The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

This is a simple, no-spice dry vegetable dish that I like to carry as packed lunch to work or on a journey. No spill, no stain. Easy on the intestines. Nutritious. And tastes great – if you are a bitter gourd hater, this is the best bet to bring you over to the other camp.

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A chunky, nutty tomato ginger chutney with a sprinkling of roasted peanuts. Like the sound of it?

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Green moong dal, when boiled, retains its shape unlike dals like masoor (red lentil) and toor (yellow lentil). One can put boiled moong dal to good use in a moong bean salad.

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Of all the types of dals, split toor dal (also called arhar dal) is the one I cook most often. I don’t always put a tadka with it, sometimes just plain boiled dal with salt and a few drops of lime juice tastes great when the rest of the dishes on my place are spicy. On other "tadka" days, tomato toor dal is one of my most-loved ways of having toor dal.

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When food couples with language, delicious idioms are born.

My mother tongue Hindi invokes the nature, tastes, colors and characteristics of food with great wit and insight in these idioms.

Bhindi (okra) with a generous mix of onions and Indian spices – bhindi do pyaza (literally: okra with twice the amount of onions) is a lovely vegetable dish to go with chapatis.

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Raita (yogurt dip), with bottle gourd as its prime ingredient, provides a lovely balance to rich Indian gravies. Bottle gourd and yogurt are bland on their own, but the other ingredients that go with lauki raita give it a suprising tangy twist.

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