The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

Every time I watch a rerun of Sooryavansham on TV (laugh if you will, I enjoy that film) I am struck by the scene in which Radha covers up for the lack of supplies in her kitchen by preparing meethe chawal. Celluloid can inspire us in unexpected ways, as this post is proof. My story may not be as dramatic as that of families reuniting tearfully after watching Sansar (a real effect of the film in the year of its release, I’m told), but it’s still worth telling for those in a culinary quandary similar to mine.

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I got up this Sunday morning with a halwa craving, fondly remembering the sooji ka halwa my mom used to make on weekends. There was no sooji (semolina) in the pantry to recreate her recipe, so I turned internet-wards for recourse.

The recipe for gur aur atte ka halwa (jaggery and whole wheat flour halwa) on Divine Taste struck an instant chord: the pictures were mouth-watering, and the key ingredients – whole wheat and jaggery – were healthy substitutes (well, more importantly, available with me!) for semolina and sugar.

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An exotic rice kheer (pudding) that gets its sweetness entirely from jaggery and dried figs. A hint of saffron that elevates it to greater heights.

A dessert fit for royalty with the best kind of calories you can hope to get from such indulgence. Jaggery may come from the same source as white sugar – sugarcane juice – but it’s miles ahead in terms of nutrition. The process of refining strips white sugar of sugarcane’s mineral contents, while the simpler method of jaggery-making retains them.

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Who says the tastier the dish, the more sinful it is? Coconut date balls are the perfect rebuttal to that axiom.

Learn how to make this delectable sweet  packed with nutrition, with no added oils, no processed sugars. And vegan to boot.

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I don’t exactly have a sweet tooth. The effort needed to prepare most desserts doesn’t match up to the high I get in eating them. So I doff my hat to Sailu’s recipe for til laddoos – the simplicity and attractiveness of these sweets shook my no-dessert spell. Here is my version – sesame almond laddoos. As an almond fan (or shall we say, "nut nut"), I hiked the amount of almonds to make up for the omission of oatmeal. The result was not bad at all.

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Aamras literally means "mango nectar" and that’s exactly what it is – flavored pulp of ripe mangoes. A summer regular on any Gujarati thali, this dish is unusual in that it isn’t an end-of-meal dessert – it is part of the main course, eaten with pooris and parathas.

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