Many a cook was born during lockdown. While the pandemic prompted a wave of first-time cooks, forced to enter the kitchen when restaurants and delivery stalled, budding gourmets used the downtime to experiment baking and conjuring up elaborate dinners from rushed grocery runs and kitchen gardens. For the pandemic brought home the necessity of eating balanced and nutritious meals.

The Lockdown Cookbook was thus born. It brings together meals of varied kinds, from family recipes to inventive treats rustled up from local produce. It illustrates how easy it is to create meals that focus on good health without compromising on taste.

The recipes here are simple and easy-to-understand. From tossing together salads to one-pot dinners, this book is a kitchen essential. Keep it handy so you can whip up satisfying meals that do not tie you to the kitchen.

Undeniably, the pandemic has changed us. Two years after the first national lockdown in March 2020, it is evident that COVID-19 reshaped every facet of our lives, including how we cook and how we eat.

Through it all, the Hindu MetroPlus told the stories. How empty supermarket shelves prompted people to start organic kitchen gardens in terraces and backyards. How neighbourhoods and apartment complexes rallied behind local farmers, buying their harvest and sharing recipes to avoid wastage. How extended families gathered together at the dining table, as the ability to work from home enabled professionals to spend more time with their parents and grandparents.

Slowly, our repository of recipes began to grow. As families began to spend more time together, heirloom cookbooks were pulled out of storage. Intrepid naturalists found ways to forage and supplement dinner with indigenous greens, WhatsApp forwards arrived, packed with practical ways to use seasonal produce.

We quickly realised how useful this collection was: most of these recipes are healthy, simple and economical, using easily available ingredients to create food that is familiar and comforting. There are plenty of ideas for quick one- pot meals, cutting short the amount of time you need to spend in the kitchen and at the sink.

Starting with almost 200 recipes from around the country from celebrity chefs and home cooks, this collection of 104 recipes has been carefully curated, picking dishes that we hope will make it into your everyday repertoire.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages