The blogger and entrepreneur who runs Bawibride.com cooks her grandmother’s prawn curry recipe just in time for Navroze
Mamaiji’s secret
Perzen Patel is exactly the kind of woman I never want to bring home to my mother. At 26, she whips up home-style Parsi favourites and traditional bhonu (celebratory) fare for her small catering business. Her repertoire is impressive: sali boti, seekh kebab focaccia, salami croquettes, home-made ricotta, kopra pak and, of course, lagan nu custard. She runs the recipe blog Bawibride.com, works full-time as a marketing executive at a social enterprise, and cooks for her family.
Article by Prerna Makhija | Live Mint
Patel was more than happy to teach me her personal favourite and best-selling dish—Mamaiji’s Red Prawn Curry—just in time for Navroze. When I confess that I can barely boil rice, she laughs and says she was just the same two years ago.
After she got married in November 2012, Mumbai-based Patel realized she was making one too many long-distance calls to her mother in New Zealand to learn her favourite Parsi dishes. Patel searched for blogs dedicated to Parsi cooking but the ones she found weren’t of much help or were too boring as they only published recipes with a “final photo”.
Patel says the first time she attempted dhansak at home, she almost threw out the entire dish because it looked like a gloopy brown mess of boiled dal and vegetables. “If you haven’t been taught to cook by someone in person, you never know what a dish is supposed to look like at different steps of the cooking process,” she adds.
So last June, as Patel started getting better at cooking, she decided to create a Cooking For Dummies style website for Parsi dishes with step-by-step photographs and detailed instruction sheets. “I thought why not create a resource centre for other Parsi brides to refer to,” she says.
A month after she started publishing her recipes, Patel also started hosting flash sales on the weekends for her most successful kitchen experiments through the website and social media. When orders poured in regardless, she realized there was a bigger demand for her homely food. “Unless you are invited to a Parsi wedding or go to an Irani café, there’s not much access to our food,” says Patel. “Even then you get the same five-seven popular dishes like dhansak, patra ni machchi, sali boti and lagan nu custard. But there’s so much more to our food and I want people to sample our home food like curry chawal, ras chawal, tamatar par eedu and dhandar patio.”
By November, Patel was able to put up a full menu on her website for bhonu fare like dhansak and kheema kebabs, dips like hummus and mayonnaise and desserts like chocolate mousse and lagan nu custard. Patel says her Mamaiji’s Red Curry Masala is one of the most popular products at exhibitions and sales. She inherited the recipe from her late maternal grandmother or “mamaiji”, who used to make the comforting curry with kachumbar for her every Saturday afternoon when she was in school. “I loved the curry so much that as a kid when she asked me what I wanted when she passed away, I innocently told her that all I really wanted was a big never-ending bowl of it,” she adds.
It’s been 10 months since Patel first starting publishing recipes on her blog, but she says it’s already led her to many opportunities in the food business. Besides being invited to conduct Parsi cooking classes at Pooja Dhingra’s Studio Fifteen at Elphinstone, Patel has also been able to crowdsource recipes for her quarterly e-book project called “Best Kept Secrets”. She released the first book in the series on her website last month with 11 recipes from bloggers on their favourite traditional Indian regional dishes. Patel says the next book will be all about the best egg preparations because “Parsis love eggs and break an egg on anything—on all kinds of leftovers from vegetables to meat”.
Next week, as part of her week-long Navroze celebrations at home, Patel will take catering orders for Navroze special set meals and will also host a lunch in her backyard for Parsi food aficionados through social dining website MealTango.com
Even with so much going on, Patel says she already knows what she wants to do next—her very own Julie & Julia style project with a cookbook called Vividh Vani, written in Gujarati by Meherbai Jamshedji Wadia. Patel says the tome consists of over 1,600 recipes, with nearly 57 dedicated to just akuri and another 30 or so to custard preparations. “It’s kind of like what the Rasachandrika is to the Saraswat community but it’s completely lost to our generation as it is written in Gujarati and even the measurements aren’t in the metric system,” says Patel. “But I know this is something I really want to do for the cuisine.”
Mamaiji’s Red Curry
Serves 4
Ingredients
3-4 potatoes, chopped into small cubes
350g fresh prawns
3 tbsp wheat flour
2 tbsp cooking oil
1½ tsp turmeric powder
1½ tsp red chilli powder
1½ tsp curry powder
Chopped coriander and curry leaves
Salt, to taste
For the curry masala
½ fresh coconut, chopped into pieces
3 small tomatoes, chopped
1 tsp poppy seeds (khus khus)
1 tsp sesame seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
50g raw peanuts
30g chopped cashews
10 cloves of garlic
15 dried Kashmiri red chillies
For the marinade
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
Salt, to taste
Method
Marinate the prawns in turmeric, red chilli powder and salt and set aside for about 30 minutes.
Grind the coconut, tomatoes, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, coriander seeds, cumin, peanuts, cashews, garlic and Kashmiri red chillies to make a thick paste. Keep adding water to ensure all the spices are ground finely.
In a deep pan, add the cooking oil and fry the wheat flour, making sure no lumps remain. Add the curry masala and sauté for about 5 minutes until the wheat flour is mixed well into the masala and it no longer sticks to the sides of the pan. Mix in the turmeric, red chilli and curry powders and pour some water into the pan to achieve the desired consistency. Add the potatoes and allow them to cook for 10 minutes before adding the prawns. Simmer the curry for 20-25 minutes until the prawns are completely cooked. Garnish with freshly chopped coriander and some curry leaves and serve with steamed rice and kachumbar.
The Bawi Bride’s Navroze menu, priced at Rs.1,500 for two, consists of six Kheema Kebabs, Kaju Chicken with Pav, Dhandar Chaval, Surmai Lagan no Patio and Lagan nu Custard Ice Cream. To place orders for 20-21 March, to buy ingredients or order a meal at other times, call Perzen Patel on 9819285720 or email perzen@bawibride.com before 18 March. Home-delivery charges are extra. The Navroze lunch at her home in Dadar on 23 March is priced at Rs.950 and will feature dishes like Prawn Curry Rice, and Falooda. For details and to reserve a spot, visit mealtango.in/navroz
Movable feast
Our pick of other Navroze specials in Mumbai
Bhonu: Delicacies by a Parsi aunty
Maneckshaw’s Navroze nu Mutton Pulav
Home-based chef Rashna Maneckshaw will whip up three home-style meal combos for Navroze, featuring dishes like Mutton Sali Boti, Chicken Berry Pulav, Patra Ni Machchhi and Mitho Ravo, from 17-21 March. To place orders, call her on 9867589828. Meal combos for two are priced at Rs.1,100 and home-delivery charges are Rs.150.
Katy’s Kitchen
Kurush Dalal, a Mumbai-based archaeologist, will prepare a set meal of Mutton Cutlets, Patra Ni Machchhi, Sali Jardaloo Chicken, Mutton Pullao, Dal and Lagan nu Custard on 21 March. To place orders, call Dalal on 9820136511 from 10am-8pm. Bookings close at 5pm on 19 March. The set meal for two is priced at Rs.1,100.
Shamiana
The all-day coffee shop at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, Apollo Bunder, will host a special Navroze brunch on 21 March with dishes like Patra Ni Macchi, Salli Margi and Stuffed Bombay Duck. The brunch, from 12.30-3pm, is priced at Rs.3,800, inclusive of all taxes and select non-alcoholic beverages.
Café at the NCPA
Chef Farrokh Khambata’s Navroze dinner buffet will feature traditional Parsi ‘bhonu’ fare on 21 March. Café at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Nariman Point. The dinner buffet, 8pm onwards, is priced at Rs.1,450, plus taxes. For reservations, call 22821212.
