Smita Deo (48), BSc (a major in textile manufacturing and designing) has been cooking since the tender age of 13. She has been blogging about food since 2014 and curating menus for food festivals in five-star hotels across India since 2016. She has an impressive 22.7 lakh followers on her YouTube channel, Get Curried and over 24k followers on Instagram...and the numbers are swelling!
How did your culinary journey begin? And who introduced you to blogging?
It was my mother, Kaki (aunt) and Amma (grandma) who introduced me to cooking at the age of 10 and I have never stopped since then. In 2013, while I was in the process of writing my first cookbook, Karwar to Kolhapur via Mumbai, I met Deepti Kasbekar. She became my close friend and eventually the editor of my book. She was the one who suggested that I write a food blog.
Cheryl Bhorania
Did you begin cooking for your passion or for building your brand name and eventually a source of income?
For me, my kitchen is a temple and cooking is like offering prayers. Cooking and feeding family, friends and acquaintances is therapeutic and gives me immense pleasure and satisfaction. I believe that food brings people together and writing about food connects you with people. Besides, what better way of life can there be, when, while doing your favourite thing in the world (in my case cooking), your brand gets built?
What is your culinary expertise?
I am a Goud Saraswat Brahmin and my hometown is Aversa a small, quaint village near Karwar in North Karnataka. I have known the Karwari cuisine since I was born and the cuisine of Kolhapur after my marriage, which is 25 years ago. So, I specialise in these two cuisines.
Does your blog/menu specialise in any kind of food?
Most of my blogs are about unique recipes and stories related to food from North Karanataka and Maharashtra. For the last two years, I have been blogging about breakfast ideas for most of my readers who are looking to cook some indigenous recipes from Maharashtra and Karnataka. Three years ago, I wrote a series of tiffin tales that spoke about simple everyday exciting nutritious meals that could be packed for kids and adults as well. Currently, I am working on the rare and lost recipes of Maharashtra, which I hope I manage to publish soon.
What is your audience base?
The response has been overwhelming from the onset... Age no bar. Curiously, I have a large audience in people who stay abroad including some of foreign descent.
What has been your most successful experiment?
For the last six years I have replaced non-stick cookware with clay pots and utensils made from cast iron and kansa in my kitchen. The use of mortar and pestle (sil batta) has changed the flavours of food too in my home. This has appealed to the audience in a big way.
Describe your writing process, from concept to publishing...
My recipes always tell their story, which are from the times I was a child or something that I have experienced recently. This instantly connects me with many. A detailed description always helps a lot. Sharing the recipe with no secret ingredients, simple steps for cooking, and finally an aesthetic visual presentation of your food, according to me is a perfect recipe for a good food blog.
Any memorable meal you organised?
If I had to think of one such meal it would be when I had a curated a traditional fare for a food festival at The Trident in BKC Mumbai. I was busy in the kitchen with my team. A guest who had ordered just about everything on the menu expressed a desire to meet the chef. Despite being anxious, I stood confidently and greeted him. He kept his spoon down and stood up with moist eyes and said that what I had cooked reminded him of his grandma and the flavours took him back to his childhood.
My happiness knew no boundaries. He was a person of Indian origin (Karnataka) who was living in The United States of America since he was a young adult and after many years had returned to his roots. For the next few days that he was in Mumbai he turned up for all the meals at the Trident and was requesting for dishes from Karnataka that was off the menu, and I gladly obliged. A memorable incident because I had managed to remind a person of his past and a loved one through food.
How do you attract new readers?
Food should have fragrance, visual appeal and taste. But when one writes about food the first thing to keep in mind is the visual to which attracts the reader immediately.
Mutton Gassi
Ingredients
1 kg mutton
Salt to taste
3 tbsp ghee
3 medium onions finely chopped
Paste 1
Sauté on a low flame with 1 tbsp ghee and grind to a make a fine paste of the following ingredients:
1 inch cinnamon stick
1 tbsp poppy seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
8 cloves
1 mace
1 tbsp stone flower
¼ tsp nutmeg
1 tsp black cumin seeds
1 star anise
2 bay leaves
10 black peppercorns
2 black cardamoms
15 dry red chillies
Paste 2
Sauté in 2 tbsp ghee and grind to a paste of the following ingredients:
2 medium onions sliced
½ fresh coconut grated
15 dry bedgi chillies
(or any medium spiced
dry chillies)
2 inch ginger
6-7 large cloves of garlic
Method
Heat ghee and add onions and fry it they turn brown. Add the mutton and sear it for 3-4 minutes. Add Paste 1 and fry till oil separates. Then add Paste 2 and sauté for 3-4 minutes more. Add a litre of water, salt to taste and cook till the mutton is done. Serve it hot with moist rice cooked in coconut milk.
(For more recipes and blogs, visit her website smitahegdedeo.com)
