The Slow Fire Chef

- Season 5

(2022)

Head Chef Semanti presents a mouthwatering recipe by Junior Chef Amit, who cooks up a storm in the kitchen with his own version of the iconic Aloo Gosht. Succulent, tasteful, aromatic, spicy and bursting with rustic flavours. Meat with potatoes is a popular combination in India for curries and also for some kinds of biryanis. In West Bengal, they add potatoes to meat, chicken, fish curries and also to biryani. In North India, potatoes are often added to meat curries and mince meat curries.

Head Chef Semanti shares methodology she has developed over the years to plan her grocery shopping and fresh produce shopping, and then storing groceries and fresh produce for keeping them edible and fresh for long time. She also shares her experiences of shopping in small corner shops to big hypermarkets to online shopping portals like Amazon. She shares some useful tips for storing various kinds of groceries, foods, fresh food, vegetables, herbs, bread, oils and all kinds of fresh produce including how to store fish, meat and chicken.

Head Chef Semanti shares her favourite recipe from Bengali Vegetarian Cuisine made with ridge gourd cooked in poppy seeds paste and chillies and called Jhinge Posto. The sweetness of gourd, the rich strong flavour of poppy seeds and spicy bite from fresh green chillies all come together in this simple yet flavour vegetarian delight from Bengali cuisine.

Junior Chef Amit shares the recipe for cooking Bhetki fish in a spicy tomato sauce. Spicy, flavourful sauce with soft silky texture of the fish and richness of taste brought by the added butter. This recipe can be made with a variety of fish but in North India, they mostly make it with Bhetki or Surmai, using boneless fillets of fish. In coastal regions, a variation of recipe is made with sea fish.

Presenting our Eid Special Mutton recipes : three special mutton recipes in one episode. From Lucknowi Awadhi Shami Kebabs to Kashmiri Aab Gosht to Mughlai Mutton Nihari. Presented by head chef Semanti, this medley of recipes is an essential recipes video for Eid and any festival or a big weekend feast.

In the fourth Podcast, head chef does a deep dive into the culinary history and legacy of India. She speaks on legacy recipes, family recipes, history and origins of popular Indian cuisines, regional recipes, traditions and culture of food, food around religious festivals, food of various communities from tribal food to royal kitchens of India and also of food brought in by invaders like Mughals and Britishers. All of this is interspersed with personal anecdotes and stories from her life revolving around the subject of food legacy and the importance of preserving it.

Head Chef Semanti cooks up a delicious recipe for Arbi - Crispy fried Arbi , which can be had as a snack or a side dish with your main course. It is crispy, flavourful with chaat masala spice mix and spicy hot with when had with fresh chillies garnish. Colocasia hash browns are a more healthy and far more delicious option to potatoes hash browns.

Head Chef Semanti shares one of the most famous iconic Bengali fish curry recipes - Shorshe Bata Maach is fish cooked in a spicy thick mustard sauce. In this recipe, Semanti used Carp fish but one can make this recipe with a variety of fish like Ilish (Hilsa), Bhetki, Papda, Pomfret, Surmai, Rawas (Indian Salmon) and many others. Ideally, the mustard sauce is made by grinding fresh mustard at home to get a strong kick and flavour. This sauce tastes best when cooked with few fresh green chillies to add spicy undertones. Mustard fish curry is best served with hot ...

Head Chef Semanti shares some useful tips and easy ways to plan a party right from guest lists to themes to food to beverages and floor planning and music planning and everything else that goes into making and throwing a great party at home that can be memorable. Semanti also shares ways to de-stress yourself from the anxiety planning a party brings. This podcast also talks about budgeting a party and almost every aspect of party planning.

Head Chef Semanti shares a unique and really simple recipe with Okra. A recipe that comes from Gujarati Cuisine is called Bhindi Kadhi. It is a spicy flavourful dish which combines the crispy fried Okra with creamy curd and rustic gram flour, mixed with spices and chillies. Kadhi and variations of it are very popular.

During a holiday in Kodaikanal with friends, Head Chef learns an authentic Malabar Meat Pickle Recipe from her Malayali friend Bachi Antony, explores the curvy roads up in the clouds and has fun plucking Avocados in her friend Joe Antony's farm on top of a mountain. A beautiful travelogue with authentic recipe for delicious Malabar Meat Pickle.

In this Podcast, Head Chef Semanti shares how to plan your cooking and kitchen experience in order to avoid kitchen disasters and cooking bloopers. Semanti describes working in the kitchen being similar to a war zone where the cook has to battle challenges and dangers emanating from all the natural elements like fire, water, air, earth, space and other factors like electricity, infestations, distractions, deadlines, etc. One by one Semanti takes you through each of the factors and gives simple solutions, tips and hacks to deal with them in order to keep your kitchen ...

Junior Chef Amit shares a recipe from his ancestral legacy cuisine from Northern state of Uttar Pradesh - Mangodi ki sabji is yellow lentils fritters cooked in spicy tomato curry. It is best served with hot steaming rice. A popular recipe in North India and has many variations to it. One popular variation is to make it with Sun dried lentil fritters.

A simple easy recipe to cook favourite Asian food recipe from Chinese cuisine from Sichuan - Double Fried Pork or Twice cooked pork is first roasted and then fried with vegetables, garlic, chillies, soy or black bean sauce and vinegar. Delightful stir fry recipe is best served with steamed rice or hakka noodles.

In this Podcast, Head Chef Semanti explores the influences of various art forms like Cinema, books, paintings, music and even comics on recipes and food habits of people across the generations. She also talks about how food is depicted and used by various artists to establish a character or a scene. She also explores how food featured in movies, Tv shows and other popular art forms has for generations dictated our food choices and food trends.

A simple, healthy Mediterranean Greek Salad with sautéed eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, fried garlic and yogurt dressing drizzled with olive oil. This healthy and delicious recipe goes really well with roasts meat, sausages or simply just some sourdough bread. This salad is great to eat by itself or as a side dish or simply use it as a dip with your toasts.

Old footage discovered of Junior Chef cooking his own version of Chicken Pulao which is a cross between Lucknowi Awadhi Pulao and Hyderabadi Biryani. Spicy, flavourful and unique hybrid rice and chicken dinner dish. Fairly simple recipe for quick and easy dinner option.

Head Chef shares the recipe for making Arabian style sweet and spicy fresh dates preserve that includes nuts and raisins. This preserve goes really well with toasts, dal chawal or just by itself. It can also be used as a pickle or a Chutney and served with any meal.

Head Chef Semanti and Junior chef Amit banter as she cooks traditional Agartala style Bhetki fish head curry. This is a spicy fish curry recipe rich in proteins and flavour. Some say fish head is the most delicious part of the fish and head chef agrees. Recipes with fish head are popular in West Bengal, Goa, Konkan belt and North East Indian states in India and in other countries like Bangladesh, Singapore and many other coastal countries.

Head Chef Semanti shares some easy to do ideas to make cooking fun and kitchen an exciting place to work and prepare meals. Many times, cooking can become a chore, a boring mundane activity and hence it is necessary to constantly keep innovating with how you approach cooking and how you go about working in the kitchen. And if one can have fun while doing that and make some fun activities and games around cooking then even the entire family can be involved in it and it can take away the boredom from daily cooking.

Junior Chef Amit creates his own version of Italian Aglio e Olio from Neapolitan Cuisine, with Mushrooms and Spinach in a creamy cheesy sauce. Cooked in olive oil on slow fire, this pasta recipe is one of the finest Italian vegetarian recipes. Hearty, wholesome and healthy.

Junior Chef Amit shares a recipe of roast Leg of Goat meat, that took him 30 years to learn and takes 3 days to make. Also known as Sikandari Raan, this is traditionally cooked in clay oven known as Tandoor but as shown in this video, it can be cooked equally well in an electric oven at home. This recipe was originally made popular in India by top rated internationally renowned Restaurant called Bukhara situated in luxury hotel ITC Maurya Sheraton, New Delhi. Part of the frontier cuisine from the Mughal era of Indian history. The raan is cooked in various ways all ...

Junior Chef Amit and Head Chef Semanti banter as she cooks his recipe for a new version of Hakka noodles with Asparagus, Oyster mushrooms, mixed peppers, garlic and cooked in home made chilli oil sauce and oyster sauce. The same recipe for non-vegetarians can be made with stir fry chicken added to the vegetarian recipe. The Vegetarian recipe uses vegetarian oyster sauce.

With minimal ingredients and cooked simply, this spicy rustic recipe made with fresh water Bhetki is a delectable fish best served with hot steaming rice. Caramelised onions provide the main flavour along with spicy seasoning of hot Kashmiri red chilli powder.

Head Chef Semanti takes stock of various foods that are associated with the festivals during the Indian festive season starting from August and ending with first week of January. How each festival has a specific variety of food associated with it and how many of it can be made easily at home. She also shares some recipes and anecdotes of Indian festivals. A lot of the festival food has also featured in various episodes of The Slow Fire Chef.