Mowgli Street Food: Stories and recipes from the Mowgli Street Food restaurants

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The dough has to be exactly the right density and needs to be dry enough to form a tight, waterproof final fry. Put the potatoes into a large bowl and add the red onion, chat masala, ground coriander, fresh coriander, green chilli pickle and salt and toss well until everything is fully combined. This is a twist on my Mowgli Lamb Keema (the original recipe of which can be found in Mowgli Street Food), swapping in veggie mince and serving it as the classic Indian street food known as keema pav. Try tempting snacks like the Fenugreek Kissed Fries, spice up your dinner with a whole host of delicious dahls, and indulge in desserts, drinks and cocktails from a Cardamom Custard Tart to a Sweet Delhi Diazepam. You can vary this recipe in accordance to what you have in your fridge and cupboards at home, but the main idea of the meal is simply an open chicken wrap with spinach and lots of tamarind sauce.

In 2014, barrister Nisha Katona had a nagging obsession to build a restaurant serving the kind of food Indians eat at home and on the street. Here, aubergine/eggplant replaces the traditional mutton and soaks up the flavours of the sauce just as beautifully. All the recipes are meals that range from light lunches to substantial dinners; all you need to do is accompany them with one of the simple sides suggested in the introduction, which could be rice, noodles, potatoes or a chapati wrap. Season with the salt and cook gently until the eggs are just set, then sprinkle the cheese mixture on top of the eggs and place under the grill. This is the food that Nisha Katona, TV chef and creator and face of the Mowgli Indian restaurants, cooks at home – super speedy, made with easily sourced ingredients, and delivering big, bold flavours.These recipes convey the truth that real Indian food is healthy, often vegan, and always packed with fresh flavour. I found myself often going in to chat to the chefs, dipping the Fenugreek Kissed Fries into the sauce of the Tamarind Treacle Ribs. This is the food that real people want: tasty and nutritious meals they can whip up without fuss while juggling work and childcare in an often chaotic working-from-home environment. Take your chapati and spoon on the Mowgli chutney, then carefully slide the cooked omelette out of the pan and on top of the chapati. She gave up her 20-year career as a full-time barrister to build Mowgli Liverpool and opened Manchester Mowgli less than a year later.

I put the question out on Facebook as to why it was unpopular – had it been flavour, I would have pulled it off the menu. I had to substitute a few spices as I’m running my spice cupboard down before an international move, so I won’t rate this. Spoon equal amounts of the fried potatoes onto the Mowgli chutney, then carefully roll each roti tightly. This adds a caramelised sweetness to the flesh that does much of the legwork in creating the massive flavours in this dish.The simple and creative dishes of a Mowgli menu are a million miles away from the traditional takeaway. Nisha is making another curry house favourite for us today - chicken Dhansak, flavoured with garlic, ginger, tomatoes, cumin and garam masala. Rub the tandoori masala into the diced chicken then, in a separate large non-stick frying pan set over a medium-high heat, fry for 6 minutes or until the chicken starts to change colour and brown at the edges. She is the founder of Mowgli Street Food and shares her passion for simple, honest cookery on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and BBC Radio 4.