I can't quite believe it, but after months of work with our friends at Granel Gourmet, this week we launched a spice kit to accompany my Indian Cookbook. I could not be more proud and to see "Olly's Kitchen" on a range of spices to make it even easier for people to make Indian food at home. This has been possible largely due to the efforts of our good friend Veronica who has been instrumental in making this happen.
As a first market, we have launched the spice kits with the Spanish edition of the book in Colombia, a country that has now become very close to our hearts. We want to see how customers react to the products, learn from the experience and make the spice kits available around the world so that we can make Indian cooking more accessible to those that have not yet tried it. For those of you in the UK and the US, I would love to get your feedback on where and how you currently buy your spices. Do you buy online? In supermarkets? Indian stores? It's great intel for me, so I would appreciate it greatly if you could shoot me a quick message or reply to this post and it will give me some clues as to how I may be able to help you further with your Indian cooking journey in the future.
The idea for the spice kits came about as we tried to tackle the question of "What is stopping people from cooking Indian food at home?" We're trying to bust the myth that it's in any way difficult or time consuming and introduce delicious Indian food into the meal times of new audiences. I'm certainly interested to know what issues you have run into whilst trying out the recipes, we're always trying to find ways to make it easier for our friends to create these dishes at home.
Whilst launching the spice kits has been a phenomenal experience, on a more personal note, my proudest achievement this month has been becoming a grandfather again! Welcome to the family little one, Dadu loves you!
All the best,
Olly
PS, para nuestros amigos Colombianos, estamos muy orgullosos de anunciar el lanzamiento del nuevo spice kit de Olly's Kitchen producido por Granel. Lo pueden encontrar en el negocio de Granel Gourmet localizado en la Carrera 4A # 66-14, Bogota, Colombia. Un regalo perfecto para el Día del padre en Colombia este domingo ;)
A new year, a new cover for my book!
Indian cooking for beginners
If it's not too late to say so, happy new year my friends!
I hope you had a chance to practice your Indian cooking over the holidays and have dazzled everybody with your skills in the kitchen. Myself, I had my family visiting from the US so I had my grand kids running around the house to keep me occupied - lots of Ninjago and bracelet making!
With the new year, I wanted to address some feedback I had received from you all and have repackaged Olly's Kitchen with a new cover and tag line for the book: "Indian Cooking for Beginners". I have tried to bring some of the photos by our wonderful photographer (the uber talented Alex Mejia) onto the cover and hope this will help new audiences understand more quickly what this book is about.
The new versions are available on Amazon as of this week - I would love to get your thoughts on the new cover, so please do shoot me a mail, I read every response and try to address any questions you may have regarding the recipes or Indian cooking in general.
Those of you who have been on the mailing list since our humble beginnings are no doubt ready for some new recipes - be rest assured this year we have some exciting developments to help you impress your friends and family with your cooking talent.
All the best,
Olly
Learn how to make Ghee in less than 60 seconds
Greased Lightning.
A number of you have written to me saying that you either had trouble locating the ingredient GHEE in your supermarkets or have found that it is incredibly expensive. GHEE is melted, clarified butter, where the natural sugars are caramelized to give a characteristic taste.
It is actually very easy to prepare at home and I wanted to share the recipe with you in the form of a 60 second recipe video to help you put even more flavour in your Indian dishes. If you have not yet subscribed to my Youtube channel, you can do so here.
You can see how to make Ghee in the video below, but here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 kg of unsalted butter (I use 4 slabs of 250 grams)
Preparation time: 2 minutes
Cooking time: 35-40 minutes
Instructions:
1. Take the slabs of unsalted butter and melt them in a pan over a very low heat. This takes 35 – 40 minutes, and it depends on the quality of butter and the water content. When golden brown particles appear on the surface, the ghee is done.
2. Allow the ghee to cool down naturally and while the liquid is still warm, filter it through muslin or any other clean cloth and a strainer into a strong container (preferably glass or stainless steel).
Ghee does not need to be stored in a refrigerator, but no problem if you wish to do so.
Enjoy the video!
Olly
The "Pensiopreneur"
Yesterday, I coined a new term - the "Pensiopreneur"
I am sure I am not the only one, you stop working and you stop and think, surely there is more to life than just tending to the garden?
Creativity doesn't stop just because you get older. If the experience of writing this Indian Cookbook has taught me anything, it's that you are never too old to learn something new.
I built a career working within a company and whilst I had the responsibility for designing flavors for global brands and International companies, I had never experienced building a business from scratch and going on my own "entrepreneurial" journey.
One thing you learn in this journey is the critical importance of identifying the customer problem. We don't always start from there with personal projects, but my research (and that of many much wiser than me) show that you have a clearly identified problem and offer a solution to that problem, you have a good chance of success.
So what is the problem I am solving? Good question! The book was written primarily as a family heirloom if you will, to pass on to my children and grandchildren for when I am not here (which one day will be the case, 2 things you can be certain of in this life are death and taxes as they say!).
To answer the question of the customer problem, I would start with who this book has been written for, starting with my boys and people like them.
They have grown up in the UK and whilst we always encouraged Indian culture and spoke Bengali at home, they are by all accounts British (one of my daughter in laws often jokes about that, claiming that my son marketed his "Indianness" whilst he was courting her but she soon caught him out when she got him to the kitchen!).
This book offers my boys and countless others like them to have a link back to the food from their parent's country of origin and to some of the tastes and smells from Mother India.
The book was also written for my friends for whom I cooked for on many occasions over the years. And whilst this may seem like limiting my audience, this includes new friends (you!) for which I hope there is never a finite number. The people who have enjoyed my food over the years have been primarily Westerners who have an insatiable curiosity for new cultures. Who are willing to try new things and willing to find out what is beautiful about far away places. Those friends often shared their own wonderful cultures with me and I feel we all benefited from those exchanges. I thank those friends and colleagues with whom I shared a beer over lunch, you will never know how accepted you made me all feel. This book is for you and presented in a way that should make it easy for you to produce .
An extension of those friends are the people who I have met later in life. I traveled extensively with my work and I was fascinated by the continent of South America. The people, the music, the language, the food, the warmth. It must have rubbed off as my eldest son ended up marrying a Colombian and my grand kids now have an even richer cultural heritage of which I am very proud. We have been embraced by our Colombian family and again the curiosity into new cultures has allowed us to learn more about each others backgrounds and traditions. That is where the Spanish version of the book came from.
At a time when there are those that look to create barriers between people of different cultures, I hope this book serves as a reminder that beautiful friendships have been made when we open our hearts to new possibilities.
So back to the question of the problem, what are the common challenges faced by all those groups of people that I have mentioned here? I believe the perception has been created that Indian cooking is difficult. With my book I have tried to create very simple instructions and have stayed true to the ingredients that an every day Indian family uses when preparing meals at home. The problem I solve is thus making the often convoluted process of Indian cooking, simple through clear instructions and realistic photographs that give you a vision of the dishes that you will produce by following the recipes.
I do feel some of the real magic of Indian food and indirectly culture is in the beauty of it's simplicity. That is why, contrary to other cookbooks, we have chosen to use a white background for all of our photos in the book. We don't want you to be distracted by bright colors or ornaments or anything else that might put you off starting your journey with Indian cuisine. It is just about the food. What I want you to experience, is the moment that you have with your friends and family when you prepare meals from my book.
Keep cooking, share your #ollyskitchen moments on instagram and show us how you are getting on with your journey into Indian cuisine!
Olly.
Win a copy of my cookbook: #OLLYSCHICKENTIKKA Competition
We are launching a competition exclusively for our followers on Facebook and Instagram to celebrate the launch of Olly's Kitchen as a paperback book! For the next month, each week on Wednesday, Olly will select ONE lucky winner to receive a FREE copy of the new paperback version of his book.
To enter, all you have to do is
1. Follow Olly's Kitchen on Facebook or Instagram
2. Share your BEST photos of your Chicken Tikka dishes
3. Tag your photos with Olly's Kitchen on Facebook or Instagram and use the hashtag #OllysChickenTikka
We have produced A video of Olly's BEST Chicken Tikka recipe below to get you started!
SIGN UP TO OUR MAILING LIST TO GET THE RECIPE FOR FREE.
Easy to follow Indian recipes
I can honestly say that writing the book with my son, Avik, was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Whilst he always enjoyed Indian food, he had never shown that much of an interest in cooking until we started the project. He tested every single recipe and prepared all of the dishes that appear in the photographs of the book. Here is a short video, where Avik explains how easy it was to follow the recipes and the delight he got from preparing great Indian food at home.
/AKR