Indian food blog From Bowl to Soul inspires home cooks

The food lover grew up in the city of Amritsar in India but moved to Warrington about four years ago when her husband Amit Malik, an IT professional, was asked to work on a project with United Utilities.

Around the same time, she had left a 10-year career in the fashion and clothing design industry to spend more time with her daughter Aahana.

So it was all change for Anubhav who loved exploring her new town.

But, despite finding a new love of fish and chips, roast dinners, cream tea and carrot cake, the one thing that kept calling her back to India was the Desi food.

Anubhav said: “I wasn’t very interested in cooking before but I very much enjoyed food.

“At home, my mother did all the meals so when I was little I used to stand with her in the kitchen and observe how she cooked and what she cooked.

“I never really tried to make anything myself but when I came to the UK I missed all the food.”

So on her first trip to see family, she wrote down all her mum Suksham’s recipes – some of which had been in the family for generations – in a notebook.

Upon returning to Warrington, Anubhav started systematically trying all the recipes and found that connection with home she felt she was missing.

But little did she know it would lead to the creation of her own website that has linked her up with home cooks and foodies all over the world.

“The notebook was wearing away and getting torn and old so the initial idea of the website was just to put everything into one place,” she added.

Now her site – From Bowl to Soul – is everything from a virtual recipe book to a diary and celebration of her Indian roots.

Anubhav said: “It started with just the recipes and slowly I started creating more content and blogging.”

Luckily, Anubhav’s mum is fine with old family recipes being shared with the world.

Anubhav added: “She’s happy because I remember, when we were small, people used to come to our house and enjoyed the food.

“Friends of the family used to always ask for the recipes so I told her I’m sharing the recipes with everyone now.

“I also used to call her every day and tell her what I was cooking and ask questions and check if I was missing anything.”

If anyone reading is inspired to try one of Anubhav’s authentic recipes, she recommends the cream chicken or chickpea curry as a good starting point.

But there are around 80 recipes to choose from.

Anubhav said: “I’m able to get almost every ingredient in the supermarket now.

“There’s been a huge change in the past four or five years and now superstores have Indian aisles.

“You can get most ingredients there.

Chickpea curry

“I also suggest alternatives in my recipes so in case something is not easy to get hold of there is always a substitute.”

Cooking has helped Anubhav miss home a little less during the pandemic. Before the crisis, she would visit once a year.

She added: “I’ve obviously not been able to travel to India recently so the food gives me that connection with home.”

Funnily enough, the current situation has also given Anubhav’s blog a boost with many people turning to cookery during the lockdowns.

“Immediately after the first lockdown I saw a big boost in people visiting my site,” she said.

“I was quite surprised but then I read it’s because a lot of people are cooking more while they are stuck at home.

“My website traffic surged in the initial month of the lockdown – double or triple the number of visitors I’d normally see.

“At that time, I was doing a masters degree and I had to complete my dissertation. I also had to home school my daughter.

“So it was a shame I couldn’t give it more attention at that moment but I’m coming back to it now.”

Anubhav has been running From Bowl to Soul for around four years now.

She added: “It’s nice because people do try the recipes and then get in touch to tell me how it went.

“So far it’s been very positive. People have a real love of international food in the UK.”

Anubhav’s family’s love of good home cooked food has already been passed down another generation to her daughter Aahana, seven.

She said: “She’s started to become interested in cooking in the past couple of months so it’s come full circle. She’s started watching this series on Amazon Prime called Just Add Magic so she thinks cooking is very magical.

“That’s another nice aspect of the site – I have all the recipes saved online for her so whenever she grows up and wants the recipes they are just a click away.

“They are my mother’s and my grandmother’s recipes so we’re going to keep passing them down.”