25-06-2025
Pernia Quereshi Revisits Her Grandmother's Recipes in Ammi's Kitchen
Pernia Qureshi does not enjoy cooking. 'Some, like my late grandmother, find cooking a stress-busting activity, but I find it has the opposite effect on me,' says the New Delhi-based fashion entrepreneur who launched Ammi's Kitchen (published by Roli Books), a cookbook dedicated to her grandmother, fondly called Ammi, and her family's legacy.
With over a 100 recipes comprising snacks, main course (vegetarian and non-vegetarian), rice, breads, and dessert, the book covers a range of family favourites. 'There were no recipe trials involved as we eat these dishes daily,' says Pernia, 'I don't cook, but I can tell you what's wrong in a dish within five seconds of tasting it!'
While the idea of penning a book with her Ammi's recipes came to Pernia 'a long time ago, when she was still alive', it took a while to get down to it, she says, adding, 'No one in my generation or younger cooks. I realised that after my father and aunts, this culinary legacy would be lost, and I wanted to preserve it.' Pernia recalls the time her sister, Sylvia, and ammi, started the home food delivery service, Ammi's Kitchen in 2016.
'We thought it would be something she (ammi) would enjoy, and it would keep her occupied, but it became so much more than that. Ammi became an entrepreneur at the age of 90. Sylvia would take the orders and ammi would do everything else. From arranging for groceries to overseeing the cooking and packaging, she was immersed in it. She would put her earnings of the day in a pouch and sleep with it under her pillow', Pernia writes in the book's introduction. 'I wish this book had been launched in her lifetime, she would have been thrilled,' she says of the book that has been in the works for about three years.
'Ammi was a master at making the best food combinations. Some of my favourites are kadu bharta with pyaz sabzi and besan roti, and black dal khichadi aka the bina happa, with gobi gosht, that was our comfort food while growing up and still is,' says Pernia, adding that the recipes closest to her heart are the ones that ammi made the most. Starting with their family staple, the taar gosht, that she refers to as 'the most representative Rampuri dish' in the book. 'which is .mutton cooked in a masala gravy where the ghee is meant to be so generously used that when you dip your roti in it, there should be a taar (line) of ghee connecting your bite to the plate'. 'I also love keema khichadi because it belongs to the hometown where ammi grew up, Chandosi.'
Given the recipes were already in the family, the challenge was to have them documented in verse . 'They were passed down the generations verbally, and ammi had trained everyone in her time,' says Pernia, who had to get multiple people to get the recipes, and then cross-check them for precision. There were three main points of contact while documenting the recipes, she explains: her paternal aunt Nasreen phoopi, who ammi had personally taught many recipes to; Mazhar, a second generation chef in her family (his father, Israil Bhai, was trained under ammi as head chef in their Rampur home); and Pernia's father who 'is a passionate cook and has been carrying on ammi's food legacy since she passed away in 2019'.
After shooting the recipes at her Delhi home — with all the props and cutlery sourced in-house — Pernia went to Rampur in 2023 with her father and the book's photographer, Karishma Karamchandani. 'We went to take shots of the house, the town and the food, to give context to the book, and give readers a visual sense of the city,' says Pernia, who got a few dishes made by the family's cooks, and also soaked in 'ammi's portion of the haveli' that dates back to the 1800s. 'There are so many nostalgic nooks and corners, and the mosaic floors, heirloom serveware that she had collected were lovely to revisit.'
Which explains the shots of framed black and white images, her ammi's trunk, heirloom vessels, and ornate walls that are peppered throughout the book. 'Since I don't cook, I didn't realise how tedious it is to put together a recipe book. It's an extremely detailed process where there is no margin for vagueness or error. There were numerous versions that went back and forth with the editor, at one point it felt like the process would never end!'
While I knew the answer to this question, I still asked, 'Will there be a part two of Ammi's Kitchen?' And faster than a ladle touching a kadhai, Pernia responds, 'No way!' 'I love to eat, and I'm going to do just that!' says the author, who plans on penning her next book on wedding fashion in India.
Priced at ₹1,995 Ammi's Kitchen is available online
