The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

When mangoes are in season, I like to incorporate the fruit in my meals in miscellaneous ways. Here’s my way to spruce up the staid and simple quick oats with fresh mango pulp. This is a breakfast-on-the-run recipe made special with the addition of this glorious fruit. Here’s how you could make mango oats.

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The tang of tomatoes and the heat of chilies make roasted tomato chili chutney a delightfully fiery partner for stuffed parathas and cutlets.

If you’re like me, you would want a range of color on your plate. The speckled beige of chapatis, the white of yogurt, the yellow of turmeric-tanned Indian curries, simply ASK for some green and red.

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Custard mix, coffee and cocoa, sugar and milk, plus a few minutes on the fire – and you have your eggless coffee pudding ready to set and savor for your next meal.

I am not much of a dessert person (as you can see from my recipes – this is the first dessert recipe on the blog in months); I make this when guests are coming over, a more elaborate meal is cooking and I am pressed for time.

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The lovelier the item, the scarcer it is. Ripe mangoes are in season for only a short while. This is that heavenly time. And so we have the fruit in myriad ways – in mango raita, in mixed fruit rabri, in custard, or simply cubed. Mango shake is a regular breakfast drink for me while the good mango times last.

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My initiation into the kitchen was with tea-making – masala chai is all I knew how to prepare for many long years.

Chai is Hindi for tea, a word unknown no longer outside the Hindi-speaking diaspora – it’s usual for people to say "tea" when they mean Western-style tea, and "chai" when they’re talking about Indian-style tea.

As an ardent tea lover, I am especially excited to share this recipe with you. I hope you enjoy this aromatic tea made the Indian way as much as I do.

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“Pure” vegetarians in India – as some units of my family are – do not use onion and garlic in their food. The rationale? According to Ayurveda, onions and garlic are classed with rajasik and tamasik food like meat and intoxicants. Rajasik food is considered passion-inducing and tamasik food sin-inducing – both are never offered to the Gods.

Ayurveda recommends sticking to the satvik variety of  food – fruits and vegetables, nuts, whole grains.^[1] Satvik food is said to keep you fitter in body and calmer in mind.

How does a no-onion-no-garlic person eat Indian-style chhole (white chickpeas), then, you might ask. The popular Punjabi preparation needs an onion-based gravy of course, but there are other ways of preparing chhole without onion and garlic.

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Snack time – want something chatpata to go with your steaming hot Indian tea? Here’s a protein-rich munching idea – soya cutlets.

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