Recipes that use herbs and spices as a key ingredient.
I bought a pack of dried black limes a few months back; after one use, the rest of the pack sat dormant in the pantry. Recently I wondered if the limes were still fit for consumption – and learned to my pleasant surprise that dried limes store extremely well and should be usable for over a year.
So I experimented with making a dried black lime beverage.
Chickpeas lend themselves generously to experimentation. The classic channa masala with its onion-garlic base is by no means the only way to cook this legume curry-style. Chickpeas CAN be curried without a shred of onion and garlic – check out these recipes from the blog archives, for example: aloo chhole, dahi chhole.
And now, let me add yet another no-onion-no-garlic chickpea recipe to your repertoire.
Sliced aloo “chokha style” is a spin on Bihar’s aloo chokha, with the potatoes sliced instead of mashed. The trick to making this recipe is in boiling the potatoes just right: neither so soft that they give way when pressed, nor so firm that they need extended sautéing post-boiling to make them bite-friendly.
This light and nourishing ginger lime moong dal has a healing touch. Excellent for days when you want to soothe a sore throat.
While surfing Afghani food channels, I paused when I saw this layered, brilliantly colored thumbnail: “kaddu borani“, said its label. I hit play and by the end of it, had my mouth salivating and my heart saluting the beauty of this dish.
Kaddu borani takes a set of independently prepared ingredients (pumpkin + tomato sauce + yogurt sauce) and meshes them into something so exquisite, the end product is nothing short of a work of art.
Sabudana kheer (sago pudding) – an easy dessert idea for a party menu. It cooks quicker than rice kheer, needs the stove top only (no oven), and is vegetarian-friendly.
