Bring home the cafe

Do you miss walking into your favourite café and indulging in a cappuccino and muffin? Or, settling down at a table with your girl gang and making the most of your cheat day with croissants, waffles and hot chocolate? Some of these wishes can be fulfilled at home while you also help displaced migrant labourers or staff who could lose their jobs due to the economic fallout of the lockdown. Two e-cookbooks are up for sale. All proceeds from the sale will go towards them.

Cook For A Cause by La Folie

The lockdown has encouraged chefs to think out of the café box and fit their offerings into a phone screen through an Insta live session or an e-cookbook. Before the lockdown, Sanjana Patel, creative director and executive chef of La Folie had big plans to launch a Classroom Cooking Club. "I wanted to do one recipe a day in a blog. The lockdown inspired me to do an e-cookbook. I tied up with SEEDS, a non-profit voluntary organisation," explains Patel. Currently, the organisation is providing financial and essential services support to daily wagers. They are also supplying hygiene kits and food rations to marginalised families, old age homes and orphanages, and helping the government establish temporary quarantine facilities. All proceeds from the e-book will go to aid migrant workers displaced due to the pandemic.

The book has 30 recipes, including the La Folie café menu, Classroom favourites as well as contributions from home chefs Kalyan Karmakar (Kolkata hakka noodles), Amrita Kaur (Seetalphal kheer and jowar crepes) and Shriya Shetty (Kori rutti and chicken sukka). "They are all friends of the café. We were able to launch the book within two weeks of the lockdown and 82 copies have been sold so far. From a honey glazed fig and feta tart, to learning to temper chocolate, the book literally brings the café home, that is if you're willing to put on an apron and get your hands dirty.

Log on to theclassroombylafolie.com to purchase the book
Cost Rs 1,000

Nachni chips(Makes 80)

Ingredients

200g bread flour
300g nachni
110g salt
10g garlic powder
10g white sesame
90g butter
250g water
10g onion powder

Method

Mix all the ingredients together in a mixer till it forms a dough. Rest the dough for half an hour. Sheet dough between two pieces of paper till there's 1.5 inches on the dough sheeter. Cut into triangles and bake at 150°C for 10 to 12 minutes. Relish with dips of your choice.

Sanjana Patel

Le 15 Cafe Cookbook - From our kitchen to yours

On May 1, Pooja Dhingra announced the closure of her four-year-old Le 15 Café in Colaba. "We took the hard call of cutting off the savoury section from the business. When I announced the closure, I was flooded with messages of how much the café and food would be missed. The space had earned a cult following of its own. To carry on that legacy, we decided to have a cookbook of our menu favourites for people to try out at home," says Dhingra, who roped in her executive chef Tejashwi Muppidi to co-author the book.

In two weeks, they had to re-assess the recipes to be home kitchen-friendly. "I had a staff of 30 at the café, and we are still figuring out how many we can retain. The e-book became an idea to support them. All earnings will go to them," she said.

The book, titled Le 15 Café Cookbook - From our kitchen to yours, has 50 recipes. "Cooking in restaurants is different from home cooking. We have a section called building blocks where we offer recipes for our sauces, pickling (created by chef Pablo Naranjo Agular), followed by salads and our all-day breakfast items. I have added a few desserts, too, like the hot chocolate, salted caramel, waffle pancakes, milk cake and Audrey - the gluten-and-sugar-free cake.

"This was a cathartic process for me. Shutting the café has not been an easy decision. It had to be done to keep the other parts of our business afloat," shares Dhingra. The book takes the reader through the story of the café. Dhingra talks about nursing a dream for a café since the age of 16 and how she put out a post as a message to the universe. "A friend got in touch saying her father had a space in Colaba. When I saw the high ceilings and the glass windows, I knew this was it. I couldn't afford the space so I decided to do a savoury section for which I convinced Pablo on my seventh attempt to help me set up here," recalls Dhingra.

Log on to shop.Le15.com
Cost Rs 550

Quinoa salad

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked quinoa (replace with foxtail millets in case of unavailability)
• ½ cup mixed lettuce, chopped
• 2 tbsp pomegranate seeds
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 2 tsp feta cheese (replace with cottage cheese)
• 2 tsp mint leaves (chopped)
• 2 tsp coriander leaves (chopped)
• 2 tsp basil leaves (chopped)
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• Salt to taste

Method

Make the dressing in a large bowl by whisking lime juice, salt and olive oil together. Add quinoa, mint leaves, coriander leaves, basil leaves and mix well to coat with the dressing. Place the salad in a serving bowl. Garnish with pomegranate seeds, crumbled feta and roasted quinoa.

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