WHO MAKES THEM
You may be wondering who makes these magical little parcels?! Well, my name is Pritie and I’m the chef and owner of Chamilli.
I have been making samosas for years and they're a firm favourite at so many dinner parties and have also featured at some of my company meetings. The many wonderful people in my life have encouraged me to put them out into the world, so I'm excited it's finally happened.
By day I work in advertising, so this is a real passion project. But it's amazing to make a past time into something a little bit more.
WHAT CHAMILLI MEANS
The name Chamilli is another creation of mine. A spice tin is a staple in pretty much every Indian household and is home to 8 core spices: cumin, coriander, chilli, garam masala, cinnamon, turmeric, mustard seeds & cloves.
As with everything, there are variations of this but these were the spices that became the foundations of a fair chunk of my cooking. Well that's before I was introduced to paprika, five spice, scotch bonnets amongst other divine spices.
Chamilli is a letter from each of the 8 spices and, before you start a word puzzle, it's not necessarily the first letter.
I've since learnt that Chamilli is actually an Indian name, but my inspiration very much came from my tin of spices rather than it being a favourite name.
THE BACKGROUND
Growing up in an Indian household with a mother who was (& still is) a formidable cook, I learnt the art of traditional Gujarati cooking.
Moving to the melting pot that is London & globetrotting heightened my love of world cuisine. This is when the creativity really kicked in. My kitchen became a mini lab, where I played around with fusing different cuisines together & experimenting with new flavours.
Then 7 years ago, on a cold October evening, some friends came over for dinner. Samosas were part of the menu and I was asked the question ‘what else can you put into a samosa’. Turns out, red wine can fuel quite a lengthy samosa debate.
From that day my mind went into overdrive. After a little brainstorming, and numerous tests, the Christmas Samosa was born. That was the beginning of my samosa journey.
Each year I was asked by more & more people when the Christmas Samosas would be available, so the batches became bigger and bigger. Then a couple of years ago orders were placed for them. This led to orders for other samosa flavours. So I figured, why not sell them properly.
I really hope you enjoy my creations and come back to try all the new flavours that will be rolling out in 2022.