City home cook whips up miniature dishes with a dash of nostalgia

Almost every girl would remember the proud possession of her first-ever miniature cooking set as a child. These tiny pots and utensils were not just something we loved to play with, but also our initial attempts at adulting. It was these tiny pans that allowed us to make dosas in the air and churn up an imaginary stir-fry, at an age when we weren’t tall enough to reach the kitchen counter. Bringing all of these nostalgic memories back along with delicious food, is a food channel on YouTube named Miniature Cooking Show. Run by city-based sister and brother duo, Ranjitha K and Saravanan K, the videos created by the digital channel are taking several thousands of viewers down the memory lane, while enticing their taste buds with mouth-watering dishes. 

“As a child, I was fascinated by toys, particularly the tiny figurines. Even though I hail from a Hindu family, my mother used to take my brother and I to a church on Christmas. That was when I saw how tiny structures and figurines could be used to tell the story of the birth of Christ. Ever since, I wanted to tell stories and convey them through miniature toys and figures. With a great fondness towards making food since the age of 10, I was keen to create a cooking channel using miniature pots,” 20-year-old Ranjitha, who also holds a bachelor’s degree in fashion design, tells DT Next. 

While Ranjitha curates the menus and cooks in the videos for the year-old channel, her elder brother Saravanan takes care of their filming and processing. The videos are shot with the tiny pots placed outdoors and dishes cooked over wood fire, with a rural backdrop of a minuscule thatched-roof hut. The food featured includes traditional Tamil recipes like Chettinad curries, North Indian favourites like parathas tinier than biscuits, fast foods, from French fries to pizzas which could fit in one’s palm, and even a biryani — in a teeny-weeny pot. 

“The pots and pans used are mostly made out of terracotta. The steel pots were purchased at stalls and fairs at temples. We wanted to use traditional materials like terracotta so we could also promote the usage of clay pots among everyone who watched our videos. We reached out to a pot maker to make us all the miniature pots and also the background elements like huts. With many people eating out and ordering in their food these days, we wanted the videos to also make them interested in making food, which can be an enjoyable process,” says Saravanan, 27, who works with an IT firm in the city. 

With more than 50,000 subscribers on their YouTube channel, the duo has created about 93 episodes so far — some featuring snacks like the tiniest fried chicken or vada pav one would come across, and a few others showing the preparation of a Tamil-style thali. The videos, lasting anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes, depict the entire preparation of each dish, and receive hundreds of thousands of views. Some of their most watched videos, with over a million views, include the making of country chicken biryani using a pressure cooker tinier than a shot glass and another one with miniscule idlis looking like tiny white pills served with a side of mutton curry. Even though it takes only a few minutes to cook the dishes, the miniature set up and filming take a whole day, says Saravanan. 

To mark their 50th episode milestone few months ago, the duo spent their earnings from YouTube to feed kids at a children’s home and plan to do the same ahead as well. Ranjitha is keen to do story-based cooking shows ahead, so she can tell stories through cooking and food through the means of cartoon characters.