The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

Ginger lovers: this one is for you.

A spicy sweet and sour chutney, with ginger as its star.

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Did you know that the cucumber originated in India? It is only fitting that this gourd gets used to add the “cool" factor to Indian cuisine. Here’s to the pitta-placating, palate-cleansing cucumber raita (yogurt dip).

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Inspired by the chapter on curry leaves in Ratna Rajaiah’s fascinating book How the Banana Goes to Heaven, I recently resolved to eat curry leaves as much and as raw as I possibly can. The prospect wasn’t enticing, let me say up front. Though I like curry leaves, I find their taste overpowering and use them sparingly even in tadka. I would have to steel myself to eat curry leaves raw, or so I thought.

How wrong I was.

A tentative stab at making curry leaves and peanut chutney turned out to be hugely successful. Peanuts balance out the bitterness of curry leaves, making this chutney not only palatable but also delicious.

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You’d expect the last mangoes of the season to be ripe yellow, robustly sweet and oozing juice, but nature has a way of subverting expectations. I cut open a fat Banganapalli this Sunday to have mango cubes as a post-lunch dessert. The mango’s insides turned out to be half-white and tending towards sour.

My first thought was to make sweet mango chutney but then the fresh aromatic ginger in my pantry nudged me to try something different – a chunky ginger jaggery chutney with mango.

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You know those mangoes we get this time of the year, neither ripe nor unripe but somewhere in between. Too sour to be eaten as-is or used in milkshakes, but not raw enough for panna. What to do with such mangoes?

Make sweet mango chutney, if you ask me.

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A fruity raita to give company to Indian meals, specially good when you have heavy curries like kofta curry or paneer butter masala on the menu. I love the sweet and tart taste that ripe pineapple gives to the raita.

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The big purple eggplant is generally used for baingan bharta in my kitchen. Not so tonight. A yummy eggplant-ginger chutney awaits the rice that’s still cooking.

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