Vaangi Bhat literally means eggplant/aubergine/brinjal rice. And that’s exactly what it is – a dish of eggplant and rice lightly fried with an aromatic and nutty spice mixture. Vaangi bhat belongs to the cuisine of Karnataka in South India. It is an excellent one-dish meal and one of my favourite ways of cooking small, purple eggplants. Choose your eggplant Eggplants come in so many shapes and sizes and it is…
This spinach and corn quiche had to be made to use up some of the big batch of fresh, tender spinach from my garden. The rest went into a raw spinach salad and spinach pararthas. Whole wheat and olive oil quiche crust A quiche crust is meant to be a light and flaky shortcrust pastry made with cold butter and AP flour. Now, I love a flaky, buttery crust but…
Baked chickpea cakes for dinner on a weeknight were exactly what I needed – a healthy, easy-to-put-together, light meal. After the indulgences of the winter, now fading fast, it’s time to shift to menus suited to warmer weather. Chickpeas are wildly popular, present in every store cupboard and are incredibly versatile. These baked chickpea cakes can be anything you want them to be – appetisers at a party, a…
I refuse to call coconut milk rasam mulligatawny soup with coconut milk just because the English (read British) decided to call rasam by that ridiculous if not incorrect name. Rasam or milagu (pepper) tanni (water), a literal translation from Tamil, according to me, is actually anything but that – pepper and water. Rasam or charu (in Telugu) like this coconut milk rasam has a unique aroma and flavour that comes…
This post on pineapple gojju, is about pinning a food memory from my Bengaluru school days on the blog. It’s a testimony to all the delicious gojjus – tomato, bitter gourd (bitter melon) and onion – that I ate at Kannada weddings and delicious, home-style meals. I used to visit my aunt on weekends (boarding school rules); and became great friends with her neighbour’s daughter and was lucky to share…
Meaty. That’s how we all like our burgers. Even the veggie burger has to have that deeply savoury, umami quality of meat to be truly satisfying. The challenge of making a flavour-packed veggie burger for my meat-loving boys made me experiment with everything from tofu to a variety of beans and whole grains. And, in the process I discovered that veggie burgers can be incredibly versatile; even more so than…
Eggplant, aubergine, brinjal, whatever the name, my boys don’t dig it. Not really. I’ve tried eggplant recipes of all kinds; fried, baked, grilled, roasted, they eat it but reluctantly. All this changed when I tried Maggie Zhu’s Chinese-style eggplant recipe from her beautiful site https://omnivorescookbook.com Her fried eggplants in a syrupy soy sauce inspired me to try my own version of the eggplant recipe. …
Glue. That’s what a bowl of oats meant to me growing up in boarding school. At breakfast, I could turn the bowl of porridge over my head and nothing. The gloop would hold its ground, strong and tenacious. I almost always never touched it. Oat porridge re-entered my life later on when I overcame my memories to try new oats recipes – both sweet and savoury. I’m partial to a…
Today’s post on whole wheat flatbread is inspired by the ‘green lady’. I see her almost every Saturday at our local food market. She’s often brushing away truant grains of soil dusting the table under bunches of beetroot; their darkly glistening, purple-veined leaves nudging fat cucumbers jostling for space with fire engine-red peppadews, jars of fresh horseradish, chilli oil and trays of speckled quail eggs. A ready smile rounds off…
On a beach somewhere, sand between my toes, salt on my lips and the sea breeze teasing my hair, I’m lulled into a gentle somnolence by the blue rhythm of the waves. A tall, cold glass, a meaty slider and a book keep me company and I don’t know what time it is. Truth is, I’m in the middle of a heatwave, bored by chores, plotting an imaginary escape plan.…