Rohini Rana’s new cookbook Memories on a Platter: My Fusion Cookbook begins with a dedication to the three women who ignited a love of cooking in her – her mother, her sister-in-law and her husband’s nanny — a flame that, decades later, continues to burn.

Born into royalty to Raja Digvijay Pal Singh and Rani Anant Kumari of Awagarh in Uttar Pradesh, Rohini married Gaurav Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, who went on to become the Chief of Army Staff, Nepal Army, from 2012 to 2015.

“During the eight months between my engagement and marriage, my mother realised that I had not learnt any cooking skills – owing to my years of staying in hostel dorms and only coming home for the holidays. So, my sister-in-law, Rani Saheba Anjali Kumari, was tasked with teaching me how to cook. From making eggs-to-order to sandwiches and cakes as well as Indian dishes, she taught me all, and I absorbed it like a sponge!”, Rohini recalls with a smile. As a newly-married bride in Nepal, it was her husband’s childhood nanny, Chiniya Champa didi, who taught her cooking. “I’ve been a foodie my whole life. I guess that is what led to my interest in cooking because once you’re fond of eating good food, you want to know how to make it,” she says.

It was out of sheer boredom, when her husband was posted somewhere in the hills, and she found herself the sole woman among a battalion of 800 men, that she decided to pen down an introduction to her first book — The Rana Cookbook: Recipes from the Palaces of Nepal. “I realised that my husband’s nanny was getting old and soon, all that knowledge about Nepalese heritage cuisine would be lost,” she says. The Nepal Cookbook: 108 Regional Recipes followed soon after, both books earning recognition for preserving Nepal’s culinary heritage.

Her third book, Memories on a Platter: My Fusion Cookbook, published by Penguin Random House, was launched recently in the presence of Jyotiraditya M Scindia, Union Minister of Communications. The collection draws inspiration from Rohini’s childhood in India, her years within Nepal’s illustrious Rana family after her marriage, and the diverse cuisines she encountered while accompanying her husband on diplomatic and military assignments around the world. “Having exhausted my Nepali repertoire, I was thinking about what to do next. I think the more you grow older, the more you drift back to your childhood memories. So, I have a lot of Indian recipes in this book, but since it is fusion, there is Nepali cuisine as well as cuisines from places such as Italy, Japan, China, Kenya, Lebanon, Cambodia, the United Kingdom, and Malaysia among many others,” she shares. 

Divided into sections such as global bites, centrestage, vibrant crunchy bowls, sweet traditions and liquid delights, the book blends anecdotes from her life with inventive cross-cultural dishes. A great love for all things chaat (she is from UP, after all!) led to a recipe with golgappas, but since this is also fusion, she suggests fillings such as scrambled eggs and salmon, or corn and edamame. Elsewhere, mini makki ki rotis meet melted brie, and buckwheat crepes take on ham and cheese.

“Most of these dishes came out of experiments, and I have, hopefully, taken them to a different level. In a way, this book is my memoir told through food,” she smiles, revealing that she does have an idea for her next cookbook — inspired by India, again — but for now, she is simply enjoying sharing these delicious chapters of her life. As she writes in the introduction — “This book is not in the pursuit of perfection but in the pursuit of joy, the pleasure I gain from being creative and feeding people, which to me is a language of love…”

Published - August 13, 2026 03:14 pm IST