Trust Activities

Recipe Cards & Cookery Book

The Villageways Charitable Trust has collected recipes from local villages in India. We initially published the recipes as greeting cards and later in the form of a cook book. Ann Holden, has very kindly volunteered to do water color washed images of our Villages to complement the recipe cards. The recipe cards are now available for sale.


A little about Ann Holden

Ann was a veterinary surgeon in the UK for many years, before having a career change in 2000. She has recently qualified as a medical artist and combines this work with freelance medical writing.
She first visited India in 2000, on a charity challenge to raise money for the National Deaf Children’s Society. She started exploring India from Rajasthan and fell in love with the country. She raised over £3,200 for charity. Thereafter, Ann spent four months in West Bengal (Kalimpong), volunteering as a vet. Her most recent trip to India was with Village Ways to the Binsar Sanctuary. She has kept in touch with the progress that the village has made, and plans to visit again.

The recipe cards

The illustrations for the Binsar/Saryu recipe cards have been taken from Ann’s original pen and wash illustrations that she did while staying in the Binsar villages. Those for the Kerala cards have been created more recently, using material sent to her by Village Ways. The recipes have been sent by Village Ways Charitable Trust (and tested by those involved!) and Ann has created the cards from all this information. She hopes that visitors to the villages will enjoy these as mementoes of their holidays with Village Ways, knowing that purchase of the cards is playing a small part in raising funds for the Village Ways Charitable Trust. Village Ways has collected and published 12 recipes from Uttarakhand and Kerala till date. 

Here are a few of the recipes contributed from village gourmets , tried , tested and tweaked  by our very own Lucy Edgeley a gourmet herself !

Pumpkin curry - Karmi, Uttarakhand, India

Ingredients

  • 1 small pumpkin (peeled and pieced)
  • Mustard seed oil
  • Mixed spices: ½ tsp Mustard seeds , 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp garam masala, 2 full dry chillies, 1 tsp coriander powder, salt to taste
  • Water.
  • Few coriander leaves to garnish

Method :

  1. Heat mustard seed oil in a pan till it smokes , add pumpkin pieces
  2. Add mixed spices an stir for one minute  
  3. A dd a little water and allow it to cook for 10 mins or until soft.
  4. Garnish the dish with coriander
  5. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves

Mewa's Ginger Chai – the best in all of Hacra near Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India

Ingredients

  • 1 heaped tsp of loose black tea leaves per cup of tea
  • 1 heaped tsp of sugar per cup of tea
  • 1 chunk of fresh ginger
  • 1 pinch of black pepper

As much water as needed for however many cups of tea you want to make
Goats milk (or cows milk) as is necessary to make the colour of tea you prefer. (Normally in India they have quite strong tea with relatively little milk).

  1. Bring the water to the boil.
  2. In the meantime, crush the chunk of ginger in a pestle and mortar.
  3. Add the ginger to the simmering water
  4. Add the sugar and allow to boil for a few minutes.
  5. Add the loose tea leaves and allow to boil for a few minutes.
  6. Add milk and put on a high heat. Allow the milt to froth over until it almost reaches the top of the pan. Once this has happened, it is ready to serve.

Serve by pouring into a cup over a tea strainer or small sieve.