Golden, sweet yellow moong dal is roasted, tempered in whole spices and cooked with a handful of vegetables for a dish that soothes and satiates. There is a joy in simplicity, after all, it is the simple things that make your heart sing in delight. And that, my dear friends, is an attempt to express the depth of emotion and…
A traditional Bengali winter vegetable stew flavoured with dried lentil dumplings that’s flavourful and gut friendly. Just like the humble khichuri/khichdi (or kedgeree if you want to be colonial) has a recipe unique to every Indian household, the ubiquitous ‘rosha‘ has its singular version in homes across West Bengal. Simply put, the rosha is a selection of winter vegetables and…
Translations, especially when it comes to the names of dishes, make me a little loopy. Especially when I can’t find a word to express a particular aspect of the dish and have to rename it. Or when I do find an English equivalent but (not blaming the language here, no sir!), the emotion is missing…Like, ‘scrambled’ doesn’t really give the…
“Do you know what I had for dinner? Dal! Just dal & rice!” my neighbour said, looking at me in amused horror probably hoping this fellow foodie would empathise. I couldn’t. Dal is one of my favourite foods. So much so, that the parents start worrying about my health when I say no to a meal that has dal on…
My computer is like a labyrinth, an intricate and complex set of things where I keep losing documents. Only to recover them after weeks or in some cases, months. This recipe and photographs are an example! It was part of a ‘dal series’ I’d planned to post on the blog and it had been kept ready sometime in April –…
Between the time I spend in the kitchen for the baking orders and winter laze that makes us want to snuggle under the blanket with a book, the ‘cooking’ mood at home has been at an all-time low. But since one has to eat and I’m doing my best not to succumb to the lures of ‘restaurant food’, Maa has…
I had always found it odd that some of the best cooks around me wouldn’t eat some of the foods they made. For instance, an aunt of mine makes some amazing Thai non-vegetarian food but she never tastes any of it. Why? Because she gave up non-vegetarian food decades ago for health reasons. Then there is a friend’s mother who…
Gosh! Have you ever marvelled and shaken your head at the ease with which the child version of you was made a fool of? I do! Seems I was a rather happy-go-lucky and trusting child, willing to believe almost everything the parents told me. And when it came to food – and yes, I was born a food worshipper –…
The best recipes, in my opinion, come from a mother’s memory. And she is also undoubtedly the best cook in the whole wide world. Little wonder then that I started off my culinary lessons under my mother’s loving and watchful eye. I happened to mention this to Kamini during our conversation that I’ve shared a few days ago. With the…
“I’m about to board the flight/train. See you soon.”“Okay. By the way, what do you want for lunch/dinner?”“You know Maa! Moshuri daal, bhaat, ghee maakha aloo sheddo (red lentil soup, steamed rice, mashed potato seasoned with ghee and salt)” This conversation, or a version of it, is repeated each time I am on the way home after travelling for days/weeks/months.…