Women in Food of WNY presents:
Indian Cooking with Smita Chutke
Easy Indian Dinner Platter (Thali)
Join me (Missy) as your hostess for this next episode of Women in Food of WNY. In this Free Class with Smita Chutke, Owner of Smita’s Cookery in Buffalo, NY, she’ll teach us the beginnings of Indian home cooking using local, seasonal WNY ingredients!
Most people think of curry and hot spicy foods when they think of Indian cooking, however there is much more than that! Smita shares stories of learning to cook in India beside her grandmother and will reveal the wide range of flavors and styles of Indian food. As she says, “Spice is not the same as spicy.”
What I love about Smita’s approach to food is that she brings together the traditions and bold flavors of Indian cooking with her passion for seasonal, locally grown produce. She LOVES to visit local farms and create beautiful dishes with what’s fresh from the fields.
Smita will teach us to make an Indian Thali - a kind of platter meal made of multiple small dishes featuring different ingredients. If you’ve never had a Thali before, it is such a fun way to enjoy a meal mixing a bit of this and that flavor on your fork for each bite! As a cooking teacher, Smita loves to encourage her students to break free from a strict recipe and learn to play with what is in your pantry and refrigerator. This class will be no exception to that approach, empowering you to have fun in your kitchen!
Whether you cook along with us or just sit at the “table” and enjoy the conversation, I’m sure you’ll learn a few new things to add to your own culinary knowledge! In addition to learning with us during this live, play-along, how-to adventure in the kitchen with Smita, you will get a copy of the information to use over & over again.
About Smita Chutke: Julia child said "You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients" . My grandmother was just like her. She taught me the techniques of cooking when I was 13 that included buying fresh produce from the farmer's market, to how to cut, when to add spices and what utensil to choose for cooking. There were no written recipes because she said that once you know the techniques, you can be as creative as you want .
Cooking for me is an art. You have freedom to explore and experiment with variety of foods. I hardly remember following a recipe and using measurements. I grew up eating fusion of Marathi and South Indian cuisine as my family tree extends to these regions. My style of cooking is mostly based upon the flavors from these regions. On my cookery blog you can find all the food I cook, eat and share along with ingredients and cooking techniques without measurements.
About the Women in Food of WNY series: Being a solo Woman Farmer and Woman Entrepreneur I have always kept my eye out for fellow women in business with whom to connect (and commiserate). As i’ve established myself in the WNY area, I have loved meeting new chefs and farmers alike. However, one thing that I noticed was a serious lack in attention towards women Chefs and Farmers of the region, despite the fact that there are many of us. Here at Crown Hill Farm, we love to host Farm-to-Table dinners featuring local chefs preparing seasonal foods. From there, I saw a vision: A series of dinners highlighting the women chefs of WNY. Now, in 2020 with COVID keeping us all away from social gatherings in person, I had to get creative while hanging on to this vision of featuring women in food in WNY. And so, after many conversations with incredible women, this series was born! This is the first step to what I hope will be a Conference of WNY Women in Food. For now, let’s gather around our respective kitchens to chat, cook and learn together.