BOOTHBAY, Maine — Growing up in Mumbai, India — a city teeming with the energy of more than 20 million people — Cherie Scott ate street food every day, often during the long walk home from school. Most days she’d stop for corn on the cob cooked over charcoal.
“The street vendor would take a piece of lime that was squeezed into cayenne and Himalayan sauce, and then he would rub it all over the corn,” Scott recalled, her face lighting up at the memory. “Now picture me, walking 30 minutes home from school in this crazy heat in India, with my heavy backpack bigger than myself, eating this corn. And I’m literally crying because it was so spicy. But it made me feel alive, and I felt like, 'Wow, this is great.'”
With all their belongings packed into a dozen suitcases, Scott’s family emigrated from India to Canada when she was 15. A few years later she moved to the U.S. and, in 2008, settled in Boothbay with her husband and the first of their two children. In 2015, when she began writing a blog about Indian food, she decided it was time to start making the dishes she loved as a child.
“But there was one problem,” she said. “I didn’t know how to make anything. I didn’t know how to cook a single Indian dish.”
Eventually, in an impressive act of reverse engineering, she taught herself how to make the dishes she grew up with.
What she lacked in formal training she made up for with the memories of how her mother’s meals looked, smelled, and tasted.
“There’s no cooking school that can teach you that,” she said. “You need to live through it.”
After stints as a blogger, teacher, and podcaster — always with Indian food as her subject — Scott now produces three Indian simmer sauces that she sells through her business called Mumbai to MAINE.
Production has just moved to a commercial facility in Maine. The first 10,000 jars all came from her home kitchen. Many a night she was up till 3 or 4 a.m. making the sauces she needed to fill orders, all while working a full-time outside job and raising a family.
A business like Mumbai to MAINE never takes off without a burning entrepreneurial drive. That drive “comes from being an immigrant in America and never feeling like I belong here,” Scott said. “So I need to keep reassuring myself that there’s a spot here for me for that American dream.”
Saag Lamb Chops & Potatoes
Ingredients:
- 16 oz Mumbai to MAINE Saag
- 8 Boned-in lamb chops
- 1 stick of salted butter or 6 tablespoons of ghee
- 2 teaspoons of turmeric powder
- 2 teaspoons of Kashmiri chili powder
- 2 teaspoons of Maine sea salt
- 8 yellow fingerling potatoes, cut in halves, pre-steamed and fully cooked
Garnish:
- 1 tablespoon finely diced green jalapenos.
- ¼ cup of red onions finely diced
Directions:
- Rinse and pat the lamb chops dry with a paper towel.
- In a medium-hot cast iron skillet, melt the salted butter or ghee until it gets silky.
- Place the lamb chops into the sizzling butter about an inch apart.
- Dust the chips with 1 teaspoon of turmeric and 1 teaspoon of Kashmiri chili powder.
- Let them sizzle in the skillet for a couple of minutes on medium heat, uncovered.
- Now turn them over and dust 1 teaspoon of turmeric, and 1 teaspoon of Kashmiri chili powder on the other side.
- Sear for 1 more minute on medium heat.
- Take them out and lay them on a plate, not a napkin.
- Add in 8 small, steamed fingerling potatoes, cut in halves, and let them cook in the ghee for 2 minutes with a lid.
- Add a generous sprinkle of Maine sea salt.
- Take the potatoes out and lay them on the plate with the lamb chops.
- Now add the entire jar of Saag into the skillet and deglaze the skillet on low heat with the sauce.
- Add ¼ cup of water to the jar, swirl it around with the lid on, and pour it right back into the skillet.
- Stir well.
- Place the lamb chops back into the skillet and add the potatoes.
- Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of salt.
- Cover with a lid and simmer for 3 minutes on low.
- Garnish with Jalapenos and red onions.
- Serve with steamy hot Basmati rice, garlic-buttered naan, and a glass of Malbec.
Caldine Shrimp & Scallops in a Skillet
Ingredients:
- 16 oz Mumbai to MAIEN Caldine
- 10 Jumbo gulf shrimp, deveined, tail-on
- 10 large scallops
- 1 stick of salted butter
- 2 teaspoons turmeric powder
- 2 teaspoons Kashmiri chili powder
Garnish:
- 1 large jalapeno, no seeds just the green, finely diced
- 2 tablespoons finely diced green scallions
Directions:
- Pat both the shrimp and scallops dry with a paper towel.
- Place the stick of salted butter in a medium-hot cast iron skillet.
- Add the shrimp into the skillet not too close together.
- Dust the shrimp with 1 teaspoon of turmeric and 1 teaspoon of chili powder.
- Let them sizzle in the skillet, uncovered.
- Cook for 2 minutes on medium heat.
- Take them out of the skillet and lay them on a plate, not a napkin.
- Next, add the scallops into the same skillet, not too close together.
- Sprinkle the scallops with 1 teaspoon of turmeric and 1 teaspoon of chili powder.
- Cook for 2 minutes on low heat. Take them out of the skillet and lay on a plate.
- Add the Caldine sauce into the skillet and deglaze the skillet.
- Place the shrimp and scallops back into the sauce, cover with a lid, and simmer for 1 minute.
- Turn the heat off and garnish with diced jalapenos and green scallions.
- Serve over a bowl of Basmati Rice, a side of garlic-buttered Naan, and a glass of chilled Riesling.