With rice being a whole food group rather than just a grain hereabouts, I am always looking for tasty ways to cook with it. Desi and Jay love it, and even the dogs will eat bowlfuls. My own love for rice was a little late coming, despite the fact that it’s a rock-solid staple of Indian cuisine and I grew up eating it every day. Or perhaps it was this omnipresence that made me not love but almost hate it....
Dead easy. Delicious. Cheap. That’s an amazing combo. Doesn’t happen often. So when I find it I stick with it. Get to know this one. Seriously. It’s a house favourite around here. Simple dal is about simple ingredients There really isn’t a lot to this recipe. Which is exactly why it works. A few great ingredients can be better than a lot of mediocre ingredients. Each ingredient contributes. No ingredient gets lost in the mix....
Long before soy products like tofu and soy milk made an appearance in India, there were soya nuggets or soya chunks. I remember they were marketed as a meat alternative for vegetarians and they were quite popular, despite the fact that soy, until then, had been alien to the Indian diet, not even featuring in Indo-Chinese cuisine. The reason for their popularity was partly the unfounded insecurity Indian vegetarians have always felt about the amount of protein in their diet (despite a cuisine rich in legumes and grains that contribute more than enough–and heart-healthy–protein)....
on May 29, 2024 I ate this Spicy Chicken Cucumber Salad at a restaurant recently and instantly knew I had to recreate it at home! It’s so simple and refreshing, which is all that we seem to be craving these days in the heat. Simple ingredients like poached chicken, cucumber, lots of fresh herbs and roasted peanuts form the base of this salad. We finish it with a quick sweet and spicy sauce to tie everything together before serving right away....
on May 19, 2021 I’m on a little bit of a regional food spin here with the Donne Biryani style Chicken Pulao recipe I shared last week and my favourite coconut chutney recipes. But this masala vada or vadai needs a special hooray! If you love crispy, deep fried food thats so crunchy you can hear it a mile away, you need to try these. They are the king of street food, 5PM snacks and train snacks....
A tandoori marinade might be synonymous with the food it is usually slathered on and cooked with – tandoori chicken – but there are delicious, and vegan, ways to have your tandoori dish and eat it too. And I can’t think of any dish more delicious than this Oven Blackened Tandoori Tofu. There’s something so flavorful about the brilliantly orange-red, tangy, salty and spicy sauce, it’s a shame, really, to waste it on a poor chicken who, after six miserable weeks on earth spent inside a crowded cage never knowing what it is like to be a bird, was then shackled, hung upside down, and beheaded in an assembly line before she was dunked in boiling water and feathered and skinned – all by someone else – so you could waltz into the supermarket, buy her breasts and her thighs in neat packages, and eat her....
I promised you this, the recipe for my easy and incredibly delicious Veg Fried Rice to go with the Veg Manchurian I shared yesterday, and here we are. This is guaranteed to become your favorite vegetable fried rice recipe, or maybe even your favorite rice recipe. It really is that good, with a restaurant-like taste that’s impossible to resist. And it doesn’t have to be eaten with the Manchurian, of course, although it’s excellent with that....
Indo-Chinese food has a long history in India, and one of its most delicious chapters is doubtlessly the manchurian. This dish of vegetable dumplings in a glossy, rich-brown sauce with bold notes of tangy, sweet, spicy and salty is impossible to resist and I can honestly say I’ve never met a man, woman or child who could walk away from a plateful. In fact, if you ask an Indian what his or her favorite Indo-Chinese dish is, chances are, it would be a Veg Manchurian....
If you’re looking for a great cherry dessert this time of year, look no further than this vegan Cherry Clafoutis. It’s the kind of food that’ll win you rave reviews even if your family is used to your Michelin-star-quality recipes; and yet it’s easy enough for an inexperienced baker to pull off with very little chance of failure. The stars of this clafoutis are the cherries, of course, but what lifts it into the realm of the sublime is the almond....
It is hard for nearly anyone to resist an empanada, a crescent, turnover-like pastry made by stuffing a flaky, crispy wrapper with a spicy, mouthwatering filling. In Spain and in the Latin American countries, where empanadas were born and popularized, the filling is often made with beef, pork or cheese. But today I have for you a very vegan but just as delicious empanada with a tasty, spicy filling of black beans and veggies....
You might also like vegan apple pie, vegan French apple tart and vegan tarte tatin. A crostata is a free-form and rustic Italian pie and therein lies its attraction: while I love baking up a fancy tart or pie sometimes, I also love it when I can bring all the deliciousness together in this light tart and serve it up fast. Rustic though it may be, this crostata is a looker....
Lemon curd is one of those recipes that, at first, might appear hard to veganize because its unique, gooey texture is traditionally created with eggs. But in reality, as one often finds out with baked goods, the eggs are eminently dispensable. Today I have for you a vegan lemon curd recipe made from scratch that is not just easy, it also needs just six ingredients, and once you have gathered your ingredients in a small saucepan it comes together in under five minutes....
You might also like these recipes for vegan mango smoothie, vegan mango lassi and vegan mango cake. Summers in Bombay are a delicious time to enjoy one of the city’s most beloved street foods: a popsicle that goes by the rather cute name of kulfi. Kulfi can be found nearly anywhere in the city, and most often on its beaches. When I lived in Bombay, the kulfi would be sold by vendors wandering the neighborhoods, almost invariably outfitted in a white lehenga-kurta with a white Nehru cap, balancing wicker baskets atop their heads....
Purists may love matcha tea with water alone. But try drinking it my way, with creamy non dairy milk and a bit of ginger to increase its benefits, and you will never go back. This matcha green tea latte is the ultimate healing drink, especially in cool weather, when the sniffles are sure to hit sooner or later. But you don’t really need a reason to drink it, other than wanting to sip on something cozy, delicious and rejuvenating!...
Love Mexican recipes? Be sure to try our vegan empanadas and vegan enchiladas. If you’re looking for an easy but showstopping recipe for your next Mexican-themed dinner, look no further. This vegan picadillo tacos recipe come together in about 30 minutes and the tacos are so, so delicious that you won’t be able to stop at two or three. Picadillo recipes usually use ground beef or pork but the base for this meatless picadillo recipe is vegan sausage....
It’s October and pumpkins are everywhere. In my kitchen I’ve been baking up delicious fall treats like this chai spice vegan pumpkin cake and vegan pumpkin pie. Today I have for you another pumpkin treat we simply cannot get enough of: vegan pumpkin bread with a maple coconut glaze. This is a simple recipe and quite foolproof. For a little extra deliciousness I stir coconut milk into the pumpkin bread batter....
Rhubarb is one of spring’s sweetest gifts. Although I’ve seen it being sold in supermarkets in winter even, these crisp, tart, ruby-red stalks are at their best this time of year, when they are in season. Each spring, I share with you a rhubarb recipe because, well, you simply shouldn’t let spring go by without eating some rhubarb. I love it in delicious desserts like this vegan rhubarb upside down cake, vegan rhubarb crisp and vegan rhubarb bread....
You might also like these recipes for vegan sourdough waffles, vegan popovers and sourdough English muffins. Pancakes or waffles are a must-make breakfast here on weekends, and although I love varying things a little each time, here’s one recipe that is our hands-down favorite and that gets made, perhaps, more than any other: my Vegan Sourdough Blueberry Pancakes. This recipe is for all of you sourdough aficionados out there who are just beginning on or already have a sourdough starter at home....
Ramadan (or Ramzan as Indian Muslims say it) may be known as a time of fasting, but it really is a time for great food. In India, street food vendors make the most of Ramzan, rolling out their best wares for ravenous eaters eager to break their fasts during iftar, the evening meal. In Mumbai, where I grew up, the best food was to be found on Mohammad Ali Road, which would come alive after hours during Ramzan with the scent and cacophony of thousands of vendors cooking and selling all the gorgeous food you could imagine....
I have a ton of vegan cookie recipes on the blog but I like to share a few new ones with you each holiday season. I already have a great gluten-free, grain-free and naturally sweetened vegan almond flour cookies recipe on the blog that goes from scratch to done in 20 minutes, and a vegan amaretti cookie. This tasty vegan Almond Cookie is as different as can be from those goodies, but it is just as good....
