MasterChef Pankaj Bhadouria inspired chopping boards in Teak

Chef Pankaj Bhadouria is a name many of us would relate to, especially if you have been cooking over the past years. The winner of MasterChef India, she is a teacher, cookbook author, television host and a passionate believer in home-grown ingredients and Indian cuisine. A school teacher, born and brought up in Lucknow and a Master’s degree in English from Lucknow University, she is an inspiration to many. She has been featured in various television channels including Star Plus, BBC, TLC, Discovery, ETV and Living Foodz among other television channels. She is also the brand ambassador for various brands including Cox and Kings, MasterChef Travels, and the face of olive oil brands, recruited by the Spanish government.

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Well, that’s a lot of achievement. And it’s only growing by the day.

We at Amra Farms have been an ardent follower of Pankaj Bhadouria’s cooking shows and her cuisine in general, mostly for our own home cooking and we love the Indian cuisines by Pankaj Bhadouria. This is also when we came across some of the boards featured in her shows and home cooking videos. We noticed that most of the boards were made of wood, with only one or two videos featuring a plastic board. We did find one bamboo board which was different in design and no steel or glass boards at all.

The boards used by Pankaj Bhadouria were almost always compact, small and perfectly crafted for homes. Unlike professional kitchens which used large boards which were more or less like huge blocks, all of Pankaj Bhadouria’s boards were small, easy to handle, crafted for a normal person for a normal home.

Inspired by the boards she uses in her videos we crafted similar boards, with the same design and dimension for regular use. These boards were created in teak, mango wood and tamarind wood by Amra Farms.

Teak wood chopping board with juice grooves

This is one of the few boards which is very commonly featured in multiple videos and photographs of Pankaj Bhadouria. The simple small board with juice grooves is perfectly crafted for small kitchens. With teak wood, we replicate not the design alone but improved on the material. Teak is dense, rich in natural oils and extremely knife-friendly. Also teak wood is beautiful, aesthetically pleasing and exudes luxury.

Our teak wood chopping boards are crafted from a single block of wood with an option of joint wood chopping boards in the same design for price-sensitive customers. Durable, clean, handcrafted, dense and oil-rich, these boards are crafted for a long life.

Teak wood blocks for chopping vegetables

The second board featured in Chef Pankaj Bhadouria’s kitchen is the smallerteak wood chopping board with no grooves or handle. These boards are a simple and beautiful addition to your kitchen, making it a quick go-to chopping board for cutting vegetables and herbs. Rich in grains and colour, these smaller wooden boards feature smooth edges, rounded corners and a tough smooth surface.
Our version of these handmade teak chopping boards are created in small batches from the best heartwood of teak to ensure they are beautiful to look at and add an oomph to your kitchen. The golden hue of the wood is a perfect touch of style for your food prep.

Mango wood alternatives

For those who are price conscious, we have crafted the same design in mango wood. Tough, strong with a rustic charm, these wooden boards are crafted to look good and perform well in your small kitchen. Easy to handle, lighter than teak wood, these boards are perfect for regular use.

Why we created these boards?

At Amra Farms we started creating chopping boards to repurpose fallen or retired farm trees. Our mango farms usually retire trees older than 60 years. Some trees are a risk to neighbours and also people who walk the farm. We are forced to cut down these trees to prevent accidents. Unfortunately, there was no way to use these cut down trees till a few years ago. We had to resort to a simple project which can be done with local carpenters to use the wood. This way we could employ carpenters locally and also use the wood which was either going to be burnt or destroyed.

The idea evolved when we realised most of the chefs used wooden chopping boards at home though restaurants and commercial enterprises used plastic boards. People who cook at home prefer a safer alternative. One of the few chefs we came across was Chef Pankaj. Her use of acacia boards was prominently seen on most of her videos and we thought that we could make a better version of the wooden chopping board with teak wood which was available in the farm itself. We decided on handcrafted wooden chopping boards, not factory made. All our boards were naturally seasoned with no chemicals and no glue with functionality and style in mind.

The first few boards were used at our home to check if they were feasible. Though we have been using teak wood chopping boards for generations, we were worried about the design itself. We realised that Chef Pankaj’s boards were not just good to look at but were greatly functional too, especially for home cooks. They were small, compact and easy to handle yet reliable and sturdy.

A chef’s choice for every home

With Amra Farms chopping boards you don’t need to be a Michelin star chef or a MasterChef to use the same kitchen accessories—at least not a chopping board. We create these boards to match and often excel the quality of the boards displayed and what more? They are cost-efficient. Since we do not have any middleman, we sell through our own website (yes we have stores on Amazon and Flipkart among other online stores, where the prices are adjusted to include their fee), the prices are usually rock bottom. We also provide discounts for large orders.

To add to the existing products, we also provide products to match your requirement. You have a special need in terms of size? Give us a shout and we will make it for you!!

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