I have always wanted to do a cooking class of some sort, preferably French – but it was proving difficult to find one (that is reasonably priced).

So Maia and I decided to do an Indian cuisine. Who better than to go to Ajoy Joshi – the man who runs Nilgiris in Crows Nest, North Sydney.

I had heard about Ajoy before we came across Nilgiris. He has several Indian Recipe books under his name as well other restaurants that he opened and sold in Australia.

Classes are held most Saturdays and every month the cuisine is changed. We booked ourselves for the Mughlai style cuisine.

The class started off at 10:30am at the top floor of his restaurant. You get an apron and a couple of pages with a recipe on each page and space for notes.

After we had our name stickers stuck on our apron, Ajoy introduced himself and then pulled out a tray with dry and fresh chillies. He asked to explain the difference (besides the obvious). Now, I’m not going to give away the answer here, because I suggest you go to the class to experience it yourself first hand.

Once we determined the difference, we started off with the cooking. Ajoy clearly stated that no knives would be used – everything was pre-chopped and ready to put into the pan. Saves us from cutting ourselves and suing Ajoy.

We were separated into teams – he also made sure that partners, couples or friends weren’t in the same team. 2 reasons – 1) it’s more productive and 2) as each team does a different dish so that way each person learns a different thing.

Ajoy served us each some Dhal in a cup which was a good start given the the raining morning.

The dishes we were going to learn and prepare (and later eat) were Paneer Makhni, Dahl Makhni, Mughlai Chicken, Lamb Kebabs, Cucumber Relish as well as rice and naan.

During the course of cooking, Ajoy had shown us a couple of quick dishes – like pepper marinated prawns cooked one sided in a wok and then covered to contain the heat and slowly cook to the other side. He also prepared a fish dish in a similar fashion. Unfortunately both being seafood did not appeal to me. Nevertheless, it’s good to know and it was a snack for some during the course of the lesson.

Ajoy explained the concept of each dish – it’s history, why certain ingredients were used and where they come from, the reason and other uses of the various spices and herbs. He also goes on to explain that even though a recipe says “Add 1 teaspoon of chilli” – you don’t just simply follow the recipe, you cook as your taste buds prefer. He said there are 3 rules when cooking -

1) cook for yourself
2) cook for yourself
3) cook for yourself

If you like it, then you know that the people you cook for should like it too. One of Ajoy’s quotes I clearly remember was – “Your eyes eat first, before your mouth”. So, you need to make dishes presentable and appealing for people to want to try it.

One of the things Ajoy doesn’t like – is the over use of oil. In various other cuisines or tv shows you see chefs pour a little olive oil over the prepared dish to add flavour – Ajoy doesn’t think so. He says that oil makes the dish heavier and hides the true flavours of the dishes. If you cook meat, the oil and fat comes out – after you leave it to rest, you scrape off the floating oil and discard it.

Overall this was a truly enjoyable experience. I will definitely be doing it again!

I urge you to try Ajoy’s classes – it’s $110 per person and goes from 10:30am to 3:00pm. You learn, you cook and then you eat. Ajoy as his name says it is a man who is full of joy and has this passion to educate people about Indian style cooking. I rate it 10/10!

http://www.nilgiris.com.au/