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Chef Sat Bains may have had to shutter his two-Michelin-star Nottingham restaurant in these extraordinary times, but he's found a rewarding new project closer to home. He's teaming up with his mother to create a new takeaway venture.
While Bains' usual ten-course tasting menu is off the table for the moment, he and his team have dedicated months to working alongside his 72-year-old mother in perfecting a takeaway menu (#Mommabains) centred on the comforting Punjabi food he grew up with. "This is the genuine home-style food my mum makes," he told the Nottingham Post.
The all-vegetarian, all-vegan menu launches this weekend with samosas filled with potatoes, peas and spices, and chickpea curry and a tamarind chutney. In the coming weeks other dishes like lentil dhal, aubergine sabji and aloo gobi will be added. The samosas will even get a starring spot on James Martin's Saturday Morning on ITV.
The Indian dishes, all from his mum's repertoire, will be sold at some of the UK's top chippies, including the award-winning Cod's Scallops' shops in Nottingham and No.1 Cromer in Norfolk. Bains saw the British chippy as a natural outlet, given that samosas are best eaten freshly cooked and crispy from a deep fat fryer.
Bains is not the first chef to pivot to affordable home-cooked comfort food during the coronavirus pandemic, as he says: "This is the one thing the pandemic has taught us, you've got to roll the dice and I do know it's delicious." Owner of Cod's Scallops John Molnar told the Nottingham Post: "I'm addicted. It's probably the best samosa in the world - it has been made by a two-star Michelin chef."
Rene Redzepi has also been quick on the uptake already commenting "send some to Denmark," on Instagram as the duo joke that they will swop burgers for samosas, after Redzepi also recently announced he would be making his Noma burgers permanent at new restaurant POPL.
Hungry? Learn the secrets of Indian cooking, starting with a master masala.
