Chef at Large

Curry in a Hurry is a little takeaway in Ansals Fortune Arcade, Sector 18, NOIDA. No cooking is done here, just takeaways of ready made food. While their operation is quite slick in terms of equipment and organisation, they need to pay a little more attention to the food served.
I tried their Red Curry with [...]

I’ve been reading this book on Provence cooking and this one was inspired after some late night reading. Its a very light and fresh dish, served warm rather than hot, which I found absolutely delicious. Tell me what you think!
Contrary to my normal narration, I’m going to get a little specific for this one: [...]

Vermicelli is a popular breakfast food in South India. Cooked in sesame oil with chopped onions turmeric, salt, chilli, black mustard seeds and curry leaves, it tastes wonderful. Even better if you have a little mullagapudi - a hot concoction of spices that is mixed with oil and used as a condiment. Also called ‘gunpowder’ [...]

The mutton stew I wrote about earlier may be eaten with bread or chapattis but they taste best with Valle-appams or Hoppers. Here is the recipe for Vellappams, the way my grandmother made them. However I have introduced one variation from the original. My grandma used toddy, tapped fresh from the bark of the coconut [...]

I’m not a fan of broccoli on the whole, but now that purple sprouting is in season, I do make the effort to be good and use it. Tonight I made it into a pasta sauce and this is what I did - I won’t give measurments/weights I rarely use them. You need:

Purple sprouting broccoli
2 [...]

My grandfather was fond of entertaining and often had European guests over for lunch or dinner. Mammu’s stews were an instant hit and often they would invite themselves over to taste them over again. Herein is her recipe for Mutton Stew.
Mutton Stew           

Half a kilo of mutton
One onion sliced fine
A piece of ginger about one [...]

My love for cooking arose from the kitchens of ‘East End’, in Cannanore, where my grandmother stirred and shook and whipped up the most delicious delicacies. The kitchen was old fashioned. Wood fires burned throughout the day and my grandmother who was called Mammu, by all her grandchildren, had to blow frequently through a long [...]