Magical Mumbai Flavours: A Passionate Food Love Story

About This Book

This cookery book showcases my journey through my established yet ever-improving culinary skills and the love affair that led me to cultural fusion. I humbly invite you to embark on this journey and let me take you through recipes I have created – and also recreated – with lots of love, passion and emotion.

I fell in love with Indian cooking at a very young age. The aroma, the seasoning, the masalas, the smell of lightly browned onions, roasted whole spices, and the sputtering sound of cumin seeds, alongside the whistles from the pressure cooker, have always been inviting.

My skills and knowledge have been gratefully acquired from my nan, mother, aunties, friends and their mums, neighbours and my in-laws. I now feel ready to pass the knowledge and the skills to my readers, to my fellow chefs (by passion or by profession) and to those who just love and enjoy the rituals of cooking.

This cookery book is written by someone who has lived and worked in a financial city, Mumbai, and the recipes are a true reflection of how traditional dishes are cooked in many parts of India. Most of my recipes are modified to ensure that they are simple to follow and are achievable. Every recipe has step-by-step guidance, tips, tricks and information on substitute ingredients.

Through this book, I have shared not only mouth-watering traditional regional dishes which have been passed on to me through generations of my family, but also a few dishes with an international touch, i.e. Indo-Mexican, Indo-Chinese, Indo-Italian, Indo-French, Indo-Arabic. The ‘fusion’ dishes I have shared are very popular at Dalvi’s, my restaurant, and I am sure they will become popular in your house, too.

If you are a first-timer in the kitchen in general or with Indian food in particular, I would say: do not worry if your cooked food doesn’t look like the food photo shown in this book or tastes far away from what’s expected. You should feel proud of yourself for putting in all the efforts to cook that meal by yourself. If you really have the passion, love, and a driving force to cook Indian food and you love the kitchen world, then you have won half the battle. From my personal experience, I can confidently state that you can never cook good-quality meals if you haven’t failed in your efforts a few times!

Lastly, this is a must-have cookery book in every kitchen. It doesn’t just share good-quality recipes which pair traditional with contemporary ideas and techniques, but also shares the health benefits of many ingredients. This book has recipes from many regions of India and is a true treasure to have.

Happy cooking, everyone!

A Little Bit About Me

I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.

– William Ernest Henley, ‘Invictus’

I am Seema, an award-winning chef and owner of Dalvi’s Restaurant. I’m about to take you on my journey from being an underprivileged girl in Mumbai, to a secondary school maths teacher in England, to proudly running my own restaurant – Dalvi’s in Poulton-Le-Fylde, Lancashire, England. Allow me to steer you through and let the journey begin.

I was born Seema Sharma, in Mumbai, India to a middle-class Brahmin family. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly caste and the traditional occupation of the men is the priesthood. The Brahmins have the highest status of the four social classes. Mumbai, a vibrant Indian city, has always had a special place in my heart. It is the city where I still enjoy street food, the city where I found my dance moves and the city where I found the love of my life.

I was the middle of three children (elder sister, younger brother). My arrival in the world was an unexpected surprise as my parents anticipated a son. Being a girl born in my society was quite tough. During that time, and, even now in some parts of India, sons were, and still are, given greater preference and importance than girls as they are believed to be carrying forward the family lineage. My brother, being the only son, was given greater privilege than my sister and me in everything, including his schooling in an ‘English’ school. However, I was quite lucky to attend a cheaper version of education based on vernacular teachings.

As a child, food and dance were the strong pillars that held me up, and I was looking forward to pursuing a career in one of those areas, but things didn’t go as I hoped and planned. I was allowed to complete my education, including university. However, I was told that after finishing university, I would be expected to marry and have my own family and look after them, as my mother had done; it was the tradition in my family.

I never understood this tradition and as much as my parents imposed, I fought against it. I was rebelling, and my love for meat and seafood (which was forbidden in my family) was growing; at the same time, I was being influenced by my friends from different parts of India. One of the best things about living in a truly cosmopolitan city like Mumbai was that I had friends and neighbours from different parts of India. I was learning about all the country’s varieties of cuisine, and I loved it. With pride and pleasure, I have shared some of these most amazing recipes with you in this book.

Another traditional expectation from my family was an arranged marriage – to marry someone I had never met before and to accept them as my life partner. This wasn’t something I wanted as a young girl; I had my own dreams and ideals. Expressing my love and feelings wasn’t easy, as India’s ruthless caste system made a grand entry into my love story. Krish, my now husband, belonged to a warrior caste known as Kashtriya in India. I was from the Brahmin ‘varna’; in the traditional pecking order, those from the Kashtriya caste would come below Brahmins. Our flourishing love story would have been objected too, so I anticipated that falling in love with my husband and marrying ‘below’ myself would not go down well with my family.

Nevertheless, I secretly started dating Krish, but as much as we tried to keep it hidden, the truth came out. This steered my life in a completely different direction, as my dad began looking for a husband for me to put an end to this relationship. Krish worked on ships and this was not approved by my parents. A young love story was slowly shaping up, on enormous trust, yet our movements were watched by my parents. I persuaded my parents to let me start working to earn some money, in the hope that this would help me focus and also take my mind away from living such an orthodox life at home. I worked as an import executive for a reputable company for a few months and enjoyed it to a certain extent as I was earning good money, but the workload was enormous. However, as I didn’t get home until late, it did work in my favour as it kept my mind occupied and this helped, as I missed Krish (who by now was a deep-sea sailor) so much. Every attempt I made to persuade my parents to let me marry Krish failed. So, the rebel in me made the bold decision to leave my parents behind, and, with the full blessing of my in-laws, Krish and I got married. I knew I had to dwell on my inner strength – the girl who left her family behind for true love and the first female in my family to marry outside my caste.

A marriage is a beautiful institution and normally brings families together but, in my case, it took a lot of convincing – more than a year – to frame a happy ending. Now both my parents adore Krish, their son-in-law. A true captain who has sailed the seven seas, he has stood by me in every storm, every crest and trough. He is my inspiration and has always helped me believe in each and every step of my career. Every life-changing decision we have made together, and Krish has encouraged me to believe in me, helping me to achieve my dream of becoming an award-winning chef. Now, the sky is the limit for this Mumbai girl!

The Indian Way of Eating Meals

While teaching in schools in England, I was often asked by my students Miss, do you eat with your fingers? My answer was always, Of course I do! We all eat chips, sandwiches, finger food, pizza with our fingers, right? So why not daal with rice or curry with rice or curry with chapati?

Being born and brought up in Mumbai, I was lucky to experience multiregional cuisines and to experience other ways of life. I grew up eating Thali food – Thali is a Hindi word meaning ‘a large plate’. It is now used as an expression for a type of eating in India - many different dishes served in small bowls arranged on a Thali or platter. As a family we always sat on the floor and enjoyed our evening meal together. Like many households in India, my everyday Thali always contained starters or finger food, main curries, rice, daal, chapati or pooris, papad, yoghurt and often a delicious dessert. I must admit, as a child I would have loved a dining table – you could already see how Western culture was influencing me. There is a reason for the sitting on the floor, though. According to Ayurveda (the alternative Indian medicine) sitting on the floor cross-legged like a yogi massages abdominal muscles and helps improve digestion.

In my childhood, eating with knife, fork and spoon was a novelty, but approaching traditional Thali with these implements would have been seen as sophisticated, although quite an awkward task. Eating with your fingers, like me in my childhood and my children now, is deemed unhygienic and nauseating, but according to Ayurveda and health experts, it is extremely healthy. My nan always used to say that eating your food with your fingers feeds not only the body but also the mind and soul. As a young girl, I never understood what she meant, but I always felt satisfied and happy. According to Ayurveda, each finger represents one of five elements (thumb for fire, forefinger for air, middle finger for space, ring finger for earth and the little finger for water). Whenever you touch food with your fingers to eat, the fingertips help your brain to connect with your food. By touching, you stimulate these five elements and invite agni (fire) to activate your digestive juices. By improving digestion, you become more conscious of tastes, textures and the aroma of the food you are eating, which enhances the pleasure of eating. In India and many countries like Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar and parts of the Middle East, eating with fingers is perceived to be a sensual activity. The whole idea is that you should be able to enjoy the process of eating whilst using all your senses – taste, smell, sight and touch.1

A few days ago, I encouraged my children to eat their food with their fingers. Yes, we did have a messy table, but when I asked them what the food was like and how they felt about eating with fingers, my seven-year-old said the food tasted very nice. And my 14-year-old fussy eater said everything tasted truly scrumptious and finished all her food within minutes. If you have never tried it, try it today. Obviously, you will need utensils when eating pasta, lasagne, soup or a roast dinner, but do try it with Thai or African curries or risotto. It doesn’t have to be Indian food to enjoy it this way. It’s not difficult to use your fingers to eat, but there are certain rules which should be followed:

– In India we always eat with the right hand, as the left one is deemed unclean.

– Always use your fingertips and make sure the food doesn’t touch your palm.

– It is important that you don’t put your fingers in your mouth but push the food in with your thumb.

1 https://doctor.ndtv.com/living-healthy/are-there-any-health-benefits-of-sitting-on-the-floor-and-eating-ayurveda-tells-us-1828673

https://naturecareayurveda.com.au/yoga-and-eating-food-with-hands/

https://www.artofliving.org/in-en/lifestyle/best-way-to-eat-your-food

Techniques and Tips to Remember Before You Start with these Recipes

Techniques and Tips

In my 28 years’ experience of cooking, I only honestly say that traditional Indian cooking methods in India are not hugely different from those commonly used in other cuisines. There is a reason why Indian food is so flavoursome and aromatic: it’s both the ingredients and spices you use and the cooking techniques you employ that make the dish a real show-stopper. The techniques and tips I am sharing in this book are the ones I grew up with as they were passed down through generations, with some extras of my own.

To make you feel more confident, if you have already used cooking methods like baking, boiling, sautéing, frying, then, believe me, you will absolutely fall in love with Indian cooking. Indians use all the above methods and more. The difference