NHS doctor and his mum, 75, launch healthy Indian ready meals

Growing up in South Indian village Akila Chockalingham learned to cook at an early age. But it wasn’t just for her family – it was often for the entire community.

Now living in Keighley to be with her son and his family who moved from India 25 years ago to be an NHS consultant at Airedale Hospital, she wants more people to share her slow cooked food.

Along with her son Dr Senthil Kumar the 75-year-old grandmother has launched Chef Akila – Indian ready meals with a difference cooked from scratch using Yorkshire produce from their local butcher.

“I grew up in a South Indian village and I now live in Yorkshire with my son and his family. He is an NHS consultant doctor who believes in real and healthy food. We started on a mission to offer people the healthiest and tastiest Indian food in Britain.

“We worked with doctors, nutritionists and other experts for years to make each of my recipes as healthy as possible and sourcing the most natural ingredients.

“We carefully choose every single ingredient, sourcing locally where possible. We freshly hand-cook each item (from scratch) using traditional methods in our Yorkshire kitchen.

“If it isn’t good enough for my grandchildren, it doesn’t leave my kitchen. You get the same food that our family eats.”

“After my dad died my mum came to live with me and my wife and our two daughters,” explains Senthil.

“She was very homesick and so we suggested the started cooking for the family and passing on her knowledge to our daughters as well as for our friends.”

But then Akila was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“She started panicking and saying her life was coming to an end. She said she wanted to do something to pass on all her knowledge,

“I have always been interested in nutrition and one of the first things I do when I see a new patient is look at what they eat,” says Senthil who works with geriatric patients at Airedale.

“With the help of nutritionist we started to look at how we could make the same slow-cooked dishes that mum has been cooking since she was a girl, but modify them to make them better for you than a lot of takeaways or supermarket curries.

“It was vital that we kept the same slow-cooked process but then flash froze the curries immediately to maintain all the nutrients.”

Akila’s father was head of her village and practiced ancient Ayurvedic medicine.

“He believed food was medicine. He taught her the benefits of spices, herbs and real, wholesome Indian food.

“She learnt to cook from her mother. Until she married my dad who was a meat eater she’d only ever cooked vegetarian food. She would cook for the villagers and for those working on the farm,” says Senthil.

Akila has a specially designed five-star hygiene rated kitchen on a floor of Senthil’s house where she works with her daughter in law Selva and Michelle Barton freshly preparing every single curry including grinding all the spices and even grating the coconuts used in some of the dishes.

“It takes a long time to make a curry from scratch, which most people just don’t have ,” says Senthil.

“We take the time and skill so that people can have a homemade curry in ten minutes when they get home from work.”

Eighty per cent of ingredients used in the curries are certified organic and have no artificial colours, preservatives, flavourings, processing aids, modified starches or sweeteners.

All the dishes a re gluten free and many are vegetarian and vegan. The curries and biryanis are all designed to be microwaved from frozen and arrive via courier in special packaging that will keep the food frozen for up to 30 hours.

The packaging is biodegradable or recyclable another important factor to Akila and her son.

But it is the quality and flavours of her food that is Chef Akila’s real passion.

“I’ve always believed in real, proper food,” she says. “I’m delighted that we’ve developed what we think are the healthiest and tastiest meals you can buy in the UK.”

“Everyday we get lot of customers giving amazing feedback, which keeps me and our little team going”

“We continue cooking and our home deliveries during this lockdown which our customers find very helpful”

“We’ve also raised lot of money for charity and provided free meals to thousands of children through our “buy one, feed one” initiative.”

For every meal bought, Chef Akila donates a meal to a hungry child in India.

Through word of mouth and recommendation Chef Akila is already delivering tasty clean curries to customer across the UK. They have even won a number of Great Taste Awards in their first year of trading,

Customers can order from a choice of curries and biryanis, deliver free for orders over £39 or subscribe and enjoy 12.5 per cent 
off.

“It is hard to explain what we do. You say healthy curries to people and they think they won’t be as good as a normal curry,” says Senthil.

“But when they have tasted them they understand just how much care and attention we have taken to ensure that the taste and texture of the dishes aren’t compromised.

“With Chef Akila you can have both and that is what we are trying to make people understand.”

For more information and to see a menu visit www.chefakila.com or email [email protected]