoes, cut strips of capsicum and stuffed them into papad rolls. This was secured with a string and deep fried. A gravy was made of garlic, ginger, chillies, curds and dry masalas and papad rolls were cooked in this gravy and the result was a very tasty papad rolls gravy. Do watch my recipe and do try it..you will love it...surely...

Dip Dip Drippin

In good ole days..pre-pandemic, food bloggers met regularly in close knit groups. There were many groups, large and small, identified by their interest in particular field such as food meetings for discussions of spices and recipes,  for baking techniques, for cook and share pot lucks.  Wild Asparagus Table was one such group that worked around the theme of studying the culture and food of the places around the world. It was more like visiting the city virtually and this was something that I have missed a lot.  

But our Watsapp group is active and this week I was able to engage a small group of home-chefs inside my 3BHK flat.  The theme was dips and there was a great variety of dips prepared by all that included humus, Caramel chili dip. Two dips, red pepper dip and low fat dip was made on the spot by Faiziya and Rhea.   

The table was loaded with Roasted Masaledar #grilledChicken  and #LabeneseFalafel and Tahini  by @BimbaNayak 

#PavbhajjiFodue by @Anjali Bhargava

#homebakedBread and #Humus by Binal Valand  

To add little fun to the party, we arrange a fruit salad making competition. @Rabia Patel had brought big variety of fruits such as apples, pears, bananas, berries, grapes. The idea was have a relay by each member to cut and arrange fruit on a plate within a specific time, it worked differently but the end results were good.  And the salad tasted good with caramel dip. 

Desserts were served with  #kesari kheer- saffron rice kheer made by Anjali #ThaiRedRubies of chestnuts in coconut milk by @Reetha Balsavar  

Was very happy with the surprise entry by @Ananya Banerjee, one of the co-founders of #WildAsparagusTable towards the second half of the party. 

Had a tea ceremony with flower blooming in the vase, a drama on the table, with more adrakwali chai and more dips and pita bread and Spicy and savoury #VermecelliinCheese by @Aruna Shetty.  

Our parties are never complete without food gifts. And gifts there were..some masalas and rakhee(friendship band) made by #specialchildren of my SPBschool.  and also...

Quaker energy bars by @quaker_India,  Dorito salsa and dips by @doritosindia and naturally powered energy drink by @O'Natural Mixers that are actually crafted from natural ingredients, ensuring excellent quality, superior taste for naturally enhanced drinking experience. The natural ration is 3:1 that is three parts of O'natural mixers and one part of spirit/juice/flavors&garnishing. These products are available at @Foodhall  

A small gathering but great fun with food knowledge sharing and laughter of course  

There was live demo of Pepper dip by @Faziya Soomar 

Roast 1red bell pepper. De-seed and peel, and chop roughly.

Toast 1 tbsp of walnuts. 

Blend bell pepper, walnuts, 2cloves of garlic, 1/4of a small onion, with olive oil, pink salt and pepper powder. 

You can avoid adding onion if you want the dip consistency to be thick. 

You may sometimes like to add 1tbsp of cream cheese to enhance the taste.   

Also there was live demo of Fat-Free Yogurt  by @Rhea Motwani 

1 box of Nestle slim dahi hung for 1 hour 

1tsp finely chopped green chillies 2 tsp finely chopped garlic 2 tsp finely chopped mint 2 tsp finely chopped coriander 1 sachet splenda or any sugar substitute 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 onion chopped finely 1/4 capsicum chopped finely 

Mix all these ingredients in the hung curd and enjoy with lavash or carrot cucumber sticks  

Thanks to my food community TheFBAI, and to Sam and Saloni Malkani, that I have got in touch with so many foodies. Hope this pandemic ends soon and we go back to living a normal life like we used to.. 

Desi Dal Trail

 During Pandemic, schools were shut down but the learning did not stop.

The virtual classrooms continued and children of Swami Brahmanand Prathisthan, along with their parents became active members online.

Many events were conducted on social media during the year and were appreciated immensely.

One such event was on theme- 'Ahaar' and dal was selected as the prime ingredient. Parents showed great interest in cooking dishes that involved their children in this activity.

Competition was held on Watsapp group and a great variety of dal were prepared by the parents of Special children. The event was a success and everybody wanted to know the recipes of the dal made on that day.

We are happy to share the recipes of Dals made by the parents of Special children of SBP, Centre for PWID, Belapur, and also includes recipes shared by committee members, staff and the jury members. 

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