Dr Rukhsaar Sayeed cooked for the primary time when she used to be 12. Hailing from Tangmarg in Kashmir, she used to be visiting her father in Saudi all the way through her wintry weather holidays. Bored, she whipped up a caramel custard, which her circle of relatives beloved. This used to be the start of the now-34-year-old’s culinary adventure and her dream of being a chef.
When Rukhsaar used to be rising up within the 90s, she didn’t have right kind steering to succeed in her purpose of turning into a chef. With out web get right of entry to, knowledge or profession counselling, she didn’t know which trail to pursue. So she took up meals era, a newly presented direction at her college.
To her marvel, meals era used to be a fully other ball sport — it didn’t contain cooking in any respect! Alternatively, she fell in love with the ‘new international’ she used to be presented to and went directly to pursue a BTech, MTech and PhD in it.
She loved finding out biochemistry, preservation, processing, and analysis of meals merchandise.
After finishing her training, the meals technologist would had been in a position to make a choice a role of her liking, however right here’s the place her different dream kicks in — to be her personal boss. And he or she used to be keen to place within the paintings and watch for her likelihood within the solar.
This opportunity offered itself even earlier than the entrepreneur finished her PhD, and resulted in the release of her meals undertaking ‘Khalis Meals’. Lately, Rukhsaar has controlled to transform her pastime right into a thriving profession, and may be some of the best 8 finalists of MasterChef India.
A venture to offer unadulterated meals
The beginning of Rukhsaar’s undertaking stemmed from her wish to supply wholesome meals for her youngsters. Whilst pursuing her doctorate, she additionally juggled the accountability of creating do-it-yourself meals for her firstborn, her daughter, who used to be 3 on the time.
She began searching for some wholesome meals to function snacks. “I went to the marketplace on the lookout for some unadulterated meals. All I noticed used to be frozen and packaged meals, which used to be extremely processed with many preservatives and damaging components,” Rukhsaar tells The Higher India.
Failing to seek out the rest interesting, she considered operating on one thing with out preservatives, for busy moms. After finishing her PhD, she began researching find out how to make wholesome frozen snacks with out components and began experimenting at house.
“Take the frozen rooster nuggets to be had available in the market. They’re all loaded with components and meat fillers. I labored on find out how to maintain meals in a herbal means and studied find out how to build up the shelf existence. My stage helped in recipe components and standardisation,” she says, including that it took her nearly 8 months to check and paintings at the shelf existence.
She experimented with rooster strips, nuggets, popcorn, and kalari cheese samosas, which become a large hit. She additionally served her snacks at an exhibition on the Sheri Kashmir World Conference Centre (SKICC).
Buoyed by means of the reaction, she determined to transform her experiments at house right into a full-fledged undertaking. On 3 August, 2019, she introduced ‘Khalis Meals’ — a web-based, frozen meals undertaking from Pampore.
However existence had different plans. Simply 3 days later, the Indian executive revoked Article 370, which granted particular standing to Jammu and Kashmir. This transfer resulted in the suspension of web and cell services and products, halting Rukhsaar’s undertaking earlier than it would even start.
“We had been bring to a halt from the remainder of the sector and didn’t have any cell community. As my industry used to be on-line, I couldn’t hook up with my shoppers. We had been even requested to evacuate the SKICC exhibition. All my frozen meals became unhealthy as we didn’t have get right of entry to to freezers. I misplaced about Rs 70,000,” she stocks.
No longer one to be slowed down, she restarted Khalis Meals in November 2020. Alternatively, January 2021 introduced on but any other COVID lockdown, inflicting her to close down once more.
Once more, Rukshaar proved her resilience and didn’t let this have an effect on her imaginative and prescient to offer wholesome, unadulterated meals to youngsters.
“Pursuing a dream isn’t simple. It comes with its personal set of demanding situations, particularly in Kashmir. My pastime to arrange my very own undertaking and supply unadulterated, protected and wholesome snacking choices for my other people is all that assists in keeping me going. If I fail once more and feature to begin from scratch, I will be able to do all of it once more in a heartbeat. I sit up for generating high quality merchandise it doesn’t matter what demanding situations come my means,” says the entrepreneur.
What saved her going?
“By no means dropping hope. There’ll come an afternoon when you are going to achieve success in no matter you wish to have,” she remarks.
As soon as once more, like a proverbial phoenix, Rukhsaar rose in September 2021, and there was no taking a look again. Figuring out of the annexe of her area, in a ten by means of 10 sq. ft room, the mummy of 2 these days sells frozen merchandise like rooster popcorn, crispy rooster strips, breaded rooster nuggets, kalari cheese samosas for kids, and rooster keema samosas, Turkish adana kebabs, and rooster spring rolls for adults.
Interested in high quality, she makes just one batch every week to verify freshness. “We freeze the batch in our blast freezer. After it’s frozen, we pack it. It’s all hand-crafted and no equipment is used within the procedure,” she provides.
She employs six other people and will get about 600 to 700 orders per 30 days, she informs. Whilst her preliminary focal point used to be simply on on-line gross sales, the call for led her to promote her merchandise in departmental shops in Srinagar too.
However this focal point on conserving meals blank ends up in an issue of garage because it has a brief shelf existence. “We now have an amazing call for for our merchandise, however we’re not able to enlarge these days as we don’t have get right of entry to to chilly chains, refrigerated vehicles, and many others. My focal point is on high quality and I will be able to now not compromise on that,” she provides.
She hopes to enlarge out of her small room and open a culinary college in Kashmir someday.
Taking Kashmiri delicacies to the International
Even if Khalis Meals is prospering, Rukhsaar jumped on the likelihood to audition for MasterChef India.
“When other people discuss Kashmiri delicacies, they discuss wazwan and rogan josh. Via MasterChef India, I need the rustic to know the way we get ready do-it-yourself meals in Kashmir. We use such a lot of native indigenous substances to make our meals and there’s a science at the back of each factor used. The sector will have to know Kashmiri ‘ghar ka khana’,” she says.
Rukhsaar is without doubt one of the best 8 finalists in MasterChef India-Hindi and one of the most first Kashmiri girls at the display. She’s been ‘wow’ing the judges along with her dishes, the place she makes use of conventional Kashmiri substances in ingenious, restaurant-quality dishes.
“I were given an opportunity to be a chef because of MasterChef. I believe I’ve achieved all of it now,” laughs the 34-year-old.
Being one of the most few Kashmiri girls cooks, Rukhsaar is a beacon of inspiration for younger ladies within the valley. She urges children to apply their pastime.
“My profession is in sync with my pastime, which is without doubt one of the best possible issues. I wish to inform children to have a look at tactics to turn out to be their pastime right into a profession. Think about your self,” she says.
On being requested about her ‘aha second’ or the day she felt ‘she made it’, regardless of attaining such a lot, Rukhsaar says, “I believe that day is but to return”, which speaks volumes about her targets.
“I’m in a just right position and really thankful for the entirety I’ve won up to now. However I nonetheless have so much to do. I will’t say that I’ve accomplished the entirety I’ve actually ever sought after but,” she provides.
As we wait to look the heights that this fiery girl reaches, you’ll be able to apply her right here to position orders, or simply be a bystander to witness her unbelievable adventure.
Edited by means of Pranita Bhat