New Delhi: Three decades after filmmaker Hansal Mehta turned chef Sanjeev Kapoor into a household name with the ZEE TV cookery show Khana Khazana, he has returned to the kitchen. This time, it is virtual. His new YouTube series Khana Dil Se begins with undhiyu “just as Amma made it” but prepared by AI.
The first episode premiered Tuesday on Terribly Tiny Tales’ YouTube channel. Created by Mehta in collaboration with Chef Shamsher Ahmed, the series describes itself as “a journey into India’s homes through its recipes…and the memories, traditions, and quiet poetry that live within them.”
While the dishes are old school, the ingredients are decidedly 2026: the visuals are entirely AI-generated, with True Story Films LLP producing it in partnership with Collective Studios, and Galleri5 handling the AI technology. The human touch to the recipes comes from culinary consultant Ahmed, a master chef at Accord Hotels and previously at the Leela Palaces.
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AI-powered undhiyu
In the first episode, the recipe featured is the slow-cooked Gujarati dish undhiyu, made with surti papdi, raw banana, purple yam, and fistfuls of methi muthiya. Passed down orally through generations, the dish is recreated through visuals of an elderly woman preparing it with loving, wrinkled hands. The episode also uses AI-made ‘flashbacks’ of Surat’s Patidar and Koli communities cooking the dish during Uttarayan to celebrate the new harvest
“I’ve been diligently trying to recreate undhiyu just as Amma made it,” says the voiceover.
The 10-minute video also includes a recipe for chaas and an exposition on what the dish signifies for family bonding. One intentionally ironic line says: “It’s deeply connected to the earth’s rich aroma, cooked with the warmth of human relationships.”
In his Instagram post announcing the show, Mehta, who is also known for films such as Scoop (2023) and Shahid (2013), wrote: “32 years ago, I created Khana Khazana. The nation cooked with a phenomenon called Sanjeev Kapoor. The rest as they say is history! Today, I return with Khana Dil Se – recipes from the heart of India.”
He added that the series, created with chef Shamsher Ahmed, aims to highlight India’s “most cherished dishes” as well as the cultures associated with them.
The attempt at nostalgia resonated with some viewers.
“This reminds me so much of watching cooking shows with my mum as a kid,” read one comment on YouTube. Others, however, were less receptive to the format, with one viewer asking, “Why does a food show need to be AI generated?”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)