on Jan 31, 2022 Come winters, making sarson da saag and makki roti is an absolute must. But traditionally, making sarson da saag is quite a lengthy process that involves cooking the leafy greens are first cooked for about 90 minutes in a large earthen pot until they’re soft and mushy. It is then ground to a coarse paste using a wooden whisk, before finally tempering it with ghee, onions, tomatoes and a few spices....
on Sep 09, 2015, Updated Apr 19, 2021 This upside down pear cake might not be the most popular cake out there, but I think it definitely should be! Not only is it absolutely delicious, but also really easy to follow and looks stunning when plated up with some whipped cream on the side. It has a gorgeous texture that simply melts in your mouth, and one simply cannot have enough of the delicate, fruity flavors!...
For Spring Break, Desi, Jay and I drove up to Niagara Falls via Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Erie, New York. It’s a road trip Desi and I have made many times before, often with relatives visiting from India who are eager to see – usually in equal measure – the falls and the Sri Venkateshwara Temple in Pittsburgh, one of the oldest Hindu temples here in the United States, and a key American landmark for many south Indians....
As much as I love most vegan Indian sweets, I am particularly partial to Gajar ka Halwa, a thick and dry carrot pudding studded with nuts. Part of the reason for this is the fact that it’s made mostly with carrots, which means it is almost a healthy sweet – an oxymoron if there ever was one. And yes, there’s sugar here, but not as much sugar as you might think you’d need because the carrots, as they cook down, concentrate their own natural sugars....
You might also like these recipes for tofu makhani, vegan Instant Pot dal makhani and spicy urad dal. There are perhaps a million recipes for Dal Makhani on the internet - a testament to how beloved this Indian dish is. This is a smooth, creamy, buttery dal that you’ll frequently find on a restaurant menu, and the story goes that it was originally served in dhabas - tiny north Indian roadside eateries that sprung up to serve hungry truckers with food that was immensely tasty and often rich with butter and cream....
You might also like these recipes for vegan orange cake and vegan chocolate orange bundt cake. These vegan orange cupcakes with orange buttercream are so delicious, you might want to devour them all at one setting. Better still, once the optional booze inside of them gets to work, you probably won’t even feel any guilt. 😉 The buttercream is soft and fluffy and perfectly flavored with even more orange. I added some Triple Sec, an orange-flavored liqueur, to these orange cupcakes because they give it just that tiny bit of je ne sais quoi…that hint of tantalizing mystery any cook loves in a recipe....
This recipe would likely make an Italian chef clasp their chest with both hands and yell “Blasphemy!” or whatever the word is for that in Italian, but here’s what I say: Counter-intuitive cooking, just like counter-intuitive anything, often ends up being the most fun. And who says there have to be any rules in the kitchen anyway? Barbeque sauce is one of those condiments I get an uncanny craving for each time spring rolls around....
This creamy Vegan Tomato Soup is what I make when my son, Jay, gets the sniffles and it hits the spot every time, summer, winter, spring or fall. Let me start out by telling you that Jay used to hate soup. Any soup. In fact, the word “soup” would send him into a tizzy, as it did when I told him I was making this tomato soup. He literally looked mad as he sat down at the kitchen table, as only a pre-teen who’s still a child at heart could look when he thinks he’s going to have to eat something he doesn’t want to....
You might also like these recipes for African peanut stew and eggplant in peanut sauce. Some of my favorite food memories involve stopping at obscure restaurants on road trips, so ravenously hungry that anything tastes quite, quite wonderful. A peanut soup I ate at a hole-in-the-wall eatery on one such stop in Leesburg, Virginia, was so good, however, that I was dying to recreate it as soon as I got back home....
on May 19, 2016, Updated Apr 21, 2021 With the festive season right round the corner, it always helps to have some dessert recipes handy. And this White and Dark Chocolate Rose Pistachio Bark is one back-pocket recipe that never disappoints! Apart from how gorgeous it looks (I mean just look at it!) this chocolate dessert is extremely easy to put together. Once you have the ingredients ready, the entire thing comes together in 5 fuss-free steps that take no more than 20 minutes....
Basmati has long been a prized ingredient in Indian cuisine, used to make luxe dishes like biryani and pulao. What makes it so special is its amazing aroma and the fact that unlike short-grain and medium-grain rice varieties that tend to clump after cooking, basmati rice grains, when cooked properly, can remain separate, lengthen to nearly twice their size, and become fluffy. Learning to cook basmati rice correctly will not only make everyday Indian meals more enjoyable, but you will have more control when you tackle more complicated dishes from the Indian subcontinent, like biryani and pulao....
This delicious, golden, gluten-free flatbread, besan ki roti, is a great option if you’re looking for a flatbread recipe that’s easy, nourishing and not loaded with unhealthy starches. Besan, finely milled chickpea flour, is frequently used in Indian cuisine for dishes that range from the savory Indian veg omelet besan chilla to vegetable pakoras and Indian style cookies like this vegan nankhatai. It gets another chance to show off its versatility with this besan ki roti....
My favourite is Bolst’s mild curry powder. I like it. Balanced flavours. Just tasty all around curry powder. They’ve been around since the 1930s so they must have a following. With one problem. I can’t buy it anymore. Nobody has it in town. Looked it up on-line. With shipping – $25. Twenty-five bucks. For about two bucks of spice. Can’t see doing that. Not even for Bolst’s. Anyone can make homemade curry powder So I reverse engineered it....
on Oct 09, 2015, Updated May 23, 2023 I love this time of the year. Warm afternoons turn into chilly evenings and it’s the perfect weather to pull out those colorful sweaters and just want to snuggle up on the sofa with some comfort food. And this homestyle barley chicken fall soup fits right in. It’s one of those soups, which just keep simmering on the pot and get slightly better if left alone....
on Jul 22, 2017, Updated Sep 05, 2024 With so many questions about how to defrost prawns safely, I decided it’s time to put a ‘defrosting prawn 101’ so that you have all the information you need packed into one solid article. Because these are the same questions I had when I started buying frozen prawns vs fresh prawns recently. Read why here. Fresh vs Frozen Prawns The decision to buy frozen prawns vs....
Sharing with you a homemade curry powder that’s full of flavor and as authentic as possible has been on my to-do list for a while now. A big reason for this is I’m tired of seeing recipes for curry powder blends that look just like garam masala. Apparently, in the confusing discussion over where curry powder comes from and what it should be used for, this spice blend–with foggy origins but a bold flavor profile– has lost its way....
As anyone who loves tofu knows, there’s something rather magical about baked tofu. A little bit of marinating and browning turns a bland, even boring, food into a chewy, crispy, scrumptious treat. And today, I have for you a tofu recipe that’s all of these things – chewy, crispy, scrumptious, and absolutely not bland and boring. This marinated and baked tofu, which is perfect for use in Indian inspired tofu dishes....
on Sep 28, 2021 I like Oats in many forms but I don’t enjoy them sweet. Which is how people normally eat them. So if you are like me, and want to eat savoury oats, then this recipe is for you! Dosas are a huge part of South Indian cuisine, and after living in Bangalore, I’ve really come to enjoy them for breakfast. But regular dosas need fermentation and take a day for the batter to come together....
In this tasty kachumber, tomatoes and onions are tossed together with a simple and oil-free dressing of lemon or vinegar, salt, spicy chili peppers and fresh herbs like cilantro or mint. You can add other vegetables, like cucumbers or zucchini or bell peppers or avocados, as well. The resulting salad is tasty as can be with the ability to liven up any Indian meal. This recipe concludes a classic trio of Indian Parsi dishes I’ve been sharing with you, including vegetable dhansak and Parsi brown rice....
You might also like these recipes for curried spaghetti and vegan ramen noodles in south Indian coconut sauce and vegan chilli garlic ramen. Indo-Italian fusion food may be a newer concept than Indo-Chinese, but it’s arrived and it’s here to stay, with recipes like this Masala Pasta which has become popular, in all its brilliant glory, on the streets of cities like New Delhi and Bombay. We Indians – and Indian born – are the ultimate snobs when it comes to food....
