Called Love Songs, this film has more coy, eyelash flutter action than I can shake a chappati at.

Following her eldest sister’s somewhat half-baked example, the little one is setting YouTube alight with lilting tunes and romantic distant stares.

To think the former bald midget is a mighty superstar in the making… I am beyond myself with excitement!

Check her out here.

Some of you will remember that she went on some crazed “eat nothing but lemons” diet for months to turn size zero before filming.

Thankfully, good sense has prevailed. She is back to looking normal and eating properly. In fond remembrance of her dieting days, here’s a stupidly low-fat party dip.

Because she’s worth it.

Feeds 10 (with other nibbles):

• 2 large aubergines
• 4 tbsp low fat natural yogurt
• 1 large dry red chilli
• 1 tsp whole cumin
• 1 tsp sunflower oil

Spread the oil between your palms and coat the two aubergines evenly. On an open flame, roast them both turning regularly until soft and charred on the outside. Hold on to the head of the aubergine with tongs or a fork. This takes no longer than five minutes per aubergine.

If this is too fiddly just roast them instead in a hot oven (200 degrees centigrade) for about 20 minutes.

While the aubergine sits, dry roast the chilli and cumin in a small pan. Crush the cumin finely. I had some of this leftover from an earlier recipe, but you can use your coffee grinder or pestle and mortar.

Peel the charred skin off the aubergines and mash them with the whole red chilli, cumin, yogurt and salt.

Serve with warm readymade naan or parathas for dunking.

I know. I swore I would never cater again after the last experience.

But he asked so nicely. And the other option was hastily planned dinner cooked by his other friend.

I arrived with a bright yellow Selfridges bag filled with the goodies. The guests inspected the contents with interest.

Murgh hara tikka. Oooh!

Vegetable kebabs. Nice.

Roasted aubergine dip. Interesting…

Tesco Supermarket Naan?!?

There really is no pleasing some people…

The vegetable kebabs were the alter ego of quick cooking and will NEVER feature on this site. But the Murgh Hara Tikkas were a resounding success. Worth getting out of bed for, standing in the firing line and more.

Serve these creamy soft kebabs with a spicy mint and coriander chutney to make a decent impression.

Feeds 10-15:

Murgh Hara Tikka

• 1.5 kgs chicken breast
• 140 ml sour cream
• 4 tbsp thick, full fat natural yogurt
• 2 tbsp coriander seeds
• 2 tbsp fennel seeds
• 6 cloves
• 6 green cardamoms
• Quarter tsp freshly-grated nutmeg
• 2 tbsp meat tenderiser
• Handful of fresh coriander leaves
• 2 green chillies
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil
• Salt to taste

Dhaniya Pudina chutney

• 125 gm fresh coriander leaves
• 125 gm fresh mint leaves
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 3 green finger chillies
• Salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees centigrade (400 degrees Fahrenheit).

Cut the chicken breasts into large bite-sized chunks. Normally I never use chicken breasts, but these are going to be beaten into submission with the tenderiser and marinade.

Sprinkle the whole spices onto a baking tray and heat for a minute. Turn the oven off. Then blitz the spices in a food processor with all the ingredients bar the oil and tenderiser. Add salt to make a strong marinade.

In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients and leave to sit for an hour or as long as you can. When you are ready to go, preheat the oven again and bake for 10 minutes on either side.

While the chicken is cooking, make the chutney. Discard the hard stalks on the herbs and puree all the ingredients together to make a spicy, tangy green sauce.

Arrange the kebabs around a little pot of chutney and enjoy hot or cold.

Along with sorting my festive glam outfit (red tights are so in) I’ve been in deep thought about Christmas nibbles.

Festive snacks, it seems, are the mainstay of keen chefs and gluttons for punishment only. I am neither. You so won’t catch me wrapping 50 tiger prawns with 50 slices of prosciutto or fashioning 50 little kebabs to shallow fry in batches.

Just thinking about it is exhausting…

I will be sitting in front of the roaring fire instead. Hurling abuse at my siblings. Glass of winter Pimms in one hand. Whopping everyone at Pictionary with the other.

As if by luck, Santa came early this year. And he brought just the thing I needed for inspiration, a wonderful cookbook titled Modern Indian Cooking.

Written by Vikas Khanna and Hari Nayak, two US-based Indian chefs, this cookbook does exactly what it says on the tin. There’s no “let’s put Indian ingredients together and pretend it’s what we grew up on” malarky. This is an unashamed tribute to the recipes your mother didn’t cook at home. Like almond crusted roast leg of lamb and peppers stuffed with coriander coconut cream.

I made the superb prawns with a tamarind glaze, which will definitely feature at Christmas. Two hours of marinating, three minutes of shallow frying give you one large plateful of lick-your-plate-clean prawns.

My kind of Christmas snacking. Ho Ho Ho…

This recipe feeds 6:

500 gm large prawns, shelled and cleaned (I defrosted a bag of frozen ones)

1 tsp ginger, minced

4 tsp garlic, minced

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tbsp tamarind paste

1 tsp chilli powder

Half tsp turmeric powder

1 tbsp plain white flour

Salt to taste

4 tbsp vegetable oil

One lemon

Wash and dry the prawns. Mix with all the ingredients (bar the lemon juice) and two tablespoons of oil. Leave to marinate for about two hours.

When ready to eat, shallow fry the prawns in the remaining oil on ether side for two to three minutes turning once during cooking. Pile up high on a large white platter and squeeze the lemon juice all over.

PS = This is my entry for Zlamushka’s Spoonful of Christmas event on the grounds that the marinade (and cookbook) will make an excellent present.

PPS = Does this mean I have made it to my first blog event this year? Does it? Better late than never…

1. No green bananas

Okay, so I need to ditch vegetable kebabs in favour of vegetarian shammi kebabs.

2. Soggy dough

I’m more likely to plaster walls with this than fashion 40 little nibbles.

3. One hour to party

My nails smell of ginger. Hair smells of onions. Glitter vest needs ironing…

I don’t ever want to hear the words “Madhur”, “Jaffrey” and “perfect” spoken in the same sentence.

Panic stricken and distraught, I flung half a cup of flour into the dough, greased two shallow baking trays, spooned in the dough and stuck the whole lot into the grill.

A bloodcurdling “honeeeeeeeey” drafted the man in to help, while I jumped into the shower, squeezed into skinny jeans, did my make up and skipped back into the kitchen.

I arrived at the party on time, as cool as my cucumber raita. And mother of all suprises - the vegetable and lentil bites (as they had now been christened) were the biggest hit of the evening!

Glass of vino is one hand, I lapped up the praise, claiming they had been ridiculously simple to make from a recipe I had been using for years.

Perfection. Just the way I like it.

This recipe makes enough for 20:

250 gm channa dal (yellow gram lentils)

2 medium onions, roughly chopped

3 inch ginger, grated or chopped fine

8 cloves

2 inch cinnamon

4 bay leaves

1 tsp whole black pepper

6 large potatoes, peeled

4 large carrots

Half cup plain white four

125 gm fresh coriander, chopped

Salt to taste

2 tbsp sunflower oil

Wash the lentils thoroughly until the water runs clean. In a large pot bring the lentils to boil with the whole spices, onion and ginger. Cook until you can squish the lentil pieces easily.

I pressure cooked the whole lot for 10 minutes, after the first whistle.

In the meantime, boil the potatoes and carrots until a fork can be inserted through them easily.

Drain both the lentils and the vegetables. Remove all the visible whole spices from the lentils and combine it with the vegetables in the larger pot. Add the fresh coriander, pepper, flour and salt and mash well until you get a semi smooth dough.

Pre heat the grill to a medium heat (gas mark 5, 190 degrees). Line a shallow baking tray with kitchen foil and grease lightly with a tablespoon of oil. Spoon and smooth the dough evenly into the baking tray.

Grill for 15 minutes on one side. Cover the tray with a wire rack, flip the dough over and place back into the tray to cook the other side for another 15 minutes.

Leave the whole lot to cool, cutting into bite-sized bits when ready. This is ideally served with dhaniya pudina or mint and coriander chutney.

Recipe for mint and coriander chutney:

150 gm fresh mint

250 gm coriander leaves

Juice of 1 lemon

4 green finger chillies

1 tbls natural yogurt

Quarter pint water

Salt to taste

In a food processor, blend the whole lot. Adjust according to taste so if it’s too lemony add a handful more herbs and if it’s too spicy add a bit more yogurt. Chutney rules don’t apply.

On the surface, it seemed like a bloody brilliant idea. I would cook. My colleagues would eat. I would win employee of the month.

Three grocery trips later, I realised my mistake. Feeding 20 hungry but weight-conscious PR people is tricky on most days. A Thursday night is pushing it…

Worse still, the jokes were on me:

“Chez Mallika”

“Looking forward to a Mallika kebab”

“I’m going to Buckingham Balti instead”

But there was no way out. I decided on a selection of nibbles that would be easy to cook and fill hungry stomachs at the same time:

• Murgh Malai Kebabs - boneless cubes of chicken baked in a double cream, cheese, yoghurt and saffron marinade
• Aloor daum - New potatoes in a spicy, sweet and sour masala
• Vegetable kebabs - Grilled lentils and vegetable bites cooked with whole spices, ginger and onions

With two dips and strips of readymade naan, I was ready to stage the Mallika show.

The trick, I have learnt, is to make nibbles that don’t need to be shaped or cooked in small batches and can be served cold. Keep them simple and bake/grill/stir fry large quantities instead.

Also, rope in a pefectly domestic colleague to help serve.

Another to pour you a glass of chilled wine.

The third to lavish generous praise on you.

Finally, get drunk and pass out before you notice whether anyone is actually eating anything.

Next time someone has a party, I’ll keep my big mouth shut. If I don’t - shoot me will you?

Recipe for Murgh Malai Kebab to serve 20:

3 kg boneless chicken breasts

500 gm thick yogurt

568 ml double/heavy cream

300 gm cream cheese

Half a nutmeg

1 tsp saffron, soaked in 1 tbsp hot water

3 tsp meat tenderiser

6 inches ginger

Cloves of 1 garlic bulb

6 green finger chillies

3 tbsp sunflower oil

salt to taste

Puree the garlic, ginger, green chillies with the oil in a blender. Cut the chicken into chunks slightly larger than bite sized, bearing in mind that they will shrink as they cook.

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients apart from the chicken. Taste it to make sure the marinade is a pungent mixture, as it will lose some of its strong flavour when cooked.

Now, add the chicken and coat it evenly with the marinade. Leave it for at least two hours. I did this on the Tuesday to save preparation time on the Wednesday before the party.

Just before you need them, preheat the oven to gas mark 5 or 190 degrees centigrade. Line three baking trays with the chicken and cook the chicken in two batches for about 20 minutes each.

When cooked, the chicken will be cooked through with a warm brown surface. You may have to rotate the trays to make sure each of them gets a chance in the hotetst part of the over (the top).

Pile them up on to a platter and serve with dhaniya pudina chutney, mint and coriander sauce. Recipe to follow.

Recipe for aloor daum to serve 20:

3 kg small, new potatoes

6 tomatoes, chopped fine

3 inches ginger, chopped or grated

3 tsp turmeric powder

3 tsp chilli powder

Half tsp asafoetida

3 tsp garam masala

6 tbsp thick natural yogurt

Salt to taste

3 tbsp sunflower oil

In a large wok or karhai, bring the oil to heat over a high flame. When the oil is hot, add the asafoetida.

As it sizzles, add the tomatoes, the ginger and all powders bar the garam masala. Stir for five minutes until the tomatoes disintegrate and the raw smell of the spices gives way to a more pleasing, subtle aroma.

Now add the yogurt and stir vigorously for another five minutes until it is well incorporated with the masalas.

Now stir in the potatoes, mixing the masalas well into them. Add salt at this stage as well.

Next, add a cup of hot water, cover the wok and leave the potatoes to cook and the curry to dry up. You need to lift the lid every couple of minutes and give the potatoes a good stir.

When the curry is completely dry and a fork can be inserted through the potatoes easily, the dish is ready. Mix in the garam masala and take the wok off the flame.

This dish is spicy and infinitely more delicious when served the next day.

PS = Needless to say, the potatoes were not nearly as popular as the rest of the nibbles as obviously fatty carbs. Little did the PR folk know that the chicken had been cooked with cream and cream cheese. Ouch…

Like nicking her neighbour’s fresh herbs and passing them off as her own. And giving her 28-year-old nephew a rather risque playboy bunny costume for his birthday.

A befitting senior member of a family of nutters.

Madge was furious with us for showing up seven hours late to her country home on Saturday.

Quickly realising we were not going to join her for lunch she abandoned her attempts to cook it midway, waiting in the garden with a bottle of wine, her man and the cat for company.

By the time we arrived, Maggie was ready to skin her beloved cat (and any of us if we got in the way). And one quick glass of wine later, we were marched off to the local jazz performance at Arundel festival.

On our return, it became quickly evident that Madge’s half made lunch was now going to be dinner. Luckily for me, it was a soft and flavoursome cumin cauliflower potato.

Unluckily for the others, it was just that. The remaining £145-worth of food shopping had been stashed away for a colossal barbeque the following day.

As I ate the cumin cauliflower potato with mango pickle for dinner, I was inspired to cook it at home. Only this time, as a side dish to something equally simple for a weekday meal.

So here is a simple jeera aloo or cumin potato - the cat’s whiskers for lovely Madge.

This recipe serves 4:

750 gm raw new potatoes, sliced into 1cm thick discs

2 tsp whole cumin

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

Half tsp chilli powder

Quarter tsp asafoetida (hing)

1 whole red chilli

2 tbsp sunflower oil

Salt to taste

Hot water

In a large frying pan, heat the oil over a high flame. When it is hot, add the hing and almost immediately the whole cumin and red chilli.

As they sizzle up add the cumin, coriander and chilli powders. The aroma of the raw spices will fill the air and, as it does, chuck in the raw potatoes.

Stir the potatoes vigorously to mix it well into the masalas. Add salt now to taste, making a lovely rounded masala for the potatoes.

Now add a quarter cup of hot water, cover the pan and let the potatoes cook. Lift the lid off every two to three minutes and give them a good stir ensuring they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan. If the water dries up, add a bit more, repeating this process until you can insert a fork through the bone dry potatoes easily.

Enjoy this as a side dish with just about anything or crack open a box of toothpicks to serve it as a party snack.

To make matters worse, the summer sales are in full swing. After a day on totalnightmare.com, I started making my way to a trendy south London pub. With a summer goose feather and duck down (or is it the other way around) duvet and a red plastic bag with S-A-L-E emblazoned across the front.

It’s sooooo hard to be glamorous all the time…

Unsurprisingly, the pleasant people on London’s peak hour public transport gave me looks of “what the hell” as I dashed down the escalators towards a vodka lemonade.

I give them Tangri Kebab.

Tangri kebabs are grilled chicken drumsticks steeped in fresh mint, coriander, lemon and yogurt. Deliciously juicy and tender on the inside, they are coated with a lovely flavorful marinade on the outside.

And the best thing about them - they don’t need a drop of oil to cook!

This recipe takes half an hour of quick Indian cooking in two halves. The first five minutes is for marinating the chicken and the 20 minutes on the following day is what you need to cook them.

It takes a bit of organisation, I know, but I had enough time to plan it all while avoiding evils on the underground.

This recipe serves 4:

12 chicken drumsticks, skinned

4 heaped tbsp low fat natural yogurt

3 inches ginger

9 fat cloves garlic

12.5 gm fresh mint leaves

4 thin green chillies

25 gm fresh coriander, hard stalks cut off

Salt to taste

Juice of 1 lemon

In a blender, puree the yogurt, ginger, garlic, mint leaves, chillies and coriander. Add enough salt to make it an extra strong marinade for the chicken.

Now take a large mixing bowl and place the chicken drumsticks in it, making deep sideways gashes on either side of each piece.

Spoon over the marinade and drizzle the lemon juice all over them. Leave them to sit in the fridge for as along as possible - overnight in my case.

Take them out of the fridge at least two hours before you are ready to cook. Half an hour before you want to eat, heat the grill to 190 degrees Centigrade, gas mark 5 or 375 Fahrenheit.

Place the drumsticks down flat with a distance of a centimetre between them. Heat on each side for five minutes, with a total cooking time of 20 minutes.

In the meantime, bring the leftover marinade to boil and then simmer for five minutes. You can mix the juices from the drumsticks in the grill into this for a spicy and tangy chutney to accompany the kebabs.

Just superb on their own or with a salad.

I learnt how to make these on my recent trip to India. My friend Alka who hates cooking made these for me, which is really saying something. I then got the recipe off my mum’s red-lipstick and kaftan-wearing, chain-smoking friend Litu mashi over a cup of tea and three samosas. Size zero diet has not been going well for a while now…

Shami kebabs are from that staple house of Indian cooking known as Mughlai food. Handed down from the Moghal Emperors who ruled India yonks ago, it is a rich and luxurious style of muslim cooking ever-popular in India.

My recipe made about 12, which hubby and I went through in seconds. The best thing about these is that you can make them in advance and reheat in a microwave when ready to serve. Always have them hot though.

250gms lean beef or chicken mince
Quarter cup chana lentils, soaked in cold water
Half tsp turmeric
Quarter tsp chilli powder
Half tsp garam masala
1 onion, chopped fine
1″ ginger, chopped roughly
1 large bay leaf
1″ cinnamon
3 cloves
3 cardamoms
1 green chilli
3 tsp flavourless oil
1 egg, beaten
1 cup hot water
Salt to taste

Soak the chana dhal for at least an hour before you start cooking. Heat 1 teaspoon of oil, and fry the onions, then ginger and all the whole spices (bay leaf, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon).

When the onion starts going translucent, add the mincemeat, chana dhal and all the other masalas and the chopped green chilli, and stir viciously until the meat is brown all over.

Now add the water and boil until the chana is cooked (you will know when it’s soft and squidgy to taste) and the water completely evaporates.

Leave the mixture to cool slightly. Then add salt to taste and grind it in a food processor. Don’t worry if a few pieces of chana dhal are whole, this will only add character to the kebabs.

Now take meatball size amounts and shape into flat discs. Heat the remaining two teaspoons of oil. Then dip each side of the kebabs in the beaten egg and shallow fry in batches until golden brown on either side.

These are great with mint chutney and tomato ketchup.

I have mixed memories of Diwali from my childhood in India. Mostly, I hid under the bed in the quietest room in the house with our dog Gina - lovingly named after the eponymous character from the sitcom Dynasty by my mother.

I crawled out in time for dinner and to collect the traditional cash donation from my dad after he’d done the Ganesh Lakshmi puja for health, wealth and prosperity.

The food was the real saving grace of the evening for my petrified self. The evening Diwali meal at our place was strictly vegetarian - a veritable feast of golden fried pooris, masala aloo and paneer with a wide selection of sweets to finish.

Sadly, I’ve never quite managed to create a similar Diwali feast in London. But I do make the masala aloo from time to time.

Here’s the recipe to serve 2-3:

6 medium potatoes, halved

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp cummin powder

Half tsp chilli powder

Half tsp turmeric powder

Quarter tsp asafoetida powder

1 tsp whole jeera

2 tbsp yoghurt

2 tbsp sunflower (or other flavourless) oil

Heat the oil on a high flame, and when hot add the asafoetida powder. Then add, in order, coriander, cummin, chilli and turmeric powders.

Let the spices bubble up in the pot for a minute and then add the potatoes. Give them a good stir, mixing the masalas in and then add the whole cummin.

Fry the potatoes for a minute or two until they start browning, and then add the yoghurt. Mix it into the potatoes and then lower the flame to medium, cover and cook until the potatoes are done.

Add salt to taste. These are great as a side dish or on their own as moreish nibbles.

Happy Diwali!