a commonsense approach to eating well, living well and travelling
Laddu is the term used for a sweet shaped to a ball. I have fond memories of my mum making Rava Laddus (Semolina balls). My sister-in-law Sandhya, makes these healthyish laddus and I built my recipe on that. Most of the ingredients are your standard pantry variety and it is a guilt free snack.
INGREDIENTS
3 cups rolled oats, toasted
1 cup desiccated coconut, toasted lightly
10g sliced almonds, toasted
40g cashew pieces, toasted
For as long as I remember, after breakfast, my mother or grandmother would forage for greens in our garden or the neighbourhood. We always had to have greens on the menu at lunch time. It is only natural that any edible greens were treated as a bonus and among unusual things my mum cooked, remember radish greens or moringa (drumstick) greens. In the same tradition, I have started using the beet greens – sometimes I cook on their own and smother it with roasted peanuts. This variation is spicy, nourishing (incidentally beet greens are high in iron and other essential vitamins and minerals) and so easy to make.
INGREDIENTS
125g lentils, rinsed
250g beet greens
150g onions, sliced thinly
4-5 garlic, peeled and crushed
This dish brings back lots of childhood memories for me. My parents were good friends with a couple from Kerala who were closer to my grandparent’s age. We would all go to their place occasionally for the odd treat. On one such occasion, we were treated to homemade idiyappam and this potato istew. My mother got the recipe and made it a few times. This recipe is based from that memory. The idiyappam requires special equipment to make so I have just used store bought rice vermicelli making this fairly simple and easy to prepare.
INGREDIENTS FOR THE ISTEW
600g waxy potatoes
200g onion, thinly sliced
3tbsps coconut oil
1tsp mustard seeds
½-1tsp turmeric powder
In several parts of the Indian subcontinent, the word ‘stew’ has been adopted in to the mainstream vernacular as istew or ishtu. In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the istew is served with appam (rice pancakes) or idiyappam (rice noodles or string hoppers). My version is adapted from Camellia Panjabi’s 50 Great Curries of India book.
INGREDIENTS
800g boneless thigh fillets, cut into bite size pieces
2tbsp vegetable oil
1tbsp ghee
200g onions
5cms piece of ginger
1 teaspoon peppercorns
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
2-3 green chillies
400mls coconut milk
This is a refreshing cold soup to have on a hot day. I was rummaging my refrigerator and had bits or this and that along with stale sour dough all of which got converted to this soup.
INGREDIENTS
100g Fennel, diced (white portion only)
75g Hungarian green pepper, seeds discarded and diced
600g tomatoes, diced
2 slices of sour dough bread, roughly torn
1 clove garlic, peeled
This is a hearty and delicious stew of vegetables and buckwheat. It is a bit thick and chunky to call it a soup and hence stoup.
INGREDIENTS
3 small carrots, peeled and diced
2 sticks celery, peeled and sliced thin
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
1 medium potato, peeled and diced
This is my mother in law’s recipe. It is a bit sweet, sour and moreish. Make a batch (mine lasts for over a week in the refrigerator) to use with toast and sandwiches.
INGREDIENTS
200 grams onions, chopped
2 cups chopped coriander leaves, stems and root
4-5 hot green chillies
These fritters are so yummy and a huge bonus is that they are gluten free and vegan! I made them a few weekends back and it was a big hit with the family.
INGREDIENTS
5 fresh corns on the cob
½ cup chickpea flour
¼ cup coarse corn grits
¼ cup corn flour
2-3 green chillies, chopped
5-7cms piece of ginger, chopped
4 shallots finely chopped
A kati roll is a street-food dish originating from Kolkata, West Bengal. In its original form, it is a skewer-roasted kebab wrapped in a paratha bread, although over the years many variants have evolved all of which now go under the generic name of kati roll. There are other names for this like roti wrap or frankie or even a Bombay Burrito.
My recipe uses amaranth flour for the rotis making it gluten free and protein rich. The filling is spicy and the combination of mashed chick peas makes this a complete vegan and gluten free meal.
INGREDIENTS
FOR THE ROTIS
1 cup amaranth flour
¼ cup chickpea flour (besan)
¼ cup buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon coconut oil
Hyderabad is an epitome of India’s unity in diversity culture. Very few cities in India have the privilege of having a distinctive cuisine. The Nizams governed this city for over two hundred years until 1948 and one of their princely legacies was establishing a Hyderabadi cuisine. This is a famous Hyderabadi vegetarian dish, the combination of spices representative of both Northern and Southern regions of India.
INGREDIENTS
600g small round eggplants (brinjals)
75ml vegetable oil like sunflower oil
1 x 5cm piece of ginger
5-6 plump garlic cloves
¼ tsp turmeric powder