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Vegetables

Recipes/ Vegetables

Baghare Baingan

Baghare Baingan / www.quichentell.com

For a Hyderabadi, Baghare Baingan is many things. It’s the taste of home, a must at parties and celebrations and a dish so uniquely Hyderabadi that along with kachche gosht ki biryani, it has become a culinary symbol of the city. So this post on Baghare Baingan is my (long overdue) homage to the deliciously rich food culture of the city.  How to choose and prepare the eggplants The eggplant,…

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Recipes/ Rice, Grains, Noodles & Pasta/ Vegetables

Vaangi Bhat (Spiced Eggplant Rice)

Vaangi Bhat / www.quichentell.com

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…

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Appetisers, Soups & Salads/ Breakfast/ Recipes/ Vegetables

Baked Chickpea Cakes

Baked Chickpea Cakes / www.quichentell.com

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…

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Appetisers, Soups & Salads/ Recipes/ Vegetables

Coconut Milk Rasam

Coconut Milk Rasam / www.quichentell.com

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…

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Recipes/ Vegetables

Pineapple Gojju

Pineapple Gojju / www.quichentell.com

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…

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Recipes/ Rice, Grains, Noodles & Pasta/ Vegetables

Bean & Barley Veggie Burger

Bean & Barley Veggie Burger

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…

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Recipes/ Vegetables

Chinese Chilli Eggplant

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. …

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Recipes/ Rice, Grains, Noodles & Pasta/ Seafood/ Vegetables

Creamy Oat Bowl With Shiitake And Prawns

Creamy Oat Bowl With Shiitake And Prawns / www.quichentell.com

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…

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