As Shabana Salauddin’s delivery kitchen in Marol turns five, she does what Kokni Muslims are known to do best — cook up a feast. The platform, Ammeez Kitchen, was born of Salauddin’s zeal for presenting the flavours she was brought up on. But why celebrate an important milestone with a thali? “The cuisine has so much to offer that often it’s not viable for a customer to taste our food at its fullest scope. So I thought of curating a food festival where Kokni Muslim food can be introduced through a starter, bread, fish curry, meat gravy, a rice preparation and desserts. And what better way to combine that diversity if not in a thali?” the home chef explains.

The menu features a vegetarian thali that comprises dishes such as hara bhara kebab, yakhni pulao, khatti dal and paneer masala. The fish and meat platters have prawns halduni, tandul bhakri, pomfret tawa fry, goshh chaap, chicken qeema methi, among other dishes. Salauddin picks kokum as the community’s star ingredient. In their sixth year, she looks back and takes immense joy in having created a big food family that eats and stays together.