Mumbai :Three distinct cuisines – Parsi, Muslim and Continental are featured in “Family Secrets,” a debut cookbook by the wife of Bollywood actor-producer Sanjay Khan.
“The men in my family love to eat. It is true the way to a man’s heart is through the stomach. Nowadays a modern women does not want to cook for her family due to time constraints and career but I insist that at least one dish should be prepared by the women of the house to show love and affection towards her husband and family,” says Zarine.
Known for hosting legendary parties, Zarine Khan a model-turned-homemaker launched her book published by Roli Books at the residence of Francois Richier, Ambassador of France to India here recently.
The event saw attendance of publisher Pramod Kapoor, Rajmata Padmini Devi of Jaipur, MP Shashi Tharoor and beauty expert and entrepreneur Shahnaz Husain besides husband Sanjay and daughters Farah Ali Khan and Simone Arora and other family members.
Zarine attributes her unique cooking style to her mother-in-law, Bibi Fatima Begum Khan. It was from her that Zarine says she inherited her household’s famous open kitchen, which she maintains till date.
“I would watch my mother-in-law Fatima Bibi supervise the preparation of meals. She would sit on a chair, have a sigree placed in front and oversee the proportions of ingredients being used,” says Zarine.
“She always insisted on using fresh ingredients and masala. It was from her I realized that cooking is an art and one has to be patient while cooking,” says the author.
Over the years, Khan accumulated the recipes which were handed down to her and on the insistence of her daughters she published the book. After their marriage she passed on these traditional recipes of the Khan family to them.
“Cooking is an art. You can’t rush cooking. You need to give time to each and every ingredient to develop the flavour and flirt with each other. One mistake which every one does is that they add in in all the masalas together, never do that,” says Zarine.
PTI