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‘I cut no corners at Curry Singh Kitchens’

Asian Lite’s FnB columnist Riccha Grrover in conversation with Chef Reetika Gill on her art of cooking authentic Punjabi cuisine

Chef Reetika Gill is the owner-chef of Curry Singh Kitchens-with a professional chef degree from New Zealand under her belt. She continues to explore and grow as a chef with her initiatives in promotion of sustainable food, heritage recipes, local and seasonal produce.

Chef Reetika Gill with father Manjit Singh Gill

Reetika says she “cuts no corner at Curry Singh Kitchens” – her food is entirely free of cream and nuts, and she only uses the traditional ghee and mustard oil for her dishes. The result is flavourful crowd-favourites like Dhein chicken (a chicken preparation with yoghurt) and Makhani dal.

Inheriting the legacy of Indian cooking from her father – the iconic Chef Manjit Singh Gill – has given her a keen understanding of food. Her style of cooking can be described best as ethnic style Punjabi dishes made tasty with understanding through mentoring.

In her efforts to make the world a better place, Chef Reetika endorses and supports humanitarian initiatives like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of #Zero Hunger where she is a signatory and promoter of the Chef Manifesto. Her kitchen from day one has been a zero waste kitchen.

Soya-Chaap

RICCHA GRROVER- Tell us about your brand Curry Singh Kitchens- what cuisine do you specialise in cooking and what part of India does your food take its inspiration from?

REETIKA GILL-Growing up in a family surrounded by enchanting taste and aromas, even as a young girl, I had envisaged opening my own restaurant someday. I drew inspiration from my father Chef Manjit Singh Gill, and my mother Sally Gill, who had a four-year-stint of running a takeaway joint with a small number of traditional dishes in the menu.

On my own culinary journey as an entrepreneur, I was clear about two things – that I would cook only what I loved and also would share the Indian food philosophy with the world. The result was Curry Singh Kitchens, a small restaurant with a selective menu based entirely on my time tested family recipes. In my endeavour to introduce diners to the little-known elements of Punjabi Cuisine, I ensure quality, consistency and a timely delivery while providing a fine taste in food served with warmth to my diners.

Taking old domestic favourites like tindas (apple squash), karelas (bitter gourd) and methi (fenugreek), I have strived to turn them into restaurant-worthy experiences.

I cut no corners at Curry Singh Kitchens – my food is entirely free of cream and Nuts. I specialise in Traditional Punjabi Food. My inspiration is from Punjabi Food and Indian Food Philosophy.

RG-Did you always want to be a chef or dabble into it as an extension of a hobby? Where did you train to be a professional chef?

ReG- I was always fond of cooking but I did do my professional training to be a chef from New Zealand in 2013 as I always wanted to be professionally qualified. I believe that you should dream every day as those who dream convert them into thoughts and thoughts are powerful enough to spur one into action sometime.

I had always dreamt and imagined that one day I would be starting a venture of my own. The dream was there and the vision was in place. I reached rather reluctantly to my family and was pleasantly surprised at the quantum of encouragement that came my way and I decided to create this brand called Curry Singh Kitchens as a testimonial and tribute to our family’s culinary heritage and thus started my journey of Curry Singh Kitchens. This venture was conceptualised with passion and culinary integrity as my brand is a collection of limited recipes redolent with love and passion, reflective of my culinary genes & reminiscent of all my childhood aromas of the house i grew up in.

RG-What can diners expect when they eat a meal cooked by you? What are your top 3 dishes you recommend a first time diner to try?

Chef Reetika Gill

ReG- Diners expect the ethnic taste and flavour of Punjabi cooking. Our menu at Curry Singh Kitchen is small purposely to maintain quality, taste, hygiene and it’s a zero waste kitchen and also our kitchen is Trans Fat Free. We do keep adding seasonal dishes.

Top three dishes that I recommend:

1- Dal Makhni

2-Meat Curry

3-Murgh Makhna ( Our take on Butter Chicken)

RG- What have been your biggest highs so far in your career?

ReG-The biggest high is yet to be achieved! For now I am working hard and everyday is a challenge I look forward to.

RG- What is your mantra of success? What keeps you inspired as a chef? What are your future aspirations for yourself as a chefpreneur?

ReG- My Success Mantra is to keep ethical practices and transparency in food. Every day I get 2 -3 new guests and their smile on their face after food is my biggest reward. My future aspiration is to serve great food and that my next plate is even better than the previous one.

RG- What words of inspiration would you like to share with budding chefpreneurs?

ReG- Keep learning always and have the spirit to imbibe like an eternal apprentice.

Chef Reetika Gill signed off by saying “My father Chef Manjit Gill inspires me as he is my mentor and my guru.

What I’ve learnt from him as a chef is:

– To be honest and sincere in whatever I do (and cook)

-You don’t need rich ingredients to make soulful, sumptuous food but you need to prepare food with knowledge, skills and practice.

-Do read recipies couple of times before attempting it. Timings are always just guidelines , do add more or less water based on your own intelligence.

-Tasty food is the result of mindful cooking done with positive energy and simplicity.”

Chef Reetika Gill with father Manjit Singh Gill

‘We are paying the price for Boris mismanagement’

The toll has crossed 100,000. The failures of Prime Minister Boris Johnson are as bad as of President Mbeki’s failures to tackle AIDS epidemic of 2000, writes Dr Kailash Chand

Mismanagement of the virus has not only sickened tens of thousands of Britons, but has also poisoned our body politic. It didn’t have to be this way. If Boris Johnson and his team had worked harder and honestly, and responded urgently and deftly enough to achieve Taiwan’s death rate, fewer than 20,000 Britons would have died from the virus.

Prof. John Edmunds at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine told MPs last year that without further measures England’s tiered Covid-19 strategy would lead to high numbers of new infections everyday, putting the NHS under strain and driving up the death toll. We could still loose tens of thousands of deaths in England from Covid-19 second wave. And that’s what happened.

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The failures of Boris Johnson are as bad as of President Mbeki’s failures to tackle AIDS epidemic of 2000. Since pandemic of Spanish flu a century ago, or AIDS spread in South Africa in the early 2000s, nothing has hit the globe as hard as Covid-19 pandemic. If AIDS spread in South Africa that killed 330,00 lives was President Mbeki’s failure. The huge loss of lives (over 100,000) in the UK is failure of Boris Johnson and his incompetent government.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson

As in 2000, Mbeki surrounded himself with sycophants and cost his country hundreds of thousands of lives by ignoring science, and we’re suffering the same fate.

We too see, the highest death rate in the world, as a colossal failure of leadership, I don’t think that even 30,000 would have died if it hadn’t been for the incompetence.

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There’s plenty of blame to go around, involving inability of Labour to hold Boris to accounts, but Boris Johnson in particular “recklessly squandered lives. Death certificates may record the coronavirus as the cause of death, but in a larger sense vast numbers of Britishers, including frontline health and other essential workers died because their government was incompetent.

On top of loss of lives, the economic cost of the pandemic in the United Kingdom will be tens of thousands billions. And ordinary citizen would be in debts for generations.

People wearing face masks stand next to Christmas trees in London, Britain. (XinhuaHan Yan)

It’s really sad to see the UK fall from being the champion of free universal quality health care to being the laughingstock of the world. It was a tragedy of history that Boris Johnson was Prime Minister of UK when this hit us.

Prime Ministers have made other terrible mistakes over the decades, including the Iraq War, financial crisis and privatisation of the NHS. But in terms of destruction of British lives, treasure and wellbeing, this pandemic may be the greatest failure of governance in the United Kingdom in the last century.

The Defiance of Science

Perhaps the original sin of our government response to the coronavirus came with the bungling of testing. Public Health England abandoned its routine test and trace strategy in mid-March, before the spring lockdown, because it was unable to keep up with the outbreak. Without testing, health officials fight an opponent while blindfolded. They don’t know where the virus lurks, and they can’t isolate those infected or trace their contacts.

Our testing was either absent or inadequate. South Korea, Germany and other countries quickly developed tests that did work, and these were distributed around the world. Even Sierra Leone in West Africa had effective tests before the United Kingdom did.

Without proper tests, the NHS was at loss and didn’t know what they faced.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson

In battle to fight pandemic, Boris did almost everything wrong. He discouraged mask wearing. The administration never rolled out contact tracing, missed opportunities to isolate the infected and exposed, didn’t adequately protect care homes, issued advice that confused the issues more than clarified them. Front line staff was never equipped with PPEs.

Boris’s missteps arose in part because he channelled an anti-intellectual current that runs deep in the Tories, as he sidelined scientific experts and responded to the virus with a sunny optimism, advocated heard immunity as a solution, apparently meant to bolster the financial markets.

It’s going to disappear, Boris echoed Trump’s voice, it will disappear and we will celebrate happy Christmas.

The false reassurances and dithering were deadly. It’s widely believed, same lockdowns just two weeks earlier, at least 50% of the deaths in the early months could have been prevented.

A basic principle of public health is the primacy of accurate communications based on the best science. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who holds a doctorate in physics, is the global champion of that approach. Boris Johnson was the opposite, sowing confusion and conspiracy theories.

Instead of listening to top government scientists, Boris marginalised and ignored them.

Most unfortunately, Boris still has never developed a comprehensive plan to fight Covid-19. His “strategy” been to play politics, his handling of Greater Manchester was disgraceful.

So in what is arguably the fifth richest country of the world, political malpractice has resulted in a pandemic of infectious disease followed by pandemics of poverty, mental illness, addiction and hunger.