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Recipes that use herbs and spices as a key ingredient.

Pineapple Raita

1 Feb

Pineapple Raita

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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Spinach Rice with Coriander Pesto and Cashew Nuts

29 Jan

The very versatile spinach goes into this very green one-pot rice meal, making it a wholesome Sunday lunch option.

I normally keep coriander pesto handy in the fridge for a quick addition to salads or sandwich spread. Putting some pesto into spinach rice, along with the garnish of fried cashew nuts, worked wonders with the otherwise simple meal.

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The Taste of Aloo Parathas without the Hassle of Stuffing

27 Jan

Learning how to make stuffed parathas wasn’t exactly a cakewalk for me. Most often I would go overboard with the filling and the paratha would crack open while rolling, leaving a messy spill. To counter that, I would fill so little that only superactive taste buds could tell there was actually something between the layers of atta.

One day, quite by accident, I discovered this pleasing middle ground – aloo parathas without stuffing. Sharing my method here. I’m sure this will help the novice paratha rollers among you.

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Eggplant Ginger Chutney

24 Jan

Eggplant Ginger Chutney

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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Dry Spinach Moong Dal

16 Jan

Sauteed Spinach Moong Dal

Moong dal and spinach complement each other perfectly. One comes packed with protein, the other boasts of high vitamin-mineral content; one is known for its digestive ease, the other for its roughage. And the colors – the pale yellow of moong playing off the rich green of spinach – are an added invitation to dig into this delicately flavored sautéed spinach moong dal.

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Baby Potatoes In Onion Fenugreek Masala

10 Jan

Baby Potatoes In Onion Fenugreek Masala

While grocery shopping this weekend, I found an inviting pack of methi dal (coarsely ground fenugreek seeds, also called ‘methi kuria’) in the store and, having never used fenugreek in this form before, was intrigued. Fresh fenugreek leaves and kasoori methi are ingredients I love, but am not so enthused about the whole fenugreek seeds that are used for tempering (tadka) in Indian dishes. I like their flavor when diffused; I do not like the experience of biting into these bitter seeds. This is how I do my tadka with whole methi seeds: add a few seeds to the hot oil and when they turn color, pick them out.

I guessed methi kuria would resolve this problem – since the seeds are ground, the bitterness would get spread out just the way I want it. I bought the spice pack and used it first thing in this recipe with baby potatoes. The guess proved right.

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Sesame Almond Laddoos

7 Jan

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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