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Great Taste-Winning Range
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Gluten Free
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Fifty Years in the Making
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Trusted by 3,000+ customers
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Free UK delivery over £20
dot
Great Taste-Winning Range
dot
Vegan
dot
Gluten Free
dot
Fifty Years in the Making
dot
Trusted by 3,000+ customers
dot
Free UK delivery over £20
dot
Great Taste-Winning Range
dot
Vegan
dot
Gluten Free
dot
Fifty Years in the Making
dot
Trusted by 3,000+ customers
dot
Free UK delivery over £20
dot
Great Taste-Winning Range
dot
Vegan
dot
Gluten Free
dot
Fifty Years in the Making
dot
Trusted by 3,000+ customers
dot
Free UK delivery over £20
dot
Great Taste-Winning Range
dot
Vegan
dot
Gluten Free
dot
Fifty Years in the Making
dot
Trusted by 3,000+ customers
dot
Free UK delivery over £20
dot
Great Taste-Winning Range
dot
Vegan
dot
Gluten Free
dot
Fifty Years in the Making
dot
Trusted by 3,000+ customers
dot

Neetu Sood

Mama, to almost everyone who has eaten at her table.

Neetu Sood

The Mama in Mama Sood’s

Neetu Sood is the Mama in Mama Sood’s. The chutneys are her recipes, and so are the dishes marked From Mama on this site.

She learned to cook in Delhi, in a small house shared by seven people, where the cooking happened at floor level on an angiti, a clay coal stove. One stove was shared between three or four houses, passed along once a family had finished.

Where she learned

Her teachers were her nani, Beeji, and her mum. Her nani’s standard for chapatis was strict: round, small and very thin. Neetu and her sister used a bowl to cut perfect circles. “We used to cheat.”

She cooked her first meal at seven or eight, with her brother, while the adults were out: “We made our first lentils and chapati.”

Every meal came with a small bowl of fresh chutney on the side, ground on a silbitta, a grinding stone. Mango pickle was the most famous in the house, and lemon the other favourite. Everyday food had no onion or garlic.

Coming to England

Neetu at Diwali, holding a lit diya, with lights along the path
Diwali

Neetu came to Liverpool in 1992, at 27, on her first flight. She travelled alone and carried her Ramayana. “I came from 35 degrees 40 degrees and suddenly it was 15.”

Then there were the vegetables. “Even cauliflower it was so watery here there was no flavour no smell.” So she adapted. She started adding onion and tomato for depth, and for Indian groceries she travelled to Manchester or Leicester.

Her tamarind chutney took the same kind of patience. She started with raw imli, tried concentrate, and in the end mixed the two. That chutney is the Date & Tamarind in the jar today.

Before she left India, her mother Rani, a Delhi headmistress who is now 90, told her: “Don’t let my name down.”

How she cooks

Ask Neetu for a recipe and you get principles rather than measurements.

“Every food needs to be cooked with love and tender care.”

“Slow and steady cooking will bring the flavours out better.”

“Salt is something which combines all the spices together.”

She is vegetarian, and she remembers what every friend likes: moong dal for one, no peppers for another, onion bhajis for Uncle Brian. Her chutney experiments began with an apple tree in the family garden, and new flavours still start in her kitchen and get tested on the Mama Sood’s team first.

“You’re not only filling the stomach up, you’re filling your soul.”

Mama, on what cooking gives people

What she makes

The chutneys

Date & Tamarind, Tomato & Pineapple and Apple are her recipes. Chilli was Paalan’s idea, and she made it her way: “I made it like a sweet chilli pickle way.”

The supper clubs

The first Mama Sood’s supper club was in Rainhill in June 2024. Fifteen guests came. She made enough food for fifty. Today she cooks the whole meal for the supper club series at Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot.

The markets

She drives the van and stands behind the table, most weekends, at markets across the North West. For guests who asked, she has made gluten-free chapatis and naans.

Recipes from Mama

View all recipes

The dishes marked From Mama on this site: her recipes, cooked her way.

Easy No-Churn Kulfi

Easy no-churn kulfi

Whipped cream and condensed milk with cardamom, rosewater and pistachio.

Moong Dal Balls (Lentil Fritters)

Moong dal balls

Lentil fritters, made for dipping in Date & Tamarind.

Fifty years of cooking. Finally in a jar.

All four in the Chutney Selection Pack