I know that as Mamta's daughter most of you would assume that I'd naturally be able to recreate all my mum's delicious recipes and that I grew up cooking Indian food at her apron strings.
But I have to confess that while both my sister and I grew up learning to cook from both mum and school (which we enjoyed and did cook quite a bit) we never really learned any of her traditional Indian recipes! We cooked cakes, breads, recipes from the UK and all around the world, particularly Chinese, Italian, Greek, French... but not Indian!
That's how the website started actually. My sister and I asked mum to write down all our favourite family recipes because we really felt we should know them too and ensure that they were written down. Mum cooks by instinct and had none of them written down.
So she started out by writing them by hand on cards, each recipe written on two cards, one for each of us. And then one of my cousins who moved from India to Europe asked if he could have a copy too. And then mum's brother suggested putting them onto a website so all of the family could access them and contribute additional ones too.
Since Pete and I were already working in IT, including web design, mum asked us to create a site but we put her off and put her off. Eventually her brother created a site. I think he deliberately made it as ugly as possible (I'm sure he'll forgive me since I do adore him) so that the second Pete and I saw it we'd change our minds and offer to do a site after all! Well it worked and we created Mamta's Kitchen.
I remember at first how hard it was getting mum to write down her recipes with realistic quantities. She'd write down "a pinch" and I'd be standing next to her watching her throw in a tablespoon's worth! But she's a very fast learner, my mum and she quickly got into a new habit of accurately measuring and describing everything. Every now and then people still find little confusions or errors in early recipes and kindly let us know via the forums or email. But that doesn't happen much anymore!
Of course, we really never expected or intended for it to become a site that the public visited - it was created for the family. But fairly quickly we started getting visitors from all over the world! Numbers really went up when the BBC Web Guide staff hand picked it to be in their recommended websites listings. And these days we get 15,000 to 20,000 visitors a month.
Of course we've revamped the site a lot since it first launched and mum's added so much more content.
So... once in a blue moon I decide to cook some Indian food and resort to the site just like many of you here.
Today we're going to a friend's for dinner. We always go to her place - it's spacious, beautiful and well located for the various members of our little gang to get to but we felt we ought to take a turn in the cooking.
Pete and I did a lot of the cooking yesterday as it reheats so well.
We did:
Shahi Paneer 1 (which is so delicious I cannot tell you and btw the big Tesco in Watford currently stocks the exact spice mix recommended by the author of the recipe though they are apparently discontinuing it soon).
Aloo Matar (potatoes and peas curry which is a good basic curry with a nice tomatoey gravy)
I have fresh salmon marinading in the fridge which I'll cook, tandoori style, in a very hot oven, when I get to my friends house.
I also made green mango chutney (substituting an apple for the green mango) not because it goes with anything but because I adore it.
We'll also make a cucumber, red onion and mint raita later this afternoon and some fresh naan bread.
And I popped into a local Indian sweet mart to buy some rasmalai, freshly made jalebis (he let me taste one in the shop and it was still hot) and some ludos!
Oh YUMMY DAY!
Anyway I just wanted to share coz it was so exciting when everything came out so well! :o)
I'll tell you what Kavey, you tell the story well... obviously a talent for writing as well as everything else :-)
Sounds like you cooked up a storm as well.... just can't see any pictures ? :-)
Steve
Interesting to read Kavey's writings of 2006...... Keep up the good work. I am a diehard fan of Mamtas Kitchen. All the best for the coming year 2012.
I only came across it because someone had posted a SPAM on this thread and I was deleting that!