From Korean food to chaat, this Chennai club is cooking up a storm

There is lo-fi music playing on the television, fairy lights strung up on the walls and loud chatter all around at Akshitha Praveen’s home on a rainy Saturday evening. Every time the doorbell rings, someone walks in holding a casserole or a tray of food which is promptly then arranged on a table — the pièce de résistance which has everything from kimbap and kimchi to fried chicken. 

This is how every potluck at the Madras Cookbook Club begins; with ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ over the dish each member brings in, and spirited conversation about the day of cooking preceded this. 

“We started off with an idea for a supper club, but given our schedules, thought that this worked better. The idea was to build a community of people who wanted to come together and cook,” says Akshitha, who began the cookbook club with her friend Akshita Mucherla. 

Every month, the members pick a cookbook and cook a recipe of their choice
| Photo Credit:
S Poorvaja

Every month, the 20-member strong club picks a cookbook from a different cuisine, and each of them picks a dish they want to try out. “Not everyone in the club is great at cooking; we actually have an absolute beginner as well. The idea is that every cookbook has its share of simple and complex recipes that we can pick from depending on whatever we are comfortable with,” Akshitha explains. The club then meets at a member’s house for a potluck, where they discuss their cooking experiments and of course, sample each other’s dishes. 

For their fourth potluck, the club has chosen Maangchi’s Big Book of Korean Cooking. “This was probably among our most favourite books so far to cook from. The recipes were well explained, there was great history and insight into Korean cuisine and culture, and the substitutions mentioned helped a lot,” Akshita says. She got a bamboo mat to make kimbaps with for the first time, a challenge she laughs and says was well worth it. 

For their fourth potluck, the cookbook club picked Maangchi’s Big Book of Korean Cooking
| Photo Credit:
S Poorvaja

As the members set up the table with all the food they have cooked, there is a lot of chatter about what worked for them and what did not, and how some discoveries were made along the way(“Did you know scallions and spring onions aren’t the same thing?”). Ingredients, they say, were thankfully easy to procure given the proliferation of Korean supermarkets in the city and options available online. “I love that when we all meet, conversation is so easy since we all have this shared experience; of having cooked from this book,” Akshitha says. 

For many members, the club and its potlucks has meant pushing boundaries in the kitchen. “The first time I ever deep-fried a dish was for the club, when I attempted to make elements for an Amritsaari Chaat from Sonal Ved’s cookbook, Tiffin,” says Varsha Raghavan, a member. A peanut podi recipe she stumbled upon while cooking for a past potluck from Five Morsels Of Love by Archana Pidathala has now become a pantry staple at home. “I find myself integrating many of these recipes into my family’s everyday menus,” she adds. 

In buffet-style, we pile our plates high with the Korean fare laid out before us— there are stir fried anchovies, blanched seasoned spinach, omelet rice dosirak, zucchini pancakes and a host of other dishes to choose from. With every bite, come playful quips about the flavours, curious questions about the ingredients, and generous words of praise passed around. 

“Since we meet at a member’s house every month, the numbers are small. Every member here is a friend or an acquaintance and we are taking it slow till we figure out how to accommodate larger numbers,” Akshitha says. 

While the meal ends with Akshita’s honey cookies. There is a bit of debate about what book and cuisine to pick for the next month. The votes are almost unanimously in favour of sambol; Sri Lankan cooking it is.

Find the Madras Cookbook Club on Instagram at @madrascookbookclub