I'm Preeti Mills a British born Indian, from Coventry, currently living in Nottingham.  I am BA (hons) qualified in Accountancy  and  worked as an Analyst Programmer for HSBC in Birmingham for 10 years. I moved to Nottingham in 2008 and became a mother to 2 beautiful girls. 

 

My parents are from the Gujarat region of India, located on the western coast of the Indian peninsula and shares borders with Pakistan and the state of Rajasthan to the North East. Gujaratis have a very strong vegetarian tradition and a distinctive cuisine, a cuisine that is generally mild tasting  and meals that come with subtle sweet tones and mildly hot with aromatic flavour and luxurious spices.  ‘Tempering’ is one of the techniques that enhances the taste of the food. This powerful technique not only enhances flavours but also extracts the nutritional and medicinal health benefits of the spices used.

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My school is all about cooking healthy Indian food, food that can be consumed daily, at a fraction of the price of a processed ready meal or takeaway and more nutritious. Healthier meals mean eliminating bad fats & oils, artificial ingredients, white rice , thick naans, controlling salt consumption by balancing alternative spice blends for a perfect season. Wholesome ingredients are the basis of these dishes   Replacing the white rice with brown rice or quinoa and carb packed naan breads with wholemeal thin chapattis. You could  treat yourself everyday with this guilt free food that tastes delicious.  All my dishes can be cooked at home in one pot, leaving less washing up,  though I strongly advise to keep extractor on full power as the tempering process can give off a pungent strong aroma which can seep into almost anything!  Most dishes take less than an hour to cook (with the exception of lamb dishes). If you plan to cook Indian dishes daily, majority of the dry ingredients are usually always in stock, you would only need to shop for the fresh ingredients.  To eliminate the stress of what to eat for an evening meal after work, you simply plan and organise meals 5 days ahead. To be fair the organising does not take long, its just a list of meals, fresh ingredients and when and where to buy. 

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My mum would cook Lamb on Wednesday, Fish on Friday and home-style authentic Chicken on Saturday (an Indian family's home style chicken, is the equivalent of the British roast dinner, which is one of my firm favourites, though the dishwasher is usually at its full capacity after a Sunday roast and it does exhaust me).  The days in between would be filled with either a fresh veg dish or pulse/daal base dishes, which were just as flavoursome. My Mums' hands were magical when she cooked, no measuring, no tasting throughout the cooking process but produced dishes that a takeaway or restaurant would struggle to match. 

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Mango Ginger is here to teach you how to cook this amazing cuisine and equip you with the basic Indian Cooking skills to master dishes to impress family and friends. These basic cooking skills can transform your evening meals and leave you feeling good.