Smashed at the Weekend #16: An interview with Camellia Panjabi
plus recipes from her new book
An interview with Camellia Panjabi
About Camellia Panjabi
A veteran of India’s hotel industry with the Taj Group, Camellia had huge career success in helping to create and develop some of the country’s key tourist destinations – including Udaipur, Jaipur, Goa and Kerala.
As a working director and member of the board of the Taj Group for more than 20 years, Camellia oversaw the company’s growth from one hotel in Bombay to more than 80 sites all over the world. She was also responsible for introducing a wide range of speciality restaurants within the properties, highlighting cuisines as diverse as regional Indian, Szechuan, Thai, Italian and Chinese. Additionally, on behalf of Taj, she set up the Bombay Brasserie in London in 1983, helping to transform the UK Indian restaurant scene.
Since 2001, Camellia collaborated with her sister, Namita Panjabi, and her brother-in-law, Ranjit Mathrani, on the MW Eat portfolio of restaurants in London, with her particular emphasis on Amaya, Chutney Mary and Veeraswamy. (MW Eat also owns four Masala Zone restaurants in London, including Masala Zone Piccadilly Circus, which launched in late 2023.)
Camellia was awarded an Honorary MBE in 2013 for services to the hospitality industry. Her first cookbook, The 50 Great Curries of India, first published in 1994, has sold more than 1.9 million copies in seven languages. In March 2023, she was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by CODE Hospitality. Along with her co-directors of MW Eat, Camellia was also awarded Restaurant Magazine’s R200 ‘People of the Year’ accolade in 2023. The Food Top 50 Restaurants Award 2023 event in India recognised Camellia’s exceptional culinary contribution to the industry. And in 2024, she received the International Institute of Hotel Management’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Delhi. Her second cookbook, Vegetables, The Indian Way has just been published by Penguin.
The interview
It’s been about 30 years since your last book 50 Great Curries of India was published. What prompted you to start another book?
I suddenly realised 20 years ago that vegetables, which occupy the most space on a plate, had not been given their due importance because their taste lacked oomph, and were the unimportant part when planning a meal. Restaurants also feature vegetables as “Side dishes” at the tail end of a menu. India is a very big country, and has the largest repertoire of vegetarian dishes in the world; the best of these needed to be spelt out and explained.
Although Vegetables The Indian Way is a cookbook with great recipes, there is much more to it. Was your aim to write the definitive book on the subject?
In a way, yes. When cooking with vegetables and making eating choices, I wanted the reader to have total awareness, so that those choices are well made. Until now, information about calories, fibre, vitamins and carbohydrate content has been found in different books, so decision making is not based on the overall picture. Very little information is available to the public on which vegetables to avoid in certain health situations, like kidney stones, or when people are on blood thinners, etc. My mother was a doctor, so from childhood she would mention to us the reason for her choices for our meals.
Indians are also very familiar with the acidic and alkaline nature of foods and, therefore, how to combine foods. This facet is not touched upon in food writing internationally, so I decided I would do my best to mention it, though there is very little information on this aspect. I was also keen to talk about cooking fats and how ghee, coconut oil and mustard oil are viewed in India compared to the rest of the world, and explain it as best I could.
There’s a fairly common belief that vegetarian diets do not give enough support to consumption of protein. Indians rely a lot on dairy protein in their meals - yoghurt and paneer. The lentils and rice combination at the same meal provides a complete protein. I wanted to share all this basic information.
The recipes in the book are drawn from all over India, but do you have a favourite region for vegetarian cuisine?
I am more familiar with some regions and have greater knowledge of them. I am a Sindhi by origin (Sindhi is now in Pakistan), so I am familiar with the region. I have spent a fair amount of time planning restaurants in Goa and Delhi, and I have some knowledge of South Indian and Lucknow, as I worked on restaurants there.
Since I have lived all my life in Bombay, I am most familiar with Gujarat and Maharashtra, the regions around the city. For example, there is a delicately flavoured vegetable pulao from Maharashtra called “Masala Baath” – baath means rice in the Maharashtra language. This dish is not found in any restaurant in the state, only in people’s homes during special occasions. I think it’s fabulous, so I’ve included it in the book.
Every region has fascinating veg dishes, and the variety of vegetables used varies between them. Vegetables like cluster beans (gowar) are eaten widely in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Andhra, but not widely in the rest of India. Turnips are eaten mostly in Punjab and Kashmir, while drumsticks (moringa) are eaten in Southern India, but not in North India.
You write a lot in the book about the health aspects of a vegetarian diet – did that become more important to you as you researched the book?
Yes. As I researched the subject, I was amazed at how knowledge exists, but has not been put together cogently.
The way that you’ve organised the book by grouping vegetables by the way they are grown is a novel idea and really helpful when composing a varied vegetarian meal. How did the idea occur to you?
Because I realised that nutrients differ based on how they grow. Root vegetables are richer in minerals; those that get full sunlight have different health benefits. For example, the phytonutrient lycopene is found largely in sun-kissed vegetables like tomatoes, red bell peppers and red cabbage, but also occasionally in non-sun-kissed vegetables like orange sweet potatoes and red carrots (not so much orange). Chlorophyll is found largely in leafy greens, and they are all exposed to sunlight and natural light. Root vegetables don’t have them, though their greens might.
If someone was cooking vegetarian Indian food for the first time, what recipe (or recipes) from Vegetables The Indian Way would you recommend they start with?
Actually, it doesn’t matter, but I would suggest starting with the vegetables you use more frequently in your normal diet and trying them in the Indian way.
What are some of the essential spices a home cook should have in their cupboards if they want to cook great Indian food?
Ground coriander, cumin powder, turmeric, red chilli powder, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, and a collection of cardamom, cloves and black pepper seeds.
Is there one recipe in the book that is your absolute favourite?
Oh too many, but Bengali dum aloo (potatoes), crispy corn, and Masala Bhaath.
In writing the book, did you discover any ingredients you were previously unfamiliar with, or find any ingredients that were more versatile than you’d previously thought?
I realised that cooking in mustard oil was considered very important by North Indians for taste as well as health reasons. And this oil, though used by millions in North & East India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan but is banned for culinary use in U.K, USA and Europe.
Have any of the dishes in the book ended up on your restaurant menus?
Oh many – spinach saag, jackfruit pulao, some daals. In fact, in September and October, we are running a tasting menu drawn from the book at Chutney Mary, and some special items in Veeraswamy and Amaya.
In the book, you write about the evolution of the restaurant scene in India, which you’ve been closely involved with. Do you think the emergence of a vibrant dining scene over the last 50 years or so has affected home cooking in India?
Indian cuisine at home varies across the whole of India. It is like Europe, in a Greek home, the menu would be different from, say, a Dutch one. However, certain universal restaurant favourites like paneer dishes, black daal, veg biryani and others are commonly now cooked in homes.
Chutney Mary celebrates 35 years this year, which is an amazing achievement. How has the restaurant changed over the years? How do you keep it relevant in London’s dynamic and ever-changing restaurant scene?
We keep ourselves very aware of how preferences are changing and what is going on in India. We send our chefs to eat out when they go home to India for holidays. We have new young chefs joining the team from time to time. And the main thing is we advise the chefs to be bold in their new offering suggestions and be ready to make continuous changes, even to the popular dishes. We keep ourselves committed to continuously pushing the boundaries.
What are your favourite dishes to eat in your restaurants?
In Veeraswamy, I usually order the Mulligatawny soup (I think it’s the best version I have ever tasted), and the Raj Kachori – the King of street food. In Chutney Mary, it would be Tokri Chaat and Golden Fried Prawns. In Amaya, I can’t resist the Tandoor Broccoli and Bhojpuri potatoes.
But I guess in each of our restaurants, there are dishes we have had to keep on the menu for decades, as people regularly come back and we sell a lot of these. In Veeraswamy, the Hyderabadi Biryani has been on the menu since 1926, although I think the version we have had on the menu since 2000 is much the best version of it that I have tasted.
When I eat in our restaurants, I like to taste the newest additions to the menu too. In Amaya, we have introduced a Tandoor Duck leg, which I like a lot. It was invented recently, and I have never tasted anything like it before.
Recipes from Vegetables The Indian Way by Camellia Panjabi
Stir-Fried Peppers with Paneer
Kadai mirch paneer
This is a popular dish in hotel buffets in India, and many would like to create a similar dish at home. It’s like a jalfrezi. If you are vegan you could use tofu instead of paneer.
Green and red peppers have slightly different nutrient properties and they look attractive when combined. But of course you can use just the green ones if you like.
150g paneer, store-bought
6 tablespoons oil of your choice
300–350g peppers, a mix of red and green
1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1½ tablespoons chopped garlic
1 heaped tablespoon chopped ginger
2 green chillies, chopped
1 large onion, sliced
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon garam masala
2 pureed tomatoes, pureed
½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons lime juice
coriander leaves, for garnish
Slice the paneer into batons, about 1cm thick. (If the paneer you buy is firm, you can soak it for a couple of minutes in a little water before using.) Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a deep pan and fry the paneer for about 2 minutes, until crispy brown on the outside. Set aside, but keep the pan as you will need it again.
Cut the peppers into similar-size batons to the paneer. In the same pan in which you fried the paneer, fry the pepper batons for 2 minutes, then remove and set aside.
On a griddle or in the same pan, without additional oil, roast the peppercorns and coriander seeds for 2 minutes. Remove, and when cooled pound to a very coarse powder. Set aside.
Add 3 tablespoons of oil to the pan, and when it’s hot add the cumin seeds, garlic, ginger and green chillies. After a full minute, add the onions and sauté for about 5–6 minutes on a medium to high heat. Add the turmeric, red chilli, coriander and garam masala – and continue to sauté for 2 minutes, then add the puréed tomatoes. (The reason the tomatoes need to be puréed or even grated is so that they will coat the paneer properly.) Add the sugar and salt and stir.
Add 60ml of water and stir well. Cook for a further 5 minutes, then add the paneer and 2 teaspoons of the coarsely ground spice mix. Add the sautéed peppers, stirring gently so that the paneer doesn’t break.
Let it cook on a low heat for 3–4 minutes. Add the lime juice and coriander leaves and stir. Taste for seasoning and serve.
KERALA VEGETABLE STEW
White stew is a popular mild dish among the Syrian Christian community in Kerala, the most common version being white chicken stew. But this vegetable stew tastes fabulous too. Folklore says it originated with the advent of Irish missionaries, who tried to re-create Irish stew using coconut milk. Whatever the origin, we are grateful for the evolution of this dish.
In Kerala, this is often eaten at breakfast with appams – rice pancakes – or string hoppers. But it works well as a meal, served with rice. A white stew with brown, black or yellow rice (boiled with turmeric) looks lovely. If using black rice, soak overnight and cook over a low flame.
3 tablespoons oil of your choice
2 cassia leaves or bay leaves
5cm cinnamon
10 green cardamoms
10 cloves
10 peppercorns
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
½ an onion, sliced
1 teaspoon shredded ginger
2 green chillies, each split in half lengthways
10–12 curry leaves
3 cloves of garlic
350g diced mixed vegetables (carrots, potatoes, beans, cauliflower florets, peas)
250ml coconut milk (dilute tinned coconut with water) or 40g Maggi coconut milk powder combined with 2 teaspoons flour and 250ml water
1 teaspoon salt
a few fried cashew nuts, for garnish
Heat the oil in a deep pan and add the cassia leaves and whole spices. Sauté for 30 seconds, then add the sliced onions, ginger, chillies, curry leaves and garlic and sauté for 2 minutes on a medium heat.
Add the vegetables and sauté for 3–4 minutes, then add the coconut milk and salt, and cook until the vegetables are tender and done to your liking.
When serving, sprinkle with fried cashew nuts.
BUTTERY TEXTURED MUNG DAL
Makhmi dal
This is the dal my mother put on the table at home when we were eating a dry vegetable such as fried okra – or gowar beans or simply fried aubergine slices or similar – along with chapatti, and there was always chutney and pickle. Simple home-style lunch. But also a great hit at dinner party buffet tables, as it is a tasty dal that doesn’t run into other dishes on a plate.
This is a really unctuous dal, with the consistency of creamed porridge. It looks like thick whipped butter – hence the name. It is enhanced in taste and appeal by the traditional Sindhi custom of sprinkling dried spice powders on the dal in the serving dish and then pouring really hot ghee or oil over it, which diffuses the spice oils into the dish.
240g yellow mung dal, soaked for 4 hours or more, even overnight
1 tomato, chopped
2.5cm piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
1 green chilli
¼ tablespoon ground turmeric
1 sprig of curry leaves, with stalk
1¼ teaspoon salt
For the garnish
8 tiny tomatoes, halved (optional)
3 tablespoons oil or ghee a little salt and pepper
¼ teaspoon red chilli powder, or paprika
½ teaspoon roasted ground cumin
¼ teaspoon ground coriander
¹/₈ teaspoon ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon amchoor (dried mango powder)
¹/₈ teaspoon salt
Bring 1 litre of water to the boil in a pan and add the dal. Put the tomato, ginger, green chilli and turmeric into the small bowl of a processor and whiz to a purée, adding a little water. When the dal has been cooking for 10 minutes, add the purée and the curry leaf sprig. Let the dal simmer until completely mashed (about 1½ hours), then remove the curry leaf sprig.
Add the salt, and taste for seasoning. If the dal is not completely smooth, use an egg whisk or a stick blender to achieve a creamy consistency.
If garnishing with tiny tomatoes, halve them and sauté them in a small pan with 1 tablespoon of oil or ghee for a few minutes, then sprinkle with a little salt and pepper and set aside.
Before serving, heat the dal until it’s very hot, then spoon it into a wide, shallow serving dish. Sprinkle over all the ground spices, one by one, and salt. Then heat 2 tablespoons of ghee in a ladle until very hot, and carefully pour it over the spices which you have sprinkled over, to infuse their flavour in the dal.
If using the sautéed tomatoes, scatter them over the dal when serving. This adds colour to the yellow dal and tastes nice too.
Recipes extracted from:
Vegetables The Indian Way by Camellia Panjabi
£40, Penguin Michael Joseph
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50 Great Curries of India is such a special book - so much WHY as well as how.
Looks like a fine solid work, this book. Honestly, the fine dine restaurant recipes are not traditional and authentic. I hope some intrepid food writer visits homes in small towns and villages in the large country, as also street food famed cities. Then compiles a thousand vegetarian dishes. That will be more authentic. For example, eat Pani puri on the street side near your home and in an high end restaurent. You will know the difference.