Chigs Parmar's Pav Bhaaji
This finalist from Great British Bake Off 2021 learned how to bake in 2020
Great British Bake Off Finalist Chigs Parmar tells us how he started baking just 1 year before, why he doesn’t go to fancy Indian restaurants and the steps behind his favourite Indian street food recipe:
For more than a decade, Chigs Parmar has written every family recipe in his diary. If his mum made something new, he’d get back to asking questions and writing down her answers.
Chigs’ culinary exploration began as a teenager, interrogating his mum “how much of that powder did you mix in this?”
Interrogations didn’t always work though. Especially when the answer he’d get was “It’s all in my head”. Or, “that's what we were told to do.” But Chigs needed to know. If he didn’t learn and recreate these recipes, they’d die and a treasure would go to waste.
Chigs was a stubborn learner (still is). If mum didn’t answer, he’d ask his grandmother. Or his auntie. Sometimes, he video recorded his mum and granny cooking. (These days, his backup sources include Google and other cooks).
Quantities were especially mysterious. “I do it by eye” would be the answer to “How much of that spice did you put in?” His mother always used his hands, never teaspoons. She’d simply pick a pinch or two (or three) from the masala box. So Chigs tucked in a teaspoon into the box—forcing her to give him the information he was after.
“I never knew why mum put aubergines into lamb curry. It took a lot of exploring until the penny dropped! I get it now that it improves the consistency—I can taste the difference if it's not in there.”
Chigs comes from what he calls “a massive food family”.
Diwali was (and continues) to be a big deal at Chigs’ home. Every Diwali, his family would visit their grandparents; his kaaka and kaaki (paternal uncle & aunt, in Gujarati) also joined them. His grandmother would create a gigantic spread that included, among other things, kachodis, chakris, sakura and curries. Then the whole family ate together.
The same happened during Bestu Varas (Gujarati New Year), but with significant variations. Following the visit to grandparents, they’d go to the temple, followed by a feast, followed by a visit to everybody’s houses. These visits were always in a specific predetermined order. Always.
Christmas is just as celebratory. At least 22 relatives come around a massive feast. No one in Chigs’ family is a fan of turkey, so they’d have chicken instead—one cooked in English-syle, and one tandoori. The rest of the food too was Indianized. Roast potatoes found Indian masalas on them, and the gravy had a bit of tandoori spice. Chigs made the dessert for last Christmas dinner—sticky toffee pudding.
Chigs has an unstoppable urge to share the beauty of food.
Like his mum, his face lights up when he’s feeding. And he like his mum, he makes large quantities.
There were never just a couple of people who came to their house for dinner. It was always a squad of at least 20 people. That still remains the norm for Chigs. When he cooks now, he cooks a pot of food that would fill you up until brim, and you’d still have some left to take home for next day’s breakfast (and maybe lunch).
“A lot of my white British friends didn't know anything about Indian food before they met me—They were never exposed to it. Now, some of them speak fluent Gujarati. They come to my house every other week for my mom’s “heavenly” lamb curry. When I was on The Great British Bake Off, we had viewing parties alongside the lamb curry.”
Chigs doesn’t fancy the Michelin star Indian restaurants. He doesn’t have anything against them, but he doesn’t think they fit his sensibility. (And spending seven pound on naan bread, he thinks, is a joke). His Indian food is the Indian food of homes. Of curry houses next door. The place that currently sits in his heart is a new restaurant in Leicester called The Little Kitchen—that’s where Chigs celebrated his birthday last week with friends.
“I know people whose idea of Indian food is the restaurant curry. But, having curry at a restaurant and having curry at home are two different universes. I want to show people that you recreate the magic of home Indian food yourself.”
His earliest memories of food are vivid and many.
Every summer, at least once a year, Chigs and his family, went to the park to barbeque. They played football and cricket while tandoori chicken and sheekh kebab roasted to perfection on coal and flame. Chigs’ dad was famous as the man that could make the best proper kebabs.
Even now, when Chig closes his eyes to remember, he can taste those kebabs.
“I lost my dad when I was really young. So many of my memories of him have the aroma of Indian food. I remember him cooking chicken curry for after we'd go and play squash on Sundays. I remember standing and staring at him and asking “Dad who taught you how to do this?” He said, “I just watched my dad do this.”
Chigs calls himself a late bloomer (that’s also his Instagram handle). He only recently learned how to bake.
Yes, the finalist of The Great British Bake Off 2021, learned to bake recently.
This is a story that fans of Chigs perhaps know by heart: the pandemic found him trapped indoors. For someone who’d regularly go running, rock climbing and gymming, this was boring.
One fateful day, his brother-in-law brought some sourdough starter with him; and that's how it all began.
Before he knew it, he was baking for his sister, his brother-in-law, friends, and neighbours. His insatiable thirst for knowledge meant that’d learn new recipes at a dizzying pace. He’d even bring stuff from the bakery so he could imitate them in his kitchen.
Soon, he got the suggestion that every good baker in the UK gets at least a couple of times in their life: “Why don’t you apply for the bake-off? At first, he said no. Then he took the leap. Two days later he got a phone call that started with:
“Hi. This is Kat from Bake-off.” (and obviously he first thought it was a prank)
When he made it to The Great British Bake Off, he lay on his bed and thought “Oh my God, what I got myself into?”. Then, he said to himself, “You know what? I'm just gonna enjoy this whole moment and have a laugh with it.” As long as he learned and became even a smidgen of a better baker, it was success for him.
Chigs has a very clear and immediate answer to the classic question: What's the last meal that you will ever have? “My Mum’s lamb curry”.
The curry brings back memories of Sundays. Each Sunday, he’d dress up and go to the squash club with his dad. When they got back, his mom would bring them freshly made lamb curry. When he tastes the curry now, it brings back those fond memories of spending time with his dad, and of squash club that no longer exists.
This flavour of nostalgia is ever-present in Chigs’ words. Vivid memories flood him when he thinks of food. He remembers coming back from school in the evening to find his mother cooking. He remembers how good it smelled, and how desperately he wanted to learn—sometimes annoying his mother with a list of questions.
The recipes he shares are vehicles that express his nostalgia with others.
The things that Chig bakes, are a homage to the flavours he encountered growing up. As a kid, he remembers his mom or dad buying him doughnuts. He remembers the Sara Lee chocolate cake and strawberry cake. When he’s baking, he is resurrecting these nostalgic encounters.
“People sometimes ask me why I don’t bake Indian stuff. But that’s not what I grew up with. I grew up with Indian sweets, but not baked Indian food. Soon, though, I do want to add Indian flavours to what I bake. Cardamom cake. Milk cake with chai. And, chai-flavored moose. Or, using flavoured milk in cake—like mum used when she made rice pudding.”
Just before Christmas last year, Chigs met one of his idols—Cupcake Jemma. If it wasn’t for her YouTube channel, Chigs says, he wouldn’t have learned the fundamentals of baking. He went to her cupcake shop in Soho and spent hours and hours talking about all things baking.
Now, of course, Chigs is an idol to many. Every day, his Instagram blows up with DMs. Parents come up to him and tell him how he’s inspired their child to bake, to cook.
The Recipe
Chigs Parmar loves snacking while he’s backpacking through the streets of India. Pau Bhaji, is one of his top favorites. This recipe recreates that taste of Indian street food.