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Pindi chhole. Got it right after two rounds as I had to pressure cook it a bit
more. Turned out perfect.

The morning papers look rather bleak these days. The Covid numbers in Mumbai and in Maharashtra have been rising. Across India too. We have just gone into a night curfew here. There are talks on whether or not we will go into a lockdown again. Whether we can afford to do so from an economic stand point? Whether we can not afford to do so, given the way things are? One can only hope for the best and do ones best in terms of staying home to the extent one can, wear a mask when with people, practise physical social distancing and get vaccinated if eligible.

Staying home is no fun I agree, but it is the time to grit ones teeth for the larger good and for ones own safety. It is a privilege to be able to work from home. A privilege that most of India does not have. As comedian Atul Khatri says in his ‘Only Positive News’ series on Instagram: “Tum chinta mat karo. Bus ghar pe raho. Sab theek ho jayega.” Don’t worry. Stay home. Things will work out.

And, if you are craving for your favourite dishes, most restaurants are delivering food home as my young friend and fellow foodie, Vipul Yadav, pointed out through a tweet recently.

Folks from the world of food are working hard so that we can stay home and yet eat well. Here are five way thats there are doing so based just on experiences from the past few days. I am sure there are more!

1. Spice blends that take you on fresh journeys

Abana Spices pindi chhole

I made a fabulous pindi chhole for the first time yesterday. Had the leftovers for breakfast today. This was a few days after I made a brilliant Parsi dhansak masala ni dar. Again for the first time. Both dishes were born thanks to spice blends that I had received to try.
For the pindi chhole I used the pindi chhole mix from the Abana Spices Nostalgia Box kit which has an array of pouches with spices mixes for various Sindhi/ Punjabi dishes such as Sindhi biryani, Sindhi kadhi, pani puri, alu tuk, paneer, chaat masala, pindi chhole as well as spices such as Kashmiri mirch and turmeric. I used the biryani mix to make a sort of veg pulao to go with the chhole. I got to know of this through his daughter and my friend, Shalini Rajani, who conducts very well regarded workshops on cooking with millets and is a columnist with the Indian Express. Like me, she too is a former advertising agency hand.
Chhole paratha breakfast

Abana spices is a venture launched by a Sindhi gentleman named Basant Rajani. He launched the website and the products last week, at an age when most people retire. He calls the range ‘the taste of undivided India’ as the flavours captured are from both sides of Punjab. 
A Parsi Affair dhansak mix
The masala ni dar that I made was courtesy the dhansak no masala paste from A Parsi Affair. The instructions on the box demystified the process of making a dish that had intimidated me for long and the end result won the approval of the missus, who is our resident Parsi. Mission accomplished! I loved it too.
A Parsi Affair is a lockdown baby of legendary Parsi caterer Tanaz Godiwala. Instead of being stumped by the current environment when catering assignments have dried up, she has launched her spice mixes and pickles and other condiments during this time. The aim is to help people recreate Parsi flavours in their home kitchen. The products can be shipped all over and this is the first step towards Tanaz’s dream of creating a ‘global empire of Parsi cuisine’ as she puts it.
Regional Indian spice mixes help us recreate flavours and dishes in our kitchen which we could not have thought of otherwise. It is a not a new concept, however the pandemic has seen small entrepreneurs take the online route to deliver their delights across the country without being restricted by the lack of retail muscle. Old Fashioned Gourmet, set up by the late Shymalataji, and now run by her daughter Vashundhara Jhunjunwala, is another brand whose spices such as the stuffed bhindi masala, the bharwan baigan  masala and chaat masala have added fresh flavours to our kitchen.

2. DIY Kits that take you on a world tour 

Khow Suey with Kitchen Stories DIY Kits

DIY means ‘do it yourself’. As against DIFM when means ‘Do It For Me’. Terms that I had learnt in the early 2000s as an account planner in Castrol when I worked in FCB Ulka Advertising. The term DIY has come in vogue in the food world post the pandemic. Restaurants and hotels offered DIY kits for us to recreate their dishes in our home. We had tried out DIY kits from Smoke House Deli (pastas, burgers) and from the ITC Hotels (ravioli & Thai curries) to good effect last year.
This weekend I got to try out to DIY kits from a couple of local chef driven enterprises. The first led to the intense and broody chicken khow suey that I made using the DIY kit from Aditi Limaye Kamat’s Kitchen Stories. A dish that brought memories of my trips to Malaysia and Chiang Mai in particular.
Soul Co Taqueria Box tacos
A couple of days later I assembled tacos for breakfast using the Taqueria (term for tacos eatery in Mexico) box put together for the Soul Company by chef Kartikeya of Eclectic Kitchen (formerly of Perch). The box came with ready to heat and eat tacos, refried beans, sour cream, pulled jackfruit, asad dirty rice, salsa macha, corn jalapeno and other tacos essentials and it was fun trying out different combinations at home. There was a mango tres leche from chef Yajur Khanna too.
Both the khow suey and Taqueria kit boxes allowed one to create taste experiences that are not common in our kitchen and, might I add, with very little effort.

3. Home chefs march on undaunted

Rhea Mitra Dalal’s aam luchi, alur dom, moshaladar mangsho

If you thought that home chef movement was a lockdown flash in the pan, which ended with restaurants and hotels coming back into action, then think again. This sector is going strong, with people having awakened to the endless culinary delights that home chefs offer. Some of the seasoned hands are exploring new avenues to grow their businesses. New players are coming in with exciting new offers and the consumer is the winner at the end.
On Tuesday night we had a sublime Bengali meal from the Euphorhea Kitchen side of Katy’s Kitchen. Cooked by Rhea Mitra Dalal and sent to us by her husband Dr Kurush Dalal. This was a part of her Holi Special menu. It featured a rather Kolkata street food-like, and yet light on the tummy, alur dom. A moshaladar mangsho – which reminded me of a homemade mangshor jhol or mutton curry – starring some very tultule mangsho. That’s ‘tender mutton’ for you.
With this, she had sent aam luchi. Literally, it means maida puris stuffed with mango. One did not know what to expect when one read about it on the menu. Aam luchi is not a common Bengali dish. I had never heard of it. It is a dish which Rhea recreated from a recipe in an old Bengali cookbook by Pragyasundari Debi. The idea of the dish had baffled us when we first heard of it. Would it be sweet as my Didu wondered, when I told her about it on the phone. She had never heard of aam luchi either and she is 92 and was the one who made me fall in love with luchis 40 years back. 

Or would they taste like puri stuffed with shrikhand? Bengali molecular gastronomy, as I quipped to K!

No. The aam luchi was not too sweet. Nor overtly mango-like. 


It was very soft. Baby Loaf soft. The flavour and aroma reminded one of parar mishtir dokan (sweet shop), for in the maida luchis was a blend of mango, chhana and coconut milk; which came together to in divine harmony. They held K and me in their spell as we wiped the entire treasure trove clean that night.


4. Champion chefs reinvent themselves

Sindhi meal from Vicky Ratnani’s The Speak Easy Kitchen


Celebrated chefs who ran celebrated restaurants have risen to the occasion and have come up with delivery options that bring their genius to our homes. In some cases, they have moved away from the posh international cuisines that they had mastered and made their own to now give us a taste of their own home kitchens and cultures. In Delhi there is chef Vikramjit Roy, known for gourmet modern Asian food in restaurants such as Tian of ITC Maurya and later POH in Mumbai, who launched Park Street Rolls & Kitchen to offer street flavours from his native Kolkata in Delhi NCR. On offer are Kolkata rolls, biryani and Tangra Chinese too! While I am yet to try these myself, I have ordered them for my bother and his family in Gurgaon and they enjoyed it.
And in Mumbai this Sunday, we called in for Sindhi food from chef Vicky Ratnani’s new delivery outfit, The Speak Easy Kitchen. I had been meaning to do so for a while ever since I heard of this venture. I remember interviewing chef Vicky Ratnani about Sindhi food for a story for my NDTV Food column a few years  back and, on seeing his passion for it, telling him that I hoped he would do Sindhi food commercially someday. When the time is right, said the chef. Then came the Speak Easy Kitchen, a lockdown baby of Vicky Ratnani. Apart from Sindhi food, you get western comfort food too – salads, pastas, burgers, roasts and grills. We had a lovely roast chicken from them during Christmas which spoke of the great understanding of world cuisines that this multi-talented chef has.

We loved the entire experience of our Sindhi meal, starting from the packaging, the taste of the food, quality of produce, etc. 


The passion that Vicky interacted with customers in his restaurants was very much there when I placed the order with him on the phone where he explained each dish to me most lovingly. That showed in the exquisite quality of the food. Each dish was bursting with diverse flavours and yet was not heavy on oil or spice; did not overwhelm us despite the heat outside.

Favourites were the Sindhi mutton curry (very tender mutton in a meaty yet light curry), bhugga chawal (like the rice of the Parsi dhansak but caramelised with browned onions and not sugar), Sindhi prawn curry (fresh and tangy curry with prawns cooked right), sai bhaaji (a very refreshing mixed greens bhaji with the taste of dil and garlic adding zest, with the odd bites of channa dal for a textural break) and the koki (ghee soaked, onion flavoured majestic crisp flatbreads). They have most of the traditional Sindhi dishes that one has heard of on the menu. There is noting ‘reimagined’ or ‘modern’ about i. The presence of combos makes ordering more practical and they have a la carte version too.

5. Restaurants that travel across the city

Gujarati aamras thali made with food from Soam

Just as I finished this article came in a food box from Pinky Chandan Dixit. “Can I send you some aamraas to celebrate your #IFBA2021 win,” she had kindly messaged me yesterday. I jumped at the offer readily as we love the food at Soam and their aamraas is a much awaited summer special. Along with it came some of our other favourites at Soam such as the batata shaak, the dahi vada, palak cheese puri and sev puri and new treats for me to try such as the spinach pulao and dal paratha and sweets such as mohal thal and moong dal halwa.

Soam is located in south Mumbai, close to an hour’s drive from where we live, but during the pandemic they started delivering food across the city knowing that their patrons missed them. Apart from restaurant delivery options, there are also folks like Zomato, Swiggy, wefast, Dunzo etc which are reducing distances to nought so that we can sit home and order in from our favourite places across the city.

A ‘breaking news’ example of this phenomenon is the glorious Navroz bhonu that we had from Tanaz Godiwala last weekend. She has put up a menu of her Parsi treats such as curry rice, dhansak, pulao dal, cutlace, sas ni macchi, patra ni machhi, patra ni paneer, saas ni eedu, lagan nu stew, etc on the A Parsi Affair site and you can call them a day in advance and get it ordered across the city. What more can a man ask for?

Here is an interesting trivia, the vegetarian side for lagans done by Tanaz is often prepared by Soam. 

The examples that I have given above are based just on what we have experienced in the past few days. I am sure that there are many more and I would love to hear about them from you. 

Here is wishing more power to the chefs, restaurant staff, home chefs, entrepreneurs and delivery folks who are working hard during these times so that we don’t have to step out. Time for us to do our bit as responsible citizens!

Appendix:

Speak Easy Kitchen meal on #foodocracykitchens




Tanaz Godiwala on #foodocracyforher:

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