I had the pleasure of interviewing the Next Food Network Star finalist, Nipa Bhatt, who competed earlier this year while raising two children, running a household, and working full-time (episodes began airing in June and run throughout this month).
Nipa is from Gujarat, India. She started cooking when she was 16 and had several great cooking role models: her mom, aunts, and grandmothers. She lived with 35 members of her extended family, so she also got a lot of cooking practice!
She has continued her passion for cooking in the United States and now cooks for a much smaller group: her husband (also from Gujarat), her son Sunnie, 11, and daughter Ayisha, 9. Her husband and kids share her passion for cooking and trying new foods. She believes in exposing her family to lots of new foods and getting them excited about the experience.
“Take [the kids] to the grocery store to pick out the ingredients,” Nipa says. “We go to the Indian grocery store called India Spice House [in Eden Prairie] every Friday because that’s when the fresh vegetables arrive. My kids love to shop there and pick out the ingredients for our meals.” Sunnie and Ayisha also like to use their new ingredients while helping their mom cook. They have countless favorite recipes, and Nipa shared one with me: ground pork kabobs. I made them for my family, and they were gobbled up in
about four minutes.
For my kids, I omitted the chili powder and the green chili. They don’t like food with hot peppers in it. The remainder of the spices in the recipe are not hot. Garam masala (a spice mix of coriander, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, caraway, charnushka, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg) is very mild, and my kids love it.
When making this recipe with young chefs, let them clean and dry the cilantro, then have them remove the leaves, discarding the stems. Have them “chop” the leaves with a table knife or a dough scraper. They can also help chop the garlic and ginger, and measure the ingredients into the large bowl. If they mash the ingredients (or touch the raw pork), make sure they wash their hands thoroughly (30 seconds, with soap, lathering hands, and washing between fingers). Young chefs need to be reminded of the germs that can be in raw meat (I remind my kids every time we cook with raw meat)!
Enjoy the food, and be sure to vote for Nipa!
Bridget O’Boyle teaches kids and adults to cook at Cooks of Crocus Hill in Edina and St. Paul.
Nipa Bhatt’s Indian ground pork kabobs/sausages
Serves 2–4
1 lb. ground pork
3 cloves minced garlic
1 inch minced ginger root
1 minced green chili (preferably jalapeno), optional
¼ cup chopped cilantro
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. red chili powder, optional
1 tsp. garam masala
½ tsp. black pepper
½ small slivered onion
½ tsp. lime juice
Dash of salt for the onions
Fresh spinach leaves or large lettuce leaves (Bibb or iceberg)
Cilantro to garnish
Fresh limes to serve
In a large bowl, mix together the first nine ingredients with your hands. Form patties that are one-inch round and set aside. Soak slivered onions in salt and lime juice and set aside. Cook sausages in the broiler for about 10 minutes and serve hot with marinated onions, cilantro and fresh limes. You can serve them like “mini sliders” on dinner rolls for the kids or on a bed of spinach leaves for the adults. Nipa’s kids like to wrap these with spinach, but my kids thought spinach leaves were too small. You could substitute ground turkey or chicken if your family does not eat pork.
Spicy vs. hot
Think your kids don’t like spicy food? Think again. Kids — and some adults — may reject the heat of capsaicin, found in members of the pepper family, but they might love the warmth and depth of garam masala, which isn’t hot at all.
