The Best Malayalam Cookery Channel on YouTube
Originally published on my old blog.
Easily, it is Shaan Geo’s channel.
Shaan Geo, an IT professional and a passionate consumer of food has his own cookery channel on YouTube which has 1.6 million followers! Shaan has been into cookery for some time now and he has been maintaining two websites featuring recipes of his cooking since 2013; one in Malayalam and one in English.
Why is Shaan Geo’s YouTube channel so good? Here's why:
1. Brief and crisp explanations: Therefore, his videos are short in duration but cover almost every single detail required, to perfectly create the dishes. He, like many cooking professionals, relies on exact measurements and perfect timing. Take my favourite video of his for example: Kerala Porotta. This video is his most viewed video on YouTube, which has been jokingly called ‘a chemistry lecture’ (you will see why).
2. No irrelevant content: Shaan Geo, thankfully, talks only about the dish the video is about and does not pad the video with stories, anecdotes, his dressing style (he is seen only with a black T-Shirt on all of his videos), his grandmother, his friends, or travel stories.
3. No annoying visuals: In all his videos, we are only shown two shots of Shaan (introducing the dish and concluding the video) and the rest of it are shots of the ingredients, the preparation, the cooking, and the finished dish. He does not even show himself eating the finished dish which is a good departure from other channels and TV shows. Who wants to see visuals of another person eating?
His videos prompted my wife and I to try some of his recipes (we followed his instructions almost exactly) and they came out great on the first attempt! See for yourself:
Chilli Chicken:
Parippu Vada (Daal Vada):
Boondi Laddu:
And the Kerala Porotta:
The porottas’ image may not convey it; they were very soft and layered (we ate them along with Beef Chilli (not Shaan’s recipe)). We did not put cashews, raisins, and sugar candy for the laddoos. And I did not flatten the Parippu vada well (but it tasted good). The Sulaimani (a special flavoured black tea popular in Kerala) pictured along with the Parippu Vadas was made by my wife. Its recipe was not Shaan’s.
Are Shaan’s videos flawless?
No, of course not. They can be made better. He can give more details about the dishes for more precision. For example, without doing product placement or advertisements, he can mention if any particular brand of an ingredient does a better job than other brands or he can mention which brand he prefers. And the amount of salt he prefers for some dishes may not suit everyone’s tastes (which he does mention on some of his videos). Finally, he can avoid his regular one-liners in English (intro & exit) and do them in Malayalam.
However, all of the mentioned flaws do not affect the quality of the dish or of any video as a whole. Shaan’s videos gave my wife and I a feeling; that cooking his dishes are easy. Yes, easy but they are not simple. They are easy, if you follow his instructions to a T. Go ahead and subscribe to his channel, for headache-less and calm videos (much needed) on Kerala cuisine.
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