Santosh Shah - Ayla: A Feast of Nepali Dishes from Terai, Hills and the Himalayas

It is a dream come true to publish my first cookbook and to share the unique and beautiful flavours of Nepali food with the world. Until my time on BBCs UK MasterChef: The Professionals , few people knew what our cuisine was and I am really excited to be able to shine a light on one-of-a-kind ingredients and cooking techniques so that you can experience this cuisine for yourself at home. I spent several months in Nepal researching these amazing recipes, and I hope you will love them as much as I do.

Why Ayla? Ayla has many meanings, but to me it means celebrations. It is technically a traditional Nepali spirit made from fermented sugarcane molasses with malt or grains and is served as a sagoon (love token) at joyous occasions. Each year we celebrate more than 50 festivals and our food culture is strongly based on these traditions, where growing and giving becomes one the chapter on Festival Food is dedicated to this aspect of Nepali life. A good example is Yomari, a sweet, fish-shaped, steamed dumpling, filled with a molasses toffee and sesame seed paste (see for my take on this iconic recipe). It is prepared during the Yomari Punhi festival in December and is a product of the first harvested rice warm, comforting and sustaining on a cold winters day.

I also want to share with you my love for the land and its produce, and to celebrate the biodiversity that comes from it. For a country that only extends 885km (c550 miles) from west to east and 201km (c125 miles) from north to south, Nepal has a unique geographical structure. Three regions, three bands parallel to each other, define Nepal: the arid Himalayan high mountains, the middle hills rich in green valleys, rivers and lakes and the tropical grasslands of the Terai. In the high Himalayas, 3000m (c9840ft) and above, small farming communities still grow crops and raise livestock using the inherited knowledge of their ancestors who learned to deal with harsh weather conditions and high altitude. In the temperate climate of the high hills, 18002800m (c59009200ft), we grow cabbages, root vegetables and greens, while the sub-tropical middle hills, 10001800m (c32305900ft), have the perfect climate for citrus fruit, peaches, apples, tomatoes and aubergines (eggplants). Further south, in the tropical Terai you will find mangoes, papayas, bananas, passion fruit, avocados, sugar cane and endless rice paddies. Although some rice crops are cultivated on the plateaux, three quarters of Nepals rice production is in the Terai. The tropical and sub-tropical areas of Nepal rely on the summer monsoon to grow crops. But every year the start, length, and amount of rainfall during the monsoon is different and can have devastating effects on agriculture. This is one of the reasons why we rely on fermentation, to save the crops and extend our supplies throughout the long winters. Our most famous preserve, gundruk (see , by highlighting the health benefits of each ingredient.

My joy as a chef comes from playing with flavours and re-inventing traditional recipes without losing their essence. Take, for example, jimbu (see ), a wild garlic leaf that grows on the pastures of the Himalayan plateaus. It is mainly used as tempering, heated in hot oil, to drizzle over lentil stews. But jimbu can be used in many different ways; dehydrated and reduced to powder, it brings the flavour of a marinade to a whole new level and works particularly well with lamb.

Very little has been published on Nepali cuisine, yet Kathmandu hosts 48 culinary schools with an average of 600 students per school. I have lectured at these colleges and am proud to have inspired and encouraged a love of cooking in my students. I want this book to be a reference for them as well as a journey of discovery and inspiration for the home cook, through the Nepali provinces, from the far western states to its most eastern point, from its luscious lands and rivers to the arid high altitude crops.