THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Varutharacha nadan kozhi curry, Chicken Tahari, Spicy lemon chutney and thattil kutti dosa, Kuttanad tharavu mappas... Navigating swadcuisine.com can be a blissfully mouthwatering experience.
The blog started nearly ten months ago by a homemaker in Thiruvananthapuram is now a one-stop shop for foodies on the look-out for traditional and innovative gourmet delights. “I’m crazy about cooking. I used to cook for my friends and my husband’s friends, and they would come to me for recipes. So I thought, why not start something that’s useful to the public? That’s how the blog was born,” says Swapna Rakesh, who lives with her businessman husband Rakesh and two sons at PTP Nagar.
“This blog is all about celebrating good food. Be more successful eating healthy food made using organic methods in your kitchen,” says Swapna about her blog, on which she shares recipes regularly. The USP of the blog is that it is kept simple; the step-by-step process is explained clearly, with ample tips.
With around 250 recipes, it now has something for every one. Searching for old Kerala-style recipes? Maybe you should check this place out. “No one even remembers some of our traditional recipes, like the Kerala chicken curry. I still remember the taste of the chicken curry my grandmother used to make. So I’ve tried to include both hers and my mother’s recipes. They both were superb cooks,” she says.
Many of Swapna’s own inventions and innovations are also included. She rarely treats her two sons, 11-year-old Adityan and Adidev, who is two and a half, to restaurant food so the trick, she says, is to make home-made food attractive to children. “I’ve included several such recipes; meat rolls, kebabs and fillings for chappathi.” Weekends are set aside for what Swapna calls experimentation: how to conjure up tasty dishes with the little that’s left in the fridge.
And now that it’s Karkidakam, Swapna has provided some ideal recipes for the month So check out ‘Pathila thoran’ - which includes, as the name suggests, ten leafy vegetables - and ‘Karkidaka kanji’ which uses 20 herbs.