Five-a-day done the Indian way

TOP RESTAURATEUR CAMELLIA PANJABI SHINES A SPOTLIGHT ON VEGETABLES IN HER LATEST COOKBOOK. BY CAMILLA FOSTER

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BESTSELLING author and renowned restaurateur Camellia Panjabi MBE is setting her sights on a new culinary mission: inspiring Brits to fall in love with vegetables.

Drawing on her decades of experience as a hotelier managing restaurants across various cuisines, Camellia observed that vegetables were too often relegated to the sidelines.

Determined to change this narrative, Camellia has made vegetables the true ‘hero’ of every plate with her new cookbook, Vegetables: The Indian Way.

"The majority of food on anyone’s plate is normally two or three kinds of vegetables, and we had failed to take that into account when we served the public,” reflects the restaurateur, who is often referred to as ‘the Queen of Indian cuisine’.

"I thought, I’m going to do a 90-degree turn and say the hero of these dishes is going to be the vegetables.”

Pulling together her own experiences in the food industry and her upbringing in Mumbai, alongside extensive research into traditional Indian cooking, Camellia asked herself: how do you make a cauliflower a hero vegetable dish? How do you make potatoes a hero dish, rather than a little bit on the side?