Momos seemed like exotic restaurant-only food to me for a long time, till a friend taught me how easy it is to make them at home. All you need is to figure out a way to steam the momos. The good news is: you don’t need fancy equipment for it; an idli stand and an Indian pressure cooker do the job perfectly.
Vegetables
Chukandar ka Raita: Beetroot Raita
Making beetroot raita is like taking a complementary course in color therapy. Boil the beets – witness the transparent water turn a purple-red. Peel, trim, grate – get your fingers prettily tinted. Fold grated beet into plain yogurt – behold swirls of white-pink so vivid, you’d be reminded of rubies and pale silk. This beetroot raita, I promise, will make the staidest meal come alive.
Aloo Gobhi Bhujiya: Potato Cauliflower Stir Fry
A simple stir fry of potatoes and cauliflower elevated by the tadka of fenugreek seeds in mustard oil. Aloo gobhi bhujiya pairs well with pooris / parathas and stacks well in the lunchbox.
Chayote Apple Salad with Chili Lime
Each kitchen stint with the chayote teaches me something new. When I began cooking with this gourd, peeling it was hard – till I learnt the techniques of making triangular notches around its folds and boiling it before peeling. Soon I discovered a different variety of the chayote: the “Ooty chow chow”, which has a smooth exterior that demands no fiddling with folds at all.
So I switched loyalties to the Ooty chow chow, as my observant regulars would have noticed in the post on chayote dal.
While cutting raw veggies and fruits, I sometimes pop a few chopped pieces into my mouth. A reflex action if you will, this usually leads me to grimace and move on – but when I did this with the Ooty chow chow I stopped in my tracks. This vegetable didn’t just look like a pear, it tasted startlingly like one. Do I even need to cook this, I wondered.
Kachche Kele ke Kebab: Raw Banana Kebab
Avengers: Infinity War famously declared "We Will Deep Fry Your Kebab".
This kachche kele ke kebab recipe duly follows that memo.
Pan-Roasted Spicy Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potato’s starchy sweetness plays off the robust flavors of sookhi sabzi masala in this recipe. The spices make this dish taste so exotic, you can hardly tell that putting this together was so easy.
Chow Chow Dal: Chayote Squash Dal
Dal and chow chow (chayote), when cooked together, give you a dish with wonderful texture and taste. The juicy pear-like chow chow softens and melds into dal, adding an interesting counterpoint to the dal’s “porridginess”. When I want to do a bit more with chayote than make an easy stew, I usually turn to this chow chow dal recipe.