Chaitanya: The real taste of Malvani cooking

For 17 years, Surekha Walke, chef and co-owner of Mumbai restaurant Chaitanya has been bringing soul to everyday Malvani recipes.

As Thomas Keller, the American chef, restaurateur and cookbook writer once said: "A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe."

A housewife with an extraordinary ability to cook, Walke started Chaitanya in Malvan, a small coastal tourist town in Maharashtra, encouraged by her husband Nitin who offered to act as waiter.

The success of her soul cooking inspired her to set up shop in Mumbai 18 months ago.

For anyone new to the cuisine, Malvani food uses liberal quantities of coconut in all its forms -- dried, grated, paste and milk -- combined with generous portions of dried red chilies, coriander seeds, cardamom, ginger, garlic, kokum (garcinia), tamarind and garam masala spices.

This is then topped off with tirphal (teppal), a cousin of the Sichuan pepper, best known for its tongue-numbing properties.

Hot to scorching, yet also rich and tender, Walke’s food exploits the spices to bring an earthy, lemony flavor to her cooking. And she's not stingy with the coconut or garam masalas either, which she brings directly from her home in Malvan.

That’s where Chaitanya scores over the other commercially run establishments that only focus on the fieriness of Malvani food.

Seafood is Walke's forte and her menu sports crab, prawn, surmai (king fish), pomfret, bangda (mackerel), mori (shark) and clams -- served either as a masala, curry or fried.

Her prawn curry stands out for its use of potatoes, an unusual addition that lifts a staple Indian dish beyond the ordinary.

Chicken and mutton don’t feature prominently in Malvani food, but Walke does a mean mutton masala that’s soft and succulent and perfect for mopping up with jowar bhakris (rustic unleavened bread made from sorghum).

Vegetarians will be disappointed with the limited choice available -- usually a green leafy vegetable of the day accompanied by an usal, a spicy curry made using either moong beans, matki (moth beans) or black-eyed peas. But the taste won’t disappoint.

Wrap up your meal with the ubiquitous solkadi, a drink made from kokum, coconut milk, garlic, ginger and cumin seeds. It’s the best way to douse the internal fires that Malvani cuisine invariably sparks off.

Shop No. 4, Shivaji Park House, L J Road, Shivaji Park; +91 (0)22 2437 2242, +91 9619 909 014. Open Friday-Wednesday 11 a.m.–3 p.m., 7–11 p.m.