Nisha Katona - 30 Minute Mowgli: Fast Easy Indian from the Mowgli Home Kitchen

For my Mini and Beany, who have always Stood at the crossroads and looked; asked for the ancient paths; asked where the good way was and walked in it.

30 Minute Mowgli

Nisha Katona

First published in the UK and USA in 2021 by

Nourish, an imprint of Watkins Media Limited

Unit 11, Shepperton House, 8393 Shepperton Road

London N1 3DF

Copyright Watkins Media Limited 2021

Text copyright Nisha Katona 2021

Artwork copyright Watkins Media Limited 2021

Food photography copyright Yuki Sugiura 2021

Potrait photography copyright Peter Goodbody 2021

Except for , which are copyright

Nisha Katona 2021

The right of Nisha Katona to be identified as the Author of this text has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Publisher: Fiona Robertson

Project Editor: Daniel Hurst

Editorial Assistant: Brittany Willis

Head of Design: Glen Wilkins

Production: Uzma Taj

Commissioned photography: Yuki Sugiura

(food) and Peter Goodbody (portraits)

Food Stylist: Claire Bassano

Art Director and Prop Stylist: Rachel Vere

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-84899-400-3 (Hardback)

ISBN: 978-1-84899-404-1 (eBook)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Typeset in Futura and Minion Pro

Colour reproduction by XY Digital

Printed in China

Publishers note

While every care has been taken in compiling the recipes for this book, Watkins Media Limited, or any other persons who have been involved in working on this publication, cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, inadvertent or not, that may be found in the recipes or text, nor for any problems that may arise as a result of preparing one of these recipes. If you are pregnant or breastfeeding or have any special dietary requirements or medical conditions, it is advisable to consult a medical professional before following any of the recipes contained in this book.

Notes on the recipes

Unless otherwise stated:

Use medium fruit and vegetables

Use medium (US large) organic or free-range eggs

Use fresh herbs, spices and chillies

Use granulated sugar (Americans can use ordinary granulated sugar when caster sugar is specified)

Do not mix metric, imperial and US cup measurements:

1 tsp = 5ml 1 tbsp = 15ml 1 cup = 240ml

nourishbooks.com

Contents

Welcome

W hen you pare back all the trappings of a busy life, its good to be left with one passion that will see you through your twilight days. For me, that passion is cooking. And I dont mean elaborate or complicated cooking. In my two careers, firstly as a full-time barrister for over twenty years and then as an entrepreneur and restauranteur, there has never been much time at the end of the day to spend hours cooking up elaborate feasts in the kitchen. I get home, tired from the days exertions, kick off my shoes and am faced with a household of hungry, expectant faces.

At these times, the act of pulling ingredients together into a meal that my family can sit and share together, comparing our battle scars from the day, is a reset between work and home life and an opportunity for some much-needed solitude and reflection as I stir a pot or gaze into the oven. These meals need to be quick and easy, otherwise the calming, restorative effects of cooking can quickly slip into resentment. On days like these, I am willing to wait 30 minutes for the alchemy of cooking to transform my hodgepodge of ingredients into something comforting and delicious, but no longer. And it is this way of cooking that forms the basis of this book.

My home kitchen is the genesis of all food that is served at the Mowgli restaurants, and though you will not find the long-simmered curries or slow-roasted meats that adorn Mowglis menu within these pages, these recipes are what I actually cook at home on a daily basis; a distillation of the food that is served every day at Mowgli. Regardless of whether you are a guest in my home or are visiting one of my restaurants, the tenets of my food philosophy remain the same, and bold, vibrant flavour is at the heart of my cooking.

This is the type of cooking that I learnt growing up, both at home in Skelmersdale and on family trips back to visit our family in India, where, because of a lack of refrigeration combined with searing temperatures, ingredients had short shelf lives and, as such, would travel from market, to home, to pot in a matter of hours. Meals were planned, food was bought, food was cooked. There was no option or opportunity for waste.

Though times have changed and I could never live without the cool, sustaining power of my refrigerator now, I have the same attitude to waste and have tried to instil it in my own children. As such, this is not just a book about speed and simplicity. Its also about how to avoid waste and improvise with the things that lurk at the back and the bottom of your fridge. I have a particular passion for conjuring up a table full of food from all that is geriatric, shrivelled, dried and dormant in the kitchen. Where others may gaze forlornly at the past-their-best carrots or a few stalks of limp celery and lament that there is nothing to eat, I see only potential. A lack of choice is often the mother of invention, and pairing those sad-looking ingredients with spice, heat and perhaps a supplementary can or two from the back of your cupboard will transform them into something truly delicious. I come from a line of culinary wombles. We pride ourselves on using the things that people leave behind.

30 Minute Mowgli is the way that I cook every day. But rather beautifully, its also the way that my ancestors my grandmother and great-grandmother cooked, with their small coal-fired stoves on their dusky Varanasi verandas. I hope, with this book, to bring you those big, instant flavours forged in the crucible of all that was humble and simple in the kitchens of my childhood.

Nisha Katona

INTRODUCTION

About This Book

W hen planning this book, I knew that I wanted these recipes to be true 30-minute wonders that could be on the table within half an hour of first reaching for a chopping board or putting a pan on the stove. I also knew that I wasnt willing to sacrifice on flavour in my quest for speed, and so quickly adopted the mantra of big, instant flavour when planning the recipes. If anything didnt succeed on both the time and flavour promises, then it didnt make it into the book. The third thing I knew was that I was opening myself up to criticism if people couldnt achieve the recipes within the 30-minute time frame. This is something that I have less control over, but all of the recipes have been tested my both myself and others, and I am very confident that they can be done. If anything does push the time frame for you the first time, then give it another go, and I hope youll find that speed and familiarity go hand in hand.