Sweet success is simply cooking like Mother

We are sitting in the unassuming surroundings of the Prashad Chaat House she started with her husband, Mohan, 17 years ago in Bradford providing traditional Indian snacks such as Bombay Mix and sweets to the Gujarati community before opening a 24-seater restaurant.

She has recently handed over the main cooking responsibilities to her daughter-in-law Minal. Although Kaushy says she misses cooking, she is clearly happy with her proteg.

"She is a very good learner and has picked up everything I taught her. She is a very good cook." Both women beam from ear to ear.

Kaushy, who started winning awards for her fresh, light vegetarian dishes five years ago, now goes into people's homes to pass on her secrets, leaving Minel and son Bobby to run the business.

It was Bobby who first suggested his mum open a restaurant when he was just 10 years old.

He said one day: "Mum you make such good dinners you should open a shop."

Kaushy says: "I didn't even dream about it, and then when my husband was not so well, he suggested trying the shop idea."

Hard work at their Chaat House, in a side street off Horton Grange Road, not far from the Mumtaz restaurant in Bradford, has put all three children through private education,

Bobby, who went to Fulneck School at Pudsey and is a business graduate, has ambitious plans for expanding the brand, although he has taken advice and has taken his time in taking the next step.

"What we have here is unique, I realise that now. If we expanded too quickly we would lose what we have here and that would not be right for us as a family or our customers." says Bobby.

"We do want to expand, but I want to find the right place, probably somewhere like Chapel Allerton in Leeds, but we will always keep what we have here. I used to be really bothered with how the restaurant looked when you see all these big flashy places. But now I realise that it is the food that is the most important thing."

It seems somewhat fitting that it is Bobby's wife Minal who has taken over the reins in the kitchen at least. Despite being, in his own words, entirely westernised, it surprised all the family, even himself, that he went back to their home region of Gujarat to find a wife.

"I lived in London for a while and had lots of girlfriends, but then I just decided that wasn't what I wanted." He travelled to India with the express intention finding a wife.

"It was not an arranged marriage," he stresses. "It was through introductions form other members of the family." He says he knew immediately when he met Minel that she was the one.

"In the western culture you have love first and then marriage, and then in a lot of cases divorce. It is different in India. This way we make a commitment first."

Minal spoke no English when she arrived in Bradford five years ago.

"The first thing I did was enroll on an English course," she says. Although Bradford was alien to her, as soon as she was taken into Kaushy's kitchen she felt at home.

As for Kaushy, she is clearly very close to her daughter-in -law, a term she dismisses.

"She is my daughter," she says firmly. "She works so hard. She is the one desperate to get to work."

Minal has the challenge of filing some very big shoes. Kaushy has won numerous awards, including Yorkshire Forward's Chef of the Year for three consecutive years, Yorkshire Post's Best Asian in 2006, featured in the Which Good Food Guide for the last four years, and has won the South Asian Chef Competition Chef of the

Year title.

But she is also a good teacher and Minal has started to win awards in her own right, recently beating off competition from the Mumtaz in Leeds and the Royal Baths Chinese Restaurant in Harrogate to be named Yorkshire Life's International Restaurant of the Year 2009-2010.

Minal has a passion for cooking and education. Her main principles are to keep the spices fresh and the combinations authentic.

Although Kaushy is sad to be out of the kitchen, it has meant that she and Mohan have been able to take a long-awaited trip to India, something they could not dream of while running the business. She is also still in charge of the family's outside catering business.

Mohan, who was the grafter in the kitchen, has now taken an interest in yoga and healthy food and is keen to develop this at Prashad.

The Patel family take cooking very seriously.

"My mum and now my wife do not think about money when they are cooking, they think about quality and freshness and I am sure that is why people come back to us time after time."

Bobby says he looks to India for his inspiration.

"In India food has become much lighter and fresher, taking inspiration from Japan and China. We cater for the Indian customer as well. They don't want a big heavy curry when they go out, they probably get that at home, they want something fresher and lighter."

n Prashad Vegetarian Chaat House, 86 Horton Grange Road, Bradford. Tel: 01274 575893. Open Tuesday-Sunday, lunch and dinner

or call and collect.