The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

Creamy mushroom soup made at home – this is so much tastier, so much healthier than canned stuff. Simple ingredients, no fuss, very easy to make.

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15th August is round the corner. To celebrate India’s Independence day, let the tricolor inspire our food. Here’s an idea in saffron, white and green – a patriotic raita.

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Do you realize that if you stack round parathas in a square lunchbox, then even with the largest paratha size your lunchbox can accommodate you leave more than 20% of its surface space unused?

Does this “criminal wastage” bother you?

You can’t beat geometry. But you can pack parathas in your square lunchbox without an inch of space going waste. Let me show you how.

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Inspired by the chapter on curry leaves in Ratna Rajaiah’s fascinating book How the Banana Goes to Heaven, I recently resolved to eat curry leaves as much and as raw as I possibly can. The prospect wasn’t enticing, let me say that up front! Though I like curry leaves, I find their taste overpowering and use them sparingly even in tadka. I would have to steel myself to eat curry leaves raw – or so I thought.

How wrong I was.

A hesitant stab at making curry leaves and peanut chutney turned out to be hugely successful. Roasted peanuts balance the slight bitterness of curry leaves, making this chutney delicious.

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Till a month back, I had had sundried tomatoes only in the bottled, preserved form. Much as I liked it, I was cautious of its salt and preservative content and would use it sparingly.

I never knew how delightfully simple and light sundried tomatoes could be till I got myself a pack of Ladakhi sundried tomatoes – they are chewy, tomatoey (as opposed to pickle-y), and induce no "junk food" guilt pangs.

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In my pre-teen years, food mentions in books would send my senses into overdrive visualizing them. The less familiar the food, the more vivid the imagined details. "Hot buttered scones", said Enid Blyton, and I pictured mildly sweet nimki-like snack twisted into conical shape, dripping with melted butter. "Lemonade" to my mind was a cross between nimbu pani and Limca. "Red radishes" were slender, graceful and blood red, more alluring than the humble white we had access to.

Reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake, I realised I am not much changed today. Ashima makes "thick channa dal with swollen brown raisins" for her party. What can that be like?  Now I don’t just imagine, I cook my interpretation of it :)

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