Kitchen Cupboards #10: Chetna Makan
The 7 x cookbook author on feeding her family - and her 291K YouTube subscribers - a decade after she first stepped into the famous GBBO tent.
Welcome to Kitchen Cupboards, an ingredient column where, rather than exploring some of my favourite ingredients, I’m taking a peek into some of my favourite food writer, creators and producers kitchen cupboards to talk about which ingredients shape their everyday cooking.
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It’s been ten years since Jabalpur-born fashion designer Chetna Makan walked into the big, white and exceptionally famous Great British Bake Off tent to go on and become first, one of Season 5’s semi-finalists, and then one of Britain’s most popular and prolific cookbook authors and YouTubers on her channel Food with Chetna.
Sitting down in her Broadstairs kitchen earlier this month for a gossip over coffee and herbal teas about our jobs (working from home as a recipe developer and food content creator is a strange yet rewarding existence, even though the pandemic and changing working patterns has gone some way towards normalising it) one thing that struck me about being in Chetna’s space was how accessable everything was: like most of my colleagues I know I have a habit of getting obsessed with niche ingredients and shopping online at places that are not accessable to all, but looking through the spice drawers of one of Britain’s leading voices in Indian home cooking it was really refreshing and reassuring to see them lined with supermarket spices, just the same as any of us would add to our baskets during the weekly shop — indeed, it took me a while to get my head around her revelation that she does not routinely shop for ingredients online.
What baffled me even more was her lack of freezer space, and her revelation that she barely uses it as part of her recipe development, cooking and eating routine. But again, taking a long hard look at my own practices, deep down I know that it’s Chetna’s kitchen which reflects the way most people in this country shop and eat, not mine. Most people don’t have two overflowing freezers, wishing for a third (though I would prioritise getting a second dishwasher first: again, not normal!)
I know from experience making them that Chetna’s recipes work: they’re easy to follow, creative, authentic and most importantly delicious, but driving home after our interview I could not help but reflect that perhaps some of her amazing success is how connected she’s managed to stay with her subscribers, creating recipes that work with their lives, habits and budgets in a way I think a lot of us in the business too easily lose sight of.
Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Before we start talking about food, tell me about your kitchen - last time I was here (for the launch of Chetna’s Easy Baking) everyone was talking about how your redesign a couple of years ago has really transformed the space - obviously you had to keep in mind that you film in here for your YouTube channel, but are there any other functional features the space never used to have that make cooking in here so much easier?
The kitchen layout I kept the same as before, I just changed the kitchen. We literally took the old kitchen out, and put the new kitchen in. I had the oven, the microwave and the hob, it was gas before as well. So I just increased the hob numbers. The thing that wasn’t there is my boiling water tap. I got rid of the kettle, and that was suggested by the kitchen fitter. I said to him that’s ridiculous you know, what’s wrong with a kettle, and I am a changed person because, obviously, you get tea in a second, and I don’t drink too much tea, but it’s so good for cooking. So when you’re making pasta, you’re making rice, you have to add hot water to dhal, or to sauce, or to gravy, or to anything it’s instant and that is something if I ever move or would do a new kitchen I would want that.
The other thing was my spice drawers. So my spices were just in a cupboard in jars, but I couldn’t see the ones at the back, and every time I had to find something, it was just how everybody’s is usually, but now I have spice drawers which is just amazing!
Tell me about your food shopping week. Do you have any favourite small shops or markets you like (online or offline), or do you find it easier to feed your family and to produce new recipes every week to rely on big supermarket shops?
So getting ingredients is actually quite easy. So I used to shop at my local farm shop, which closed down to the public which was quite annoying, but now I’ve overcome it, like the sadness of it, now I’m fine. If I am recipe developing because I do everyday food, because I don’t do anything like writing only about cookies and cakes, what I’m recipe testing is usually what I eat. We eat as a family so there isn’t like two groups of ingredients that I have to buy, and I just go once a week. I have my list. I’m very particular with my list. I never go into a supermarket without a list because you’re so lost and I can guarantee if you go without a list you’ll come out without the actual ingredient you need, which has happened to all of us. So a list is very important.
Once a week I get my fish from a local shop here who supplies to restaurants, it’s the only fish shop that supplies to all the restaurants. I’ve got a butcher just around the corner that I get all of my chicken from and he prepares it how I want it so if I want it de-boned, non skin, anything he gives it. So that’s it, I don’t do online shopping. I can’t do online shopping. I need to see things.
Even for individual ingredients or things you’re seeking?
No. There is an Indian shop in Margate so I just drive there once a month and then I get my Indian ingredients from there. That’s it, no online shopping for me.
I wouldn’t survive without Ocado1. I don’t know how you do it!
It’s just not for me!
How do you decide what to make for dinner? Do you plan in advance or is it very much dependent on leftovers from work, and your work schedule? I remember you talking on the Desert Island Dishes Podcast about how your mother cooked when you were growing up, how it was all impacted by the street seller who came and by what he had every day.
So there is no feeding myself and everyone else, there is only feeding ‘us’. So there is only four of us in the house, we eat all the same thing. I always start the week, it’s very easy, on Monday it’s always dhal. That’s just how it is because weekends we all have things here and there and whatever, so starting the week with dhal, then we move on so like today I went to the Indian shop last week so I bought a couple of Indian vegetables like okra and there is another Indian vegetable so I’m thinking I’ll film that for YouTube this afternoon because I need to film something for next week, so I’ll film that and that’s what we’ll have for dinner. If I’m filming something for YouTube we’ll just eat it, but sometimes you know I know we’ve had Indian for three, four days so I need to change it up I’ll make a quick noodles because the kids love noodles, or I’ll make some fried rice, and I always have gyozas in the freezer, or I’ll make some pasta. So I don’t have a pattern. This is my pattern, and then weekends I’ll try and make something which takes a bit of time and we can enjoy it together. So I don’t make roast dinners very often but it could be roast dinner, it could be a big Indian feast, or something that’s deep fried and a bit, you know.
Something a bit special?
Yes, something a bit special. So weekends I try, I don’t do that for both the days, but either Saturday or Sunday I try and make something special so it feels like it’s a weekend.
You focus predominantly on Indian flavours, but what are the ingredients you’re most likely to reach for when you want to cook something else? You mentioned quite a few flavours like Chinese, and Japanese?