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When I met my wife, Meeru, she was mostly a vegetarian and only sometimes ate seafood. Over the years working in the kitchen with me she would eat some meat, but usually only if she needed to taste what we were serving at the restaurant. I, on the other hand, eat everything and actually enjoy meat more than vegetables.

So, some weeks ago when Meeru pointed out an article about how eating crickets, grasshoppers and other insects is good for the diet and the environment, I liked the idea. My personal philosophy has been that if you can eat beef or chicken, then you should eat everything, as long as it is sustainable. I also believe it's wrong to eat only the tender parts of the meat and discard the rest. If you are going to kill an animal you should do it justice by eating all parts of it.

We did some research and got in touch with David Gordon, the Seattle-based author of The Eat-A-BUG Cookbook. He was very keen to come up and show us his collection and enlighten us more about the bug issue. One Saturday afternoon, David drove up from Seattle and we had a very informative and long chat and tasted bugs.

Mike (our manager), Meeru and I laughed our heads off seeing each other's reactions as we ate mealworms and cooked cricket mix that David had prepared. I never thought the day would come when I would see Meeru eating bugs. I grew up in India, so I was never afraid of cockroaches, lizards and other animals, but for Meeru and Mike it was a big deal.

Meeru finally sourced the crickets and we came up with a dish to make. We decided to grind them into a flour so there was no visual effect, because in North America we eat with our eyes – if something does not look appealing, we tend not to eat it.

The funniest part was watching my Punjabi kitchen staff. If we could have filmed their reaction, that would have made great TV. They are all vegetarians and had already freaked out when I brought them local spot prawns with the heads still on.

So Meeru made spicy parantha with ground crickets. It tasted like a hearty, soft bread, and serving turnips with it was a great combination.

If we can eat and enjoy the texture of foie gras and some other animal parts, eating crickets should be a walk in the park. Pairing them with wine may be a challenge, but I would suggest beer first, then moving on to something herbaceous like Sauvignon Blanc.

Last week, David Gordon came back to Vancouver and cooked us grasshoppers. They were really pretty, but we are definitely not there yet.

Here is a recipe for anybody who would like to try crickets.

SPICY PARANTHA WITH GROUND CRICKETS

What you need

For roasting the crickets:
1,000 frozen crickets
1 tablespoon of oil
1 teaspoon of salt

For the parantha:
11/4 cups whole wheat flour
11/2 cups cricket flour
1 tablespoon green chilies
1 tablespoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil
1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro
1 cup buttermilk

What you do
Preheat the oven to 450 F. Spread the crickets on a large baking tray and mix the oil and salt to season them. Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes. Bring them out and cool.

With a food processor, grind the crickets until they are fine, to make approximately 11/2 cups of cricket flour.

Kneed the parantha ingredients together and make sure that it is soft and dough-like. Kneading can also be done in a small dough mixer at a slow speed.

Let the dough rest for 15 minutes so the flavours can blend.

Roll out into small, round tortilla shapes.

Preheat a heavy-bottom pan or flat pan (please make sure that it is not smoking), put the parantha on it and let cook for a few minutes. Once the bottom is slightly brown, add a hint of oil on the side to make sure the parantha does not stick to the pan. Flip it over, add a little bit of oil again and let it cook for a few more minutes until browned.

The parantha as can be served with a vegetarian recipe like Jackfruit from our book, or any form of strong and spicy chutney.

Serves 7.