When Palakkad native Firoz Chuttipara migrated to Saudi Arabia to work as a welder, he never expected to return home as a skilled meat chef half a decade later.
Between 2007 and 2012, the young welder worked at dusty construction sites by day, and silently mastered the basics of Kerala cuisine by night. On his very first outing in the kitchen, Firoz recalls preparing some spicy Kerala sardine gravy or mathi curry - his mom's recipe and comfort food when eaten with hot rice.
"I didn't know the first thing about cooking," Firoz acknowledges, with a laugh. "It was a skill I was forced to pick up as I got sick of eating out by the third day," he says.
Despite flirting with food by accident, cooking didn’t just end Firoz's homesickness in Saudi. After he returned to his hometown of Chuttipara, it turned him into a culinary sensation on YouTube with 1.4 million subscribers, after years of hard work and preparation.
The Village Food Channel, run by Firoz and his friends, is now hugely popular among viewers as it turns food - mostly meat - into a culinary spectacle.
An accidental chef turned YouTube sensation
For a few months after his return from Saudi, Firoz continued to work as a welder in Chuttipara. Later, he moved on to start a small photostat shop and DTP centre which had a successful run for a few years.
"On one such working day, I was reading the newspaper and there was a report which explained how one can make money from YouTube. My mind was blown I did not know putting videos up online could offer me an income," Firoz tells TNM.
A few trials and errors later, the 33-year-old put together his culinary skills and made a short video on 'how to make soft and flaky Malabar porottas'. The video which was shot at his uncle's food stall - Yusuf Biriyani Centre - in Palakkad, has gone on to become a viral hit with 14 million views.
From then on, Firoz has gone all guns blazing with his channel. He knows what his viewers like to watch and turns each recipe into a grand spectacle. Interestingly, each time Firoz cooks for his channel, he easily fills 50-100 hungry stomachs.
"When you make videos on food, I feel small portions do not really appeal to people. This is why all my preparations are on a mega-scale," he explains.
A quick Youtube search throws up some of Firoz's large-scale experiments. The 33-year-old stirs up a spicy Kerala style beef curry with 15 kilos of meat in one video. In another episode, he cooks a curry with 1000 quail eggs. He’s also made biriyani with three full goats.
A fiery red broth bubbles up inside a huge china pan (Cheena Chatti) in one of the videos. Into this, Firoz cuts up and adds a whole shark weighing 50 kilos - preparing what he calls the 'shraav' curry.
Masala king crab, giant pearl spot or Karimeen steamed in banana leaves, special 'Palakaddan' style biriyani with fish and beef, coconut chicken and roasted chicken are some of the smash hits on the channel.
"I also tried the famed Kuddukachi dum Biriyani in one episode. It is a dish from Kannur made with the white leghorn chicken raised in households. The biriyani has a deliciously different taste," Firoz adds.
Among his biriyani experiments is also the 'Mula' or bamboo biriyani cooked inside foot-long bamboo stems and served with yogurt raita. For a successful bamboo biriyani, Firoz insists that the bamboo stems needs to be properly cleaned and oiled on the inside.
Although his base is Kerala cuisine, Firoz is also open to experimenting with famous recipes from other states.
"The masalas are a bit different with recipes from Hyderabad or Karnataka. For Malayali recipes, I stick to the usual ginger-garlic paste with chilly, turmeric, coconut milk and sometimes fennel seed powder. With Hyderabadi or north Indian recipes, I add more of Pudina and coriander," he says.
The Hyderabadi Masala Chicken and the delicious Attu kaal paaya from Tamil Nadu (mutton leg paaya) are a few of the famous dishes that Firoz has created.
Ask him what he likes eating the most, and Firoz sticks to seafood, prepared specifically in his mother's style. "I love sardine curry and crispy fried mackerels. I can relish it at any time of the day," he says.
As this welder-turned chef continues his culinary journey by shooting videos in his friend's backyard in Chuttipara, he is showered with love and support from the village. On the day of the shoot, scores of his friends turn up at the location, helping with the preparations or silently offering support to the team.
"They do everything from chopping shallots and tomatoes to cheering us on during an exhausting shoot. But the best thing they do is wipe clean all the food that is prepared on that day," Firoz says with a chuckle.