Ravinder Bhogal gives Tania Roy a peek into her new show Ravinder’s Kitchen, which will be aired on TLC every night at 8 pm from Oct 28. It will showcase cuisines from 22 countries and include lip-smacking Indian recipes as well

Are you ready to devour, gorge, indulge, eat? Are you willing to put on your apron and get a little messy while you cook, fry, stir, grill and bake food in the kitchen? Well, award-winning food writer and food stylist Ravinder Bhogal from the UK will help you do just that. Brushing up your cooking skills from October 28, she will be taking Indian audiences on a culinary tour of 22 countries through her show Ravinder’s Kitchen, which will be aired on TLC every night at 8 pm, and will showcase both world cuisine and Indian recipes.

To pick up more Indian cooking skills, Bhogal recently made a trip to Mumbai as part of her TLC assignment. Talking about her India connection, she says, “My family relocated to the UK from Kenya when I was seven years of age. Since then, the UK has been my home but I try to visit India as often as possible because of my spiritual connection with the place. I also visit friends in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru. I love the food here as well. I relish North Indian and South Indian food as much as I enjoy other cuisines,” she shares.

For this gorgeous diva, food-related television shows is a familiar territory. “I have done two TV shows in London — The Great British Curry Trail (BBC 2) and Food: What goes in your Basket (Channel 4),” says Bhogal who became famous after celebrated chef Gordon Ramsay crowned her Britain’s new ‘Fanny Craddock’ on Channel 4’s ‘The F Word’. She pipped more than 8,000 contestants to clinch the title.

Besides, Gourmand World Cookbook Awards chose her debut cookery book, Cook in Boots (HarperCollins 2009), for the UK’s best first cookbook. Cook in Boots has 12 chapters, and each chapter has recipes based on a situation. Says Bhogal, “I feel we are emotional eaters and we eat depending on our moods.”

Some of the interesting chapters include ‘A Hug on a Plate’ which, for example, has recipes of cardamom biscuits, ‘How to impress your boyfriend’s parents?’ has South Indian curry and there’s also a chapter on ‘How to seduce your partner?’ Altogether the book has 165 recipes.

As far as her culinary education goes, she has been mostly homeschooled. “My mother is a fantastic cook and I relish her Punjabi recipes like kadhi-chawal and sarson da saag,” says Bhogal who hasn’t had any formal training in a culinary school but has had on-the-job training at restaurants and has showcased her cooking style at various pop-up projects.

She will demonstrate both quick (about 10 to 15-minutes) and challenging recipes in her TLC show. “For instance, the Turkish yoghurt soup, which requires mint and yoghurt, can be made in a jiffy. I cook a lot with vegetables because they have universal appeal. But those who like non-vegetarian fare can add meatballs to the soup. Another easy recipe is ice-cream cake. You can put it together quick,” she says.

When it comes to global cuisine, Bhogal says Asian, Malaysian, Turkish, Greek food appeals to Indians. But how about tweaking the recipes to make it more appealing to the local palate? “Well, when it comes to recipes, it is hard to say what’s authentic and what’s not because food per se has had so many influences. If you can take the best of every food, and use your imagination, get innovative and create something new, it can be wonderful,” she notes.

Besides cooking, Bhogal also enjoys reading and writing. She keeps contributing to The Sunday Times, The Independent, Waitrose Kitchen, Food and Travel, and BBC radio. Before she signs off, we ask her whether winning the Michelin star is one of her ambitions? To which she replies, “Not really, I just want to keep cooking and make people happy!”