Calcutta Street Bollywood Special at South Bank

So I have been taking you through my journey from Eatwithmeshrimoyee to Calcutta Street. I have been doing Pop-ups at restaurants for the last few months but this time I decided to take up the challenge of doing a food stall at a festival. It is a great opportunity for marketing your brand and reaching out to a wide range of people but it definitely has a lot of challenges. A lot of people have been asking me about the challenges of having a food stall, the first one would be getting all the licences and certificates including – HACCP, Food and Hygiene licence and certification with the local council. Once you overcome these you can have a food stall but then comes the challenges on the day, in order to maintain quality you need to be extremely organised and be prepared with everything including washing up liquid because you have no guarantee of a proper kitchen with a sink. And finally it’s always tricky to estimate the amount of food you should buy, so my suggestion would be to have clear idea of how much you need to sell to make a profit and just buy that amount otherwise you might just land up with a ton of extra food – no one can guarantee foot fall in a festival.

My experience at Bollywood Fever at South bank was great over all as I got fabulous response from the people who came, I also added an element of photobooth which people love at festivals and also brilliant for my branding! The dishes I made were extremely simple – Doi Phuchka, Doi Aam and Churmur. All these dishes except doi aam come from the streets of Calcutta and I was pleasantly surprised to see that everyone loved them as much as I do and the Indian’s said it reminded them of home.

Here is the Doi Phuchka recipe for you.

Ingredients (One plate)

Pani Puri (6) You can find them at any Indian store, try Bangla Town in Brick Lane.
Yogurt (1 cup)
Tamarind Sauce
Tamarind paste
Boiled and mashed Potato (1)
Kala Channa (Black Chick peas)
Cumin seeds, coriander powder, chilli flakes (1/2 tea spoon each)
Lemon Juice (1 Lemon)
Chaat Masala (You can find this at any Indian Store too)
Bhujiya (It’s similar to a bombay mix)
Fresh Coriander and Green chillies

Preparation:

Dry fry the cumin seeds, coriander powder and chilli flakes in a pan, don’t use any oil. After about 2-3 minutes you will start getting a beautiful aromatic smell from them and it will turn slightly red. Keep it aside.
Beat the yogurt to a fine consistency
Mash the potatoes add the dry fried spice mix to it, lemon juice, fresh coriander and chillies,kala channa and a tea spoon of tamarind paste. Then mash it all together.
Make holes in the pani puri’s and add the potato mix
Then arrange all 6 of them in a plate and add yogurt on top (1/2 spoon for each puri)
Then sprinkle the bhujiya and chaat masala on top
Finally add the tamarind sauce on top (1/2 tea spoon for each puri)
Garnish with corriander and green chillies.

Here are some photos from the event.