NE Food & Hospitality Editor Dr Kaviraj Khialani’s ‘The Millet Melange Cookbook’ launched in Mumbai

Government of India decided to put forward a proposal to United Nations for declaring the year 2022-2023 as the “International year of millets”. The proposal got support from over 70 countries and the United Nations declared 2023 as the international year of millets. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also shared his vision to make IYM 2023 a ‘People’s Movement’ alongside positioning India as the ‘Global Hub for Millets’. ‘Millets’ were among the first crops to be domesticated in India with several evidence of its consumption during the Indus valley civilization. To create domestic and global demand and to provide nutritional food to the people, Government of India had proposed to the United Nations for declaring 2023 as International Year of Millets. In addition to a plethora of health benefits, millets are also good for the environment with low water & input requirement. With the aim to create awareness and increase production & consumption of millets, United Nations, at the behest of the Government of India, declared 2023 the International Year Millets.

• 51 Vegetarian Ways of Diverse & Desi Flavours Unlocked to Treat the Palate-Dedicated to the International Year of Millets 2023
• With the aim to create awareness and increase production & consumption of millets, United Nations, at the behest of the Government of India, declared 2023 the International Year Millets.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shared his vision to make IYM 2023 a ‘People’s Movement’ alongside positioning India as the ‘Global Hub for Millets’

Keeping all the above points in mind and being an active part of the culinary & hospitality industry on a global platform for 25 years now, Celebrity Master Chef and Navjeevan Express Food and Hospitality Editor Kaviraj Khialani initiated this idea of putting together creative recipes using Millets from around the world into a concise and brief online cookbook format dedicating it to the International Year of Millets 2023.

Chef Kaviraj during his journey all through these years has been instrumental in sharing his varied and quality experience and knowledge all across through his workshops, seminars, training classes, tutorials, being a writer and author since the year 2000. He has been featured in over 75 plus publications over last so many years now and also writes regularly for several newspapers, magazines, hospitality journals and more.

Millet magic

Millets, the word itself sounded quite confusing to many people when I started working on this topic, many didn’t really know what exactly is a part of millets and how does one apply it in day-to-day cooking, they also had questions like is it really tasty? Is it like diet food? Can it be made interestingly to suit the palate of all age groups? Does it have any after taste? Is it easy to handle in the kitchen? Does it work with international cuisines? Is it typically native only to India? the list went on but I enjoyed replying to all these doubts creating awareness followed by trial sessions on recipes using millets as well which included millet aur makkai ke kabab, foxtail and garden vegetable baked dish, five-spice millet baked buns with trio mushrooms, millets ka desi tadkewala shorba, Indo-Mexican millet pulao, Indo- Chinese millet fried rice, Indo- Filipino millet with toyo tofu, millet koftas with peppery makhani salsa sauce to name a few.

Culinary and Global Gastronomy were always on the top favourites on my list since a very long time. I grew up eating fondest and choicest cuisines from around the world from Indian to Indonesian, Chinese to Burmese and from American to Italian to name a few. Learning all these years has been very exciting and sharing knowledge with the young generation, budding chefs and hospitality professionals has always been very dear to me.

Lifelong student alone can become a good guru

Motivating the to be hospitality and food experts of tomorrow is a challenge well accepted but for the fact that creativity and innovation remains of top charts in my teaching styles and cooking sessions, recipes and most importantly simplicity of communication and to the point directed communication has been of tremendous help to me since over two decades now when it comes to getting myself across to people of all age groups. I am sure this little contribution from my end would go a long way and inspire many minds as well to do something different and contribute towards the industry and academia. I would also like to share this recipe collection with all the institutions, colleges, training centres as well where cooking & culinary is a part of their curriculum in order to be of optimum use and help to the students & teachers as well.

“It has been a pleasure working on this collection of recipes using millets all year through and as we come to the end of 2023, I wish to share it with all my food lovers and connoisseurs who would like to know more about how to use millets in various forms and ways in the kitchen & bakery. The recipes in this e-book format and will be available on request. They are not only easy to make and prepare be it cooking or baking but are also enlisted with variations to try out to add to the variety and flavours in each of the recipes for students, housewives, food business operators, home chefs and a lot more.”