I like looking at cook books, but the Indian cooking ones usually scare me. The list of ingredients will be long and complicated and some recipes will say something to the effect of “two medium tomatoes” and “one large onion” and “a generous pinch of cumin.” I am unsure of what that means, having had…
Month: December 2009
Andhra-style potatoes
My husband introduced me to the food from his native state of Andhra Pradesh when we were dating. The cuisine and its cooking style was a revelation for me. For instance, a simple sookha aloo-pyaaz or dry potato-onion dish tasted completely different because of the cooking process, the treatment of ingredients and a slightly different…
Stir-fried Okra
Sometimes when I am in the kitchen, the strongest association that I have with the food, in this case okra, is the memory of a two-and-half year old Agastya hovering around, helping in some way or just getting involved in the vegetable that I am making. My mother has always claimed that all little children…
The Empty Kitchen
My kitchen feels oddly cold and empty. Everything is in its place. There is no mad confusion of spices, profusion of dry lentils and messy spread of vegetable peels on the countertop. My mother-in-law has just left today for India, after almost three months of being here in…
Cauliflower
Sometimes my tiny toddler clambers into his dad’s lap at dinner time and proceeds to messily eat everything on the plate, small fingers moving busily from table to mouth, with a look of intense concentration on his face. This, in spite of having finished his own dinner just an hour ago. During such moments, I…
Sambar
Every Sunday, my parents and I would go to eat dosa, or crispy South Indian rice crepes at the Super Snack Bar in Alipore, which seemed at the time a long drive from our home in Calcutta’s Ballygunge neighborhood. My dad loved dosa, and since he was frequently away on business trips, I looked forward…
Pav Bhaji
When I first came to the United States in the mid-90s, I knew that the food in the college cafeteria and the three local pink-and-gold gaudy Indian restaurants would be different from the food that I had grown up on. More than my daily meals, I missed the tangy and spicy street foods that are…
Pappu Charu
“What will your mother-in-law say? You don’t even know how to boil dal,” my mother would fret during my growing up years in Calcutta. Strangely, she never actually required me to enter her kitchen or help with chores in any way. “No, no, go study,” she would say. Perhaps we both had an inkling of…
Khichri
Khichri, a dry (khilwa) or moist preparation consisting of rice and lentil in equal parts, is one of my favorite foods. With a pressure cooker, it is an easy one-pot meal to prepare. My simplest khichri is rice and moong dal, with some salt, turmeric, heeng or asafoetida and ghee or clarified butter. I then add any vegetables that I have…
Masala Chai
There is no “right way” to make Indian-style spiced tea (masala chai) flavored with ginger and cardamom. You can vary the ingredients based upon taste, and create your own unique formula for masala chai. I like to use milk from organic pasture-fed cows as the milk is sweet and naturally flavorful. I also believe that this…
Eggplant
I wait all year for July when luscious firm glossy dark-skinned eggplants start appearing in the local farmer’s markets. I see them piled in wicker baskets, and their tender freshness brings me to my first summer with Agastya and his paternal grandmother, Lakshmi. My South Indian mother-in-law had just flown in from Visakhapatnam to spend…
Santara ka Kheer
This slow-boiled milk dessert or kheer is traditionally made in winter in my Calcutta home with tangerines or santara that have been peeled, segmented and then the inner skin removed. It is usually served during the festival of Diwali. The kheer arrives at dinner on the main Diwali day, resplendent in a large silver bowl, the bits of orange…
Calcutta Chow 