Content creators are easing young people’s homesickness with familiar flavours and step-by-step recipes

Monica Singh adds whole red chillies, cloves, cardamom, a bay leaf and finely chopped onions to a searing pot of ghee. The base of her coconut chicken curry crackles and sizzles in the pot. The results, spooned over basmati rice, are thick, warm and extremely comforting – or at least that’s how they look on TikTok.

Singh, who works in sales and marketing in San Francisco, learned to cook by watching her mother in the kitchen when she was growing up in India. Years later, Singh’s daughter Anushka learned through higher-tech means. On visits home, Anushka filmed Singh cooking, then watched the videos later to replicate her mother’s recipes while studying at university.