A chef has revealed how to make a luxury three-course dinner for the whole family – spending just £13.10 ($15.75).
Content creator Danny Kim, 27, from Maryland, US, challenged chef Vinod to create a deluxe dinner with a budget of $20 which would feed a family.
Sharing the results on TikTok, the post went viral with three million views and 329,000 likes.
Heading to a supermarket, Vinod picks up onions, ginger, garlic, green and red pepper, coriander, mackerel, urad gota lentils, rice, sugar and milk – all of which came to a total of $15.75 – plus a few cupboard staples at home.
Using the haul, the food connoisseur explains: “I’m going to make an appetiser called Paniyaram, [then] fish tacos and we will have dessert.”
He starts with the fish tacos, and Vinod explains he chose mackerel due to it being both inexpensive and oily – perfect for the main course.
He guts the fresh fish, then prepares it with seasonings, then slathers it in a mixture of blended urad gota and rice, which forms a paste.
The fish is added to a frying pan of the fresh vegetables, garlic, ginger and seasonings to create the taco filling, while more of the paste is fried to make thin taco shells.
Danny samples this and says: “Wow, now that’s amazing.”
Next up is the Paniyaram – pan fried rice lentil dumplings.
Vinod uses the remainder of the paste, adds onion, ginger, coriander, peppers and seasonings.
He adds fried lentils with peanuts, and adds the mixture onto a pan to cook.
Finally, Vinod creates a simple caramel custard dessert using egg yolk and sugar, which he boils and adds coffee to.
He caramelises more sugar in a separate pan, then scoops the two separate mixtures into pots and layers them, adding water for steam before putting them in the oven.
Danny says: “Three courses for $15? Chef Vinod, you killed it, thank you.”
TikTok viewers were equally impressed.
One person commented: “He is amazing chef.”
“Wow that was so amazing. Best one,” another user agreed.
Someone else said: “Bro at Restaurant they will charge 20 bucks a person or more. Looks good.”
“Wow that’s amazing prices. That would have cost about 100$ in NY,” another viewer added.
Another person wrote: “Indian food it’s just awesome.”
“This one is one of the realest! even though he’s using all of his culinary training, it’s in a home kitchen & pretty doable for a mid level home chef,” said another fan.
“Very impressive,” agreed someone else.
