Lovely Latasha has 2 Delicious FODMAP Friendly Certified Sauces!
Let’s welcome Latasha, the talented creator of delicious handmade & bottled, ready-to-cook masala and curry pastes, sauces, marinades, condiments and curry powders.
Lucky this lovely lady now has 2 FODMAP Friendly certified sauces! We’re talking Butter Chicken and Rogan Josh! Dinner time is now sorted with these tasty, full-bodied, fragrant sauces.
FODMAP Friendly certified Butter Chicken Simmer Sauce
This rich, fragrant and delightfully thick curry sauce is handmade using a medley of fresh Roma tomatoes, mixed vegetables, ginger, coconut cream and blended with warming aromatic spices. It’s simple to use in a variety of ways.
FODMAP Friendly certified Rogan Josh Simmer Sauce
A sizzling hot curry sauce made with fresh tomatoes, mixed vegetables, chillies, ginger and fragrant spices. This is definitely not one for the faint-hearted but rather made specifically for those who crave strong robust flavours in their curry.
These sauces are perfect to serve up with low FODMAP veggies and rice!
Available for purchase via the online store.
Let’s now meet the lovely Latasha Menon!
How did your company begin?
Owner, founder and Creative Director Latasha Menon’s passion for cooking delicious, nutritious food with fresh ingredients, herbs and spices using traditional methods, is the inspiration behind the Latasha’s Kitchen story.
Latasha was born and brought up in Malaysia and has been living in Perth since 1994. Her parent’s family originally hailed from Kerala in Southern India. As a result, Latasha’s cooking reflects the distinctive traditions of food from both South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Latasha’s Kitchen began in 2003 as a café called Latasha’s Place in busy Leederville, Western Australia. The café operated successfully preparing regional homestyle South Indian food, serving both lunch and dinner.
In 2008, Latasha decided to cater for a growing interest in cooking classes and demand for other types of Asian food using fresh herbs and spices. Latasha had taken note of the steady stream of customer requests over the years to teach them how her food was prepared and cooked, and how to make curry pastes, chutneys, pickles, sauces and curry powders from scratch.
And so began the second phase of Latasha’s Place, becoming Latasha’s Kitchen in June 2008. The café was remodelled to a Kitchen Studio format to enable Latasha to teach both hands-on, demonstration and corporate cooking classes. Latasha’s Kitchen continued to operate as a café but expanded its repertoire of dishes to include the regional preparation of South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan) as well as Southeast Asian cuisine (Malaysian, Indonesian, Thai, Singaporean, Burmese and Vietnamese food).
In 2009, Latasha’s Kitchen evolved further. Many cooking class customers expressed a desire for a shortcut to cooking preparation in their own kitchens due to time constraints. As a result of her customers’ requests, Latasha decided to produce a select range of handmade and bottled ready-to-cook masala and curry pastes, sauces, marinades, condiments and curry powders in-house.
Latasha started to prepare and hand bottle up to 30 different blends every month of approximately 40 kg per line. They sold extremely well despite being up to 5 times more expensive than well-known ‘supermarket’ brands. The products were selling out as soon as a new batch became available. Caterers, butchers and restaurants started to request Latasha’s Kitchen products. All these developments started to form a significant component of a new trading business.
In 2013 at the end of her restaurant’s lease Latasha’s Kitchen (the food company) was founded to bring an extensive range of highly concentrated Curry Pastes, Condiments, Relishes, Dressings and a Dessert Sauce to the national market. Working closely with a contract kitchen in Sydney that meets her requirement for exacting formulations, 33 flavours have so far been released. These all embody Latasha’s passion and commitment to creating and producing a “good, real and honest” authentic South Asian, Southeast Asian and Australasian epicurean taste experience.
Now in her fourth year of operation, Latasha’s Kitchen products are still hand crafted and produced in small batches by Latasha and the entire product range is certified Australian-made and endorsed by the Coeliac Society of Australia.
The quality of ingredients and passion demonstrated in Latasha’s Kitchen is equally matched by the creative flair in an integrated suite of marketing collateral to support her positioning “Cook with Love, Cook with Passion, Cook with a Generous Heart”.
What is the inspiration behind your range? Why did you create your particular certified products?
- Over the last couple of years, I have been approached by a growing number of customers who encouraged me to develop a low FODMAP range of quality products made with our trademark premium ingredients and care, either for themselves or a family member.
- I recall organising a private cooking class for a young couple who worked as scientists at CSIRO. They wanted to learn my recipes but suffered from the malabsorption of certain sugars found in vegetables, fruits, lentils and legumes. They were my first introduction to understanding this issue and together we modified my original recipes, with their insight into what vegetables and herbs I could use. The end results were fantastic and it was the first time I realised we didn’t need to depend on onion and garlic for flavour.
- Our resident dietitian also suggested that her “digestively-challenged” clients would welcome well-flavoured low FODMAP products on the market.
What are your own personal experiences with digestive health?
- I was lactose intolerant from birth and recall suffering in my early childhood and teenage years from acute gastritis, malnutrition, anaemia and poor health.
- One of my earliest memories is being fed plain boiled potatoes to fatten me up.
- From as far back as I can remember, I avoided cereals and bread because they always made me feel faint and sick.
- Over the last 7 years, I began to suffer from severe allergies to gluten, preservatives and certain colours in food and drinks. I primarily cook using whole foods, religiously read labels and avoid most processed foods, as well as lactose, wheat, spelt, oats, rye, barley and a few other grains.
Why did you want to certify your products?
- To provide a legitimate home cooking option for those seeking truly low FODMAP options as part of their health care regime.
What separates your products from others available on the market?
- They are fully flavoured without the use of any numbers in our ingredients.
- The low FOD sachets are made with the same love and attention as the other products in the Latasha’s Kitchen range.
- Each product is prepared from scratch using quality ingredients by Latasha and staff.
- They do not include any thickeners or other additives, which differentiates them from most other commercial products.
Are there more products to be added to your range in future?
This will very much depend on demand, but having formulated these recipes I know I have the blueprint to produce several other flavours.
Where can people find out more about Latasha’s Kitchen?
Via our website www.latashaskitchen.com
Look for the green logo and..
Eat with confidence!
