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Recipe: Made With Bits & Bobs – Vegetable Soup

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Given the heavy rain in Chennai, along with the fact that I recently recovered from a bad flu, I’ve been feeling like having more immunity-boosting foods of late. The turmeric tea that I have before bed is one among these – have you given it a try too? Another new item among my frequent meals is this simple, seasonal vegetable soup. It contains almost no processed ingredients and is a very healthy, can’t-go-wrong dish that really makes you feel well-nourished and warm.

This kind of weather also makes me feel like going into the kitchen less, so what makes this dish all the more convenient is that I can just make a large pot of it in one go, and then help myself to it whenever I feel hungry throughout the day.

The interesting part about how it’s made is that it’s really a “bits and bobs” kind of soup. You can prepare the soup stock by adding whatever you have around. For instance, I had some leftover ridge gourd, half an onion and other assorted vegetables, and all these went into it. The stock itself is a versatile item, and you can use it in dals and so on as well. As I’m a vegetarian, I’ve stuck to vegetables, but if you’re not, it’s a good idea to include some chicken while boiling the stock, and make it more protein-rich.

Making soup stock, and soup itself, with whatever is on hand came about because of necessity. All of you who are also in Chennai have faced a similar situation in recent weeks, with vegetables either unavailable or available only at skyrocketing prices. I believe that farmers have also had trouble being able to distribute the produce to the cities, in addition to flooding impacting the fields themselves. A combination of factors has led to this scarcity. The way I see it, and the way I choose to respond to it, is that it’s not so much about affordability as it is about accessibility. As a believer in Macrobiotics and someone who feels that seasonal and local ingredients are always best, I prefer to reach out for that which is most easily available at all times. That means that sturdier vegetables like potatoes, gourds, beans and carrots that still make it to our markets relatively smoothly and in good shape are what I’ve used in this dish, as well as in most of the dishes being prepared at home at the moment.

I tend to eat salads and raw vegetables at lunch, so cooked and steamed vegetables, which this soup is rich in, are my go-to for dinner. I prefer a light meal at night as it’s easier on the digestion. Also, while you’ve definitely heard quite a bit on other posts on this blog about how I’ve been cutting down on carbs, I’m in a new phase now where I let myself have some carbs at night. So sometimes I have a dosa or two, which is certainly a lighter dinner than the regular Gujarati thaali we eat at lunch. It’s all about listening to your body and adapting to the circumstances, including the weather and the vegetable supply chain!

Vegetable Soup

(Yield: Serves 3-4)

Stock

Thick peel of a potato

Cabbage leaves

Peel and parts of a ridge gourd

1 onion

Soup

1 tablespoon oil

2 cups finely cut vegetables (carrots, beans, onion, broccoli, corn)

A piece of ginger (grated)

3 cloves garlic (grated)

3-4 cups vegetable stock (above)

Salt to taste

½ cup rice starch (use corn flour if you prefer)

1 tablespoon soya sauce

1 teaspoon homemade chili sauce

A squeeze of lemon

Optional

Grated tofu

Sprouts

Leafy greens

Coriander garnishing

 

Prepare the stock by adding all the vegetables to about six cups of water. Allow this to boil until it reduces to ¾th the earlier quantity. Strain and cool. Set aside.

Then, begin preparing the soup.

Add the oil to a pot. Then, add the ginger and garlic and sauté for a few minutes.

Next, add all the vegetables and stir fry for a few minutes.

Then, warm and add the vegetable stock prepared earlier. Next, add the starch. Cover and allow to boil. I have opted to use rice starch from rice cooked earlier in the day, but you can use the usual corn flour, tapioca flour or any other thickening or gelling agent that you prefer.

Once it starts boiling, add the salt, soya sauce and chilli sauce. Cook for a little while and once it starts to thicken slightly, squeeze in the lemon.

The soup is ready now, but to make it go an extra mile, garnish with coriander and add some grated tofu or moong sprouts for a nice boost of protein. I added all these as well as some leafy greens I had on hand that day. Serve hot.

This vegetable soup works beautifully as a meal-in-a-bowl, or you can have it as an appetiser or complement it with a range of sides. Something like this cheesy, garlicky sourdough toast may make a lovely accompaniment. You can also check out some of the other delicious soups that I’ve shared over the years: minestrone, simple zucchini soup, broccoli and almond soup and vegan whole corn and lemongrass soup. Stay warm, and enjoy!

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Recipe: Tinged With Goodness – Turmeric Tea

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I was recently down with a virus (thankfully, it was not COVID), and that was when I began consuming this turmeric tea every night. I had long been making it on a nightly basis, for my husband who insists on a cup of it before bedtime. Despite his urging me to have it as well, I somehow never did. That bout of illness was an important reminder for me that we need to keep our immunity high. Healthy, homemade remedies are a time-honoured way of doing this.

It isn’t that I wasn’t occasionally consuming turmeric-based boosters – such as this turmeric shot and this sniffle-season tonic  – but making a point to have a beverage like this one every night was just not part of my routine until a few weeks ago. However, there was a nightly drink that my mother would prepare for us while we were growing up. She would put a drop of ghee in a cup, add two pinches of turmeric powder, pour hot milk over this, stir it and make my siblings and I drink it. Like most children, we hated it. Now that I am older and appreciate the medicinal values of common ingredients, it’s been a pleasure to bring some turmeric back into my bedtime routine. Now, I can’t get enough of it, and even look forward to it.

I first consumed this drink while visiting my son in Bangalore. The lady who comes in to do his cooking prepared it one day when the kitchen ran short of tea leaves. She called it “a healthy tea” and offered it as a substitute. It was so refreshing that it became a keeper in my family, and I got the recipe from her and began making it once I got back home too. It was reminiscent of the homemade remedies I’ve known, and easy to prepare as well. When I look back on my childhood, I hardly recall being given pills; nor do I recall falling seriously ill. Common, seasonal illnesses were always treated with traditional, natural cures.

It’s a healthy tea indeed, made with the goodness of turmeric. Turmeric is an antioxidant, anti-bacterial and anti- inflammatory ingredient, and has been trusted for centuries as a disease preventative. It is not for nothing that a turmeric stamp is re:store’s signature, and has taken pride of place in the brand logo for six years now. You can see it right there on this blog’s header and on my product packaging too. To me, it represents good health and vibrance in all aspects of life. I love the ingredient for its versatility: it’s as useful in a curry as it is in a beverage like this.

It happens to be turmeric season now, and I’m planning to go to the South Indian heartlands where it is harvested to track the process. This adventure is something I will be sharing with you in time.

Coming back to this turmeric tea itself: you can experiment with more spices to flavour it with, depending on the season and what’s on hand in your kitchen. In rainy or wintry weather like what we’re having now in Chennai, the spices can be warming too. I like to just add lemon and honey, and sometimes a cinnamon stick or star anise. At home, we are currently mostly off dairy so we prefer it as a turmeric tea. You can turn it into a turmeric latte by adding milk and eliminating the lemon. As long as turmeric is the base, you can play around with the rest of the recipe.

The best part of this drink is that unlike my other turmeric remedies, which I use seasonally or only when I have fallen sick, this is good as a year-round drink. Many of us enjoy a warm beverage at night, and this makes for a great replacement (especially if you prefer to be dairy-free). Also, it kills your night-time sugar craving. This is good news for those of us with a sweet tooth, and I’m telling you this from experience! Something about this drink just takes away that itch. Quite the benefit, in addition to all its healing properties, no?

Turmeric Tea
(Yield: 1 cup)

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
1 small piece of ginger
A few drops of lemon juice
¼ teaspoon honey
1 cup boiling hot water
Some star anise

Boil the water along with the ginger and star anise. In a cup, add the turmeric powder, honey and lemon juice.

Once the water boils, pour it into the cup.

Stir and drink while it’s hot.

Incredibly simple, yet so very soothing. As I said earlier, add selected spices to flavour the beverage further, as per your wish. Let this turmeric tea relax you, and heal you as you sleep. Sweet dreams!

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Recipe: Even Better At Breakfast – Bajra Rotlo Cereal

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Still on the theme of post-festive millet-based goodness, after the previous post’s millet upma, I’m glad to share another recipe that I’ve been turning to frequently. This is another breakfast dish, and what’s even better is that it makes use of the previous day’s leftovers, maximizing resources and minimizing time. There’s a long tradition of innovative dishes that do this, as we’ve seen in my second helpings series from a few years back, and this bajra rotlo cereal fits beautifully into that category too.

Bajra, or pearl millet, is a long-fingered crop with hundreds of grains on the cob. It has been cultivated on the Indian subcontinent for thousands of years, and is a staple across different cuisines in this region. As a darker coloured millet, which indicates that it is heavier on the digestive system, it is perfect for monsoons and Indian winters. It keeps the body warm, since the digestive system is active for longer, working on those slow-release carbs, and thus reduces hunger between meal-times. I have noticed that it is one of the key ingredients consumed by farmers, such as the people I’ve met on my travels to the Rann of Kutch, where the salt-harvesting community eats bajra with chutney daily.  It has a high iron quotient, is gluten-free and is rich in amino acids, fibre and antioxidants.

Bajra rotlo is a flatbread, one of many varieties enjoyed by the Gujarati community. It is most often accompanied by a garlic chutney, but while I was growing up my mother would usually serve it to us with jaggery and ghee or else with homemade white butter. In those days, the milk quality of brands that are still around today was pure and excellent, which meant we could extract our own buttermilk from the curd, and from this the butter. I remember watching my mother churning the buttermilk, which would make the butter float on top. She would often ask me for my help. We would collect the white butter and set it aside. Having it with some bajra rotlo over dinner was one of my favourite meals.

Of course, the homemade butter no longer exists and the store-bought ones just don’t compare when it comes to this purpose. Which brings me to my second-favourite way of eating bajra rotlo: as cereal.

It’s funny how things come full circle. As a child, this was a dish that I scorned at the breakfast table. My mother would always prepare a few extra bajra rotlos, to be kept overnight for my father and her to have in the morning. She would crumble these with her hands, turning them into a cereal consistency, and my parents would eat this cereal with milk. It looked like cornflakes to us kids, which was interesting in theory, but we did not like the taste back then. I grew to love it, however. In fact, I now enjoy this deconstructed version more than I enjoy the previous night’s freshly-made, unbroken bajra rotlos themselves!

Now, when I prepare bajra rotlo cereal, the memory of my mother’s hands and the way she would crumble the rotlos always comes to me. The dish is all the more special because of this.

For the time being, no one else in my family likes bajra rotlo cereal. But they watch me eat it, just as I once watched my parents eat it. I’ve never forced it on my kids, but maybe somewhere later down the line, they’ll reach out for this comfort food on some mornings too. Fond memories really are what make food palatable, above all else. Besides, as parents we always set an example. The next generation, be they little or a little older, will make similar choices to ours. So the more healthily we eat, the better a model we set for them.

Bajra Rotlo Cereal

(Yield: 4 servings)

1 cup bajra flour

½ cup water

A pinch of salt

½ cup flour for rolling

 

Optional (non-cereal version)

1 tablespoon finely chopped onion

1 tablespoon finely coriander leaves

 

Put the flour in a bowl, add the pinch of salt and stir. If you plan on having the bajra rotlo as a bread, not a cereal, then make the savoury version and add the onion and coriander now. Skip these optional ingredients if you plan on having the cereal version.

Add the water. Leave a little bit behind in the cup – use just enough to make a malleable dough.

Once the dough is made you, don’t let it sit. You will have to roast the rotlo immediately.

Make four smooth balls with the dough. On a rolling board, sprinkle more flour. Place a ball of dough on it and use your palms to gently pat it out. Use your fingers to press down the edges of the rotlo. If you need the help of the rolling pin, you may use it, but very lightly and gently. Since there is no gluten, the dough will be soft and needs to be handled with care. Add more flour if necessary. Each rotlo needs to be ¼ inch in thickness. Keep dusting with flour at the bottom too. Make all four pieces.

On a hot griddle, place each rotlo individually. Use your fingers to wet the top of the rotlo with water.

Roast on one side and flip over. Cool on a medium flame. As it’s thick, it needs to cook well on the inside. Once it has spots on both sides, place the rotlo directly on the flame to cook further.

Remove from the stove and top with ghee. Allow to cool. You can now serve this bajra rotlo with chutney or dal, if you like.

To make a cereal, once it has cooled, either the same day or the next morning, simply crush or crumble the rotlo with your hands.

You can have this with cold milk, if you prefer that. I usually have mine with warm milk. Specifically, I enjoy it with almond milk, which I’ve been reaching for more and more in my quest to make my diet more vegan. You can also add some sugar, if you wish to sweeten the cereal. All in all, it makes for a complete and healthy breakfast.

The festive season also coincides with the wedding season, which means that there is a general period of celebration until February or so in most Indian communities, peppered with religious occasions as well as personal gatherings. Foods like this dish, which nourish the body and let it recover from the heavy, fried, sugary, buttery, ghee-rich foods that are eaten at special events, are welcome and appreciated after and between feasts. This isn’t to knock indulgent foods at all – in fact, I have noticed how traditional ingredients like gond or gum resin, which are used in laddoos, are a warming agent and boost immunity. There’s a culinary and seasonal logic to indulgence too. But the body really does feel better when some millets are in the mix, balancing out the treats.

I’ve got quite a repertoire of millet-based dishes in my recipe archive, if you are keen to bring this nutritious category into your kitchen more often. Having tried this bajra rotlo cereal, if you find that you’re a fan of pearl millet at breakfast, the traditional Gujarati bajra ghensh is also a fantastic option. Here’s to happy, healthy mornings!

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Recipe: Post-Diwali Downtime – Millet Upma

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After the abundance of sweets, treats and fried foods of Diwali and Navaratri, hopefully accompanied by equally large helpings of blessings and joy, it’s back to trying to eat clean and healthy. This month is all about giving the body’s systems time to settle down before the culinary excitements of Christmas and the New Year beckon again. In this part of the world, this is also a time of rains, which call for immunity-boosting and warming foods as well. With all of this in mind, and taking a cue only from what I’ve been preparing for my family and myself, I’m delighted to share the recipe for a type of comfort food that is ideal for this time of year: millet upma.

Upma is a kind of porridge that is consumed across South India, in several variations. Its base may be semolina, vermicelli, corn, whole wheat or rice. Here, I have chosen to use a millet as the base, specifically the little millet. Millets and soups are perfect for the current weather. While soups are not really a part of the local cuisine, millets have a very long tradition of usage here. I’m quite an advocate for cutting down on white rice consumption in favour of nutritious millets, and you can explore many more millet-based recipes in my blog archives if you’re interested in doing the same.

As well as being a great place to start if you’re new to millets, this dish is also just the perfect way to start your day. Now, the truth is that millets taste healthy, which you know means that the family will fuss over it and make faces – at first. But as I’ve observed from my own grown kids, a millet upma is most welcome at breakfast after a night of partying or feasting. It’s just the kind of thing that calms body and mind, and boosts energy levels at the same time. So I choose a millet upma at the right moment during other times of the year, but it’s whipped up quite frequently in my kitchen in the post-festive period. We also have it as a light dinner, with more vegetables added to the mix. It’s especially great if you’re like me and have dinner early, as the millet gives you energy for the remaining hours of the evening, while still being easy to digest at night.

When cooking millets, the amount of water you add will depend on the size of the grain. Heavier millets – bigger in size and darker in colour – are traditionally used in monsoons and winters as they take more time to digest, hence warm the body for a longer time. However, I’ve chosen a sort of in-between. The little millet, known in Tamil as samai, is a larger grain but has a lighter colour. Use the millet of your preference, and do remember that depending on the type, you may need to pressure cook it or soak it overnight. You will also need to figure out the water level so that the result is a dish that is tender and crumbly. The consistency of the cooked millet should not be sticky.

Millet Upma

(Yield: 2-4 persons)

¾ cup little millet

¼ cup finely chopped onion

¼ cup chopped beans and carrots

2 tablespoons oil

¼ teaspoon mustard seeds

¼ teaspoon cumin seeds

A few curry leaves

1 green chilli

1¼ cups water

A squeeze of lemon juice

Salt to taste

Rinse the millet and set aside. Heat a kadai and add the oil. Once the oil heats up, add the mustard and cumin seeds. Allow them to splutter and then add the remaining vegetables, green chilli and curry leaves.

Cook until the vegetables become tender and then add the water. Once the water has boiled, add the millet. Then add the salt and stir well. Keep the flame low, cover the kadai with a lid, and allow all the water to be cooked. The millet grain should be tender and not sticky.

Add some lemon juice and stir gently. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot, and enjoy the taste of a healthy meal that your body will thank you for!

As I said earlier, there is a long history of millet consumption both in India as well as in my household, as shared here on my blog. I hope this millet upma recipe intrigues you into exploring this food category further. I’ve got a whole range, from the traditional – bajra ghensh, seven-grain khichdo, ragi dosa with peanut chutney, chakkara pongal, ragi kanji and little millet rice with green beans poriyal – to the innovative or internationally-inspired – vegan millet thayirsadam, vegan chili and Indian veg millet salad. I’d love to know about your own journey with millets, too!

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Recipe: To Relish This Festive Season – Rose Water Peda

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A while ago, I noticed on Instagram that many people had been making pedas in lovely shapes. These Indian milk sweets are always a mood-lifter, and seeing them online inspired me to put them on my own festive menu this year. I’ve always been a believer that presentation goes a long way when it comes to any dish, and we usually eat with our eyes first. That said, taste is ultimately the most important factor. So, while dreaming up my own pedas, the two elements came together. Firstly, I sought out exquisite little moulds that would beautify my sweets, thinking of Kolkata’s famously attractive sandesh. Secondly, I gave the flavouring quite a lot of thought. Through some trials, I eventually settled on one of my favourite flavours, and indeed one of re:store’s signature ingredients: rose water. These rose water pedas are aromatic, delicious and very sweet, just like I hope your Diwali will be.

Whenever I see something beautiful – either culinary or creative – I must learn to make it immediately. You could call it a flaw of sorts, or maybe a happy curse, but that’s just how I’m wired. From the moment of inspiration onwards, it becomes an obsession for me until I arrive at a rendition that I am happy with. That’s how I learnt how to bake, to photograph and to cook so many beloved items in my repertoire. I experiment, make mistakes and keep going until I succeed. Only sometimes do I concede that it’s time to give up, but even then I don’t consider those experiences failures. Rather, there are lessons in them too. When I succeed, the journey doesn’t just end at having made something. The next step is sharing it, which is why this blog exists, but also why I am an inveterate giver of gifts. In my case, my gifts are mostly edible nowadays.

The reason for this is that people really do receive enough and plenty of other kinds of gifts, and unlike a memento which may not be to one’s taste, food almost invariably will be consumed. Before I visit a friend, I now bake or cook a little gift, or else select organic vegetables and arrange them in a basket. These are items which I know for certain will be used by the recipient, and will never gather dust. Personally as well, there’s nothing more exciting to me than fresh ingredients, and I love getting gifts of the same. You may have noticed that many of my recipes here have been spurred by a present of some kind: such as lavender, cinnamon, saffron or more wonderful pleasures that travelled to me with love. Recipes, too, are fabulous gifts – and it’s my pleasure to keep gifting you these.

I learnt how to make basic pedas from my sister, who is the peda queen in my eyes. Peda-making was truly in my destiny because of a nickname in my extended family. My mother had nine siblings, and each had many children of their own, among whom I was one of the very youngest. As a baby, I seemed to that huge group of cousins to look like a little peda. So that’s what they called me: “pendo”, the Gujarati word for this dish. I remain Pendo to many of them, even to this day!

 

Rose Water Peda

(Yield: 10 pieces)

125 grams paneer

50 grams full fat milk powder

50 grams powdered sugar

2 teaspoons ghee

1 teaspoon rose water

1 teaspoon milk

Grate the paneer and place it onto a plate. Knead it with the palm of your hand until it is soft and even, like dough. Form a ball and set aside.

Heat a non-stick pan and add the ghee. Once it is hot, add the paneer. Keep stirring and pressing the paneer down. The paneer will become soft and smooth. This process should take no more than two minutes.

Add the rose water and the milk powder. Mix well. Then add the sugar and turn off the flame. Mix it all well together once more. Spread onto a plate. Allow to cool.

Once cooled, use the palm of your hand to knead this mixture until it’s smooth. It will feel sticky, but do not worry.

Then, wrap the mixture with cling film. Keep it in the refrigerator for between ½ an hour to five hours.

You will notice that this recipe uses milk powder rather than milk, and this is a common modern innovation on the old method, which involved boiling and boiling milk for hours on end. Milk powder makes the process far simpler and faster, while retaining the classic taste of this deeply cherished Indian sweet.

When you are ready to prepare the peda, take out the cold mixture and knead it once again, making sure there are no lumps. Now, make small balls and reshape them as you desire, or use moulds. Garnish with rose petals and pistachio slivers.

Keep the peda at room temperature, but protected by a netted cover. Allow to sit for a few hours.

Serve, and relish the delicate taste of these lovely rose water pedas. You can store any remainder in the refrigerator, as long as you consume them within three days.

In my home, whenever I make peda, the first offering is always to Balakrishna or Baby Krishna, the god who is very fond of dairy according to all the stories about him. He is our family deity and we have a seva or service for him every day, an elaborate process of waking him, bathing him, treating him lovingly like a child and of course feeding him. So when I’m making pedas, I always make tiny ones to offer at the altar, alongside the regular-sized ones. As with all kinds of prasad, it is never tasted while being cooked, as it must be offered pure.

Do you have rituals like these too, in which food and faith come together? I’m always interested in learning more about world cultures, and would love to hear from you.

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Recipe: Been-Around-The-World Khari Poori – Masala Khari Poori

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Masala khari poori is a staple in Gujarati households, not just during the festive season but often as a daily pleasure. A morning snack comprised of chai and ghantia (tea and a fried savoury) is how many families traditionally begin their days. This combination is then repeated at tea-time as well. The pairing has a nostalgic quality even for the younger generation of today. I know this because whenever my daughter, who works in Mumbai, comes back for a visit, one of the first things she asks for is sweet chai with an accompaniment of spicy, fried khari poori. Gujaratis do love our savoury fried snacks, and we love them every day, even though my family tends to veer towards more health-conscious items. But with the festive season in full swing and everyone enjoying their indulgences more than usual, there’s no better time than now to share the recipe for this very satisfying masala khari poori.

My mother would fry up big batches of this treat during Diwali in particular, so they are also a part of celebratory memories of mine. She would make small discs, rolled out individually. What I’ve done instead is to roll out a big chunk of dough and then use a cookie cutter to make the small individual discs. When my kids were little, I would use fancy shapes, like flowers and so on, to make the dish all the more interesting to them. They are tiny bites. Pop one into your mouth and eight or ten are gone before you realise it.

The amazing thing about khari poori is that it travels very well, and can easily last for up to four weeks (hypothetically speaking, of course – there’s no chance a jar of such deliciousness will go unfinished that long in most households). This means that whenever we take long car journeys, I fill up a nice flask of hot chai and pack some khari poori for the road. I send my kids off with a parcel of it whenever they head back after a visit. My daughter tells me that she loves to munch on it when she gets a breather from her busy days in the courtroom, so it’s a nice snack to carry into a workplace too. Most of all, it works as the perfect charm when you’re away and are a week or ten days into being somewhere else, and you suddenly crave the taste of home. I remember being in Paris once and munching some homemade khari poori, safely conveyed in my luggage all the way from India, while admiring the beauty of the Eiffel Tower. This delicious little snack has travelled all over the world, literally!

Khari poori is also perfect for when you come home, as I mentioned earlier, but even if you haven’t been travelling or living away, it rounds out a tiring day. When you return late from work or are still hungry after a lousy dinner outside, reaching out for some khari poori and a glass of milk just settles something in the belly and the mind and lets one fall asleep. It’s an all-rounder kind of snack that way: ideal for festive feasts, holiday treats and as a comfort food.

Masala Khari Poori

(Yield: 30+ pieces)

1 cup whole wheat flour

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

1 teaspoon ginger green chilli paste

½ teaspoon cumin powder

½ teaspoon coriander powder

2 tablespoons oil + for frying

½ teaspoon ajwain seeds (carom seeds)

A pinch of sugar (optional)

⅓ cup water (depends upon the flour)

 

Make a tight dough with all the ingredients. A lot of kneading helps it become smooth, which will make for crispy pooris.

Heat the oil for frying in a kadai. Meanwhile, make small balls of the dough and set aside.

Now start rolling them out into small discs, or else use my cookie cutter method.

Once the oil is ready, start deep frying the individual pooris.

Drop a few at a time or as many as will fit into the oil. Now, lower the flame as a high heat will burn them and make them turn brown while also being undercooked.

Flip them at intervals and patiently allow them to cook until golden. At intervals you may increase the heat, depending on how they appear.

Remove onto paper and allow to cool. Fry all your discs and allow to cool before storing them in an airtight tin.

Crispy, festive, spicy – these masala khari pooris will add a boost of delight to your day, whether that’s a special day or simply an ordinary day on which to enjoy the simple good things in life. In my home, we tend to not purchase snacks since I make quite an array of them: this khari poori, obviously, but also butter biscuits, pistachio-rose nan khatai, sukha bhel, banana-methi fritters and much more. We enjoy one or the other on any given day, always with a piping hot kettle full of this delicious masala chai. Try them out and let me know: what’s your own favourite combo?

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Recipe: Discs of Delight – Puran Poli

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The festive season has begun here in India, and I hope that those of you who are celebrating are having a wonderful time. Feasting is such a big part of our festivals, and this month I’ll be sharing some delicious recipes to add to your repertoire of sweets and snacks to share with friends and family. At the top of this list is a dish of sentimental value: puran poli. This sweet, healthy flatbread always evokes my mother for me. Perhaps that is true of all sweet foods, if not all dishes, from my childhood. But she really was exceptional at preparing puran poli, and so it holds a special place in my heart.

Puran poli was the favourite of all five of us at home (my parents, my siblings and I). For my siblings and father, it was to them what her dhokla was to me – the one dish that they only wanted made by her, even if they would prepare or buy other items. I suppose in my case I lucked out because I learned how to make puran poli from her, rather than only have her make it for me. Now, whenever I roll out the dough to make this sweet treat, memories of my mother flood back. I recall her hands as she prepared it, the way she would measure out ingredients and little nuances about her movements. Whether she was teaching me, letting me work alongside her or just letting me watch, all those moments come together and fill me with nostalgia as I make this.

She prepared it for special occasions and birthdays, and it was always a part of our festive meals. On such days, the lunch table would be laden with rich, heavy food of all varieties. We would partake of the feast while surrounded by happy people, and a nice long afternoon siesta would follow. One of the reasons why this sweet, which always featured in these feasts, was such a star on the menu is that something about it made her indulge us more. Even though there would always be healthy greens in the spread, she would say with a smile when she saw us reach for her famous puran poli, “It’s okay if you don’t eat your vegetables today”. So we would look forward to this dish all the more.

To me, these are not just memories to fondly look back on, but they show the way forward too. I feel strongly that beautiful moments at home must be created. They don’t just happen. When we put time and thought into creating experiences that celebrate the love within a family, while honouring tradition and heritage, we ensure that the next generation has something precious to look back on too. Festive occasions offer the perfect opportunity for this, which is why I have such a firm rule that my children come home for Diwali and Raksha Bandhan no matter where they are in the world. Every year, as a family, we renew our bonds and form new memories together. I know that some day, when they are older and reminiscing, they will feel joy – and remember us with love, just as I do my dear mother.

I often ask myself these questions: what will my children recall; what will their memories of me be? The desire to bring joy to them always, not just now but well into the future, is what motivates me to make our time together as meaningful as possible. Food as a daily expression of love enables this, and festivities make this expression all the more vivid and enjoyable. Family, food and feelings are interconnected. When we have healthy relationships, we eat better (as we share mealtimes, and are stressed less overall). When we eat nourishingly, we have healthier relationships (as our bodies and minds are performing optimally, and fatigue or illness don’t impede our ability to spend time together). Do you notice that you binge eat when you feel downcast? Do you notice that you enjoy food more when you’re with a close friend? These are clues about the nature of this interconnection.

This puran poli, thanks to the wonderful memories it brings back, strengthens my connection to my late mother. It is also meaningful to my children for the same reason. Decades ago, when I was away from home and expecting my second child, my eldest missed his grandmother – my mother – so deeply that I had to ask my friend Chandrika Behn to make puran poli just for him. She prepared it just like my mother would, and I didn’t mind my kid gorging on the treat often as it’s stuffed with protein-rich dal. Even now, when one of us visits her, this elderly aunty rolls out a batch of puran polis just for us. Such is the power of a beautifully-rendered dish. It becomes a way to treasure a relationship – between grandmother and grandchild, between friends, between parent and child, between siblings, between partners, and so on…

Puran Poli

(Yield: 10)

 

Stuffing ingredients

½ cup toor dal

1 cup water

½ cup jaggery

1 tablespoon almond powder

½ teaspoon cardamom

Ghee for topping

 

Dough ingredients

¾ cup whole wheat flour

A pinch of salt

½ cup water (based on your requirement)

1 teaspoon oil

 

Make a dough with the ingredients. Ensure it is soft and smooth. Make small balls, cover and set aside.

In a pressure cooker, cook the dal in water until it is soft and tender.

Open the cooker and add the jaggery. Keep stirring the mixture of dal and jaggery constantly on a low flame. Make sure the dal does not stick to the bottom of the pan/cooker.

Once the mixture has thickened, which will take approximately 12-15 minutes, turn off the flame and add the cardamom powder and almond powder.

You will know the stuffing is ready when you make a spatula stand upright inside the thickened dal and it doesn’t fall.

Allow to cool. Divide this into portions of 10 balls. Your stuffing is now ready to roll.

Assemble each puran poli. Roll out one small dough ball into a small disc. Place the ball of stuffing in the centre, gather the rolled out roti together and flatten. Dip the stuffed disc into dry flour for easy rolling out once again.

Now, place the rolled-out stuffed disc onto a hot griddle and allow to cook. Flip and cook on the other side. Remove onto a plate and pour ghee over the puran poli. Repeat for the remaining balls of dough and stuffing, until you’ve prepared them all. Enjoy them hot and fresh.

Each puran poli will be small – palm-sized. As far as sweets go, this is quite healthy, not only because of the portion size but also because the jaggery and almonds used in it are nutritious. Traditionally, it is made with chopped almonds, but my mother always used powdered almonds. This changes the texture of the stuffing, making it softer, and I’ve retained this twist too.

These are lovely little treats that invariably feel festive to me, and increase the joy of this season. I hope they will do the same for you. Wishing you and yours a wonderful time of celebration!

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Recipe: Tastiness From My Terrace – South Indian Ridge Gourd Stir-Fry

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As a Gujarati who was born and brought up in Tamil Nadu, I am lucky to have the advantage of knowing and being a part of both cultures. Naturally, this extends to the cuisines as well. Although what is served for lunch nearly every day at home is a standard Gujarati thaali, which consists of rotis, a sabzi or vegetable and some dal, you can see the influence of my multicultural upbringing in the style of of some of the dishes. For instance, the sabzi of the day may be something cooked in a South Indian preparation. This ridge gourd stir-fry, or peerkanga pirratal as we know it in Tamil, is one such recipe in my eclectic repertoire.

I grow ridge gourd on my rooftop, and terrace gardening has also shown me firsthand the beautiful logic of Nature, which has designed things so that the produce that is most nourishing for those who live in the local climate is what grows best in that land too. Take the ridge gourd: high in water content, rich with fibre and minerals, and therefore just perfect for the weather of Chennai wherein our energy is easily depleted by the heat. If you live here, loading up your lunch bowl with this ingredient gives you exactly the boost you need for the rest of the day.

Of course, rounding out the standard meal would be some form of carbs, also known as the bane of my life. So here’s the trick: the Buddha bowl trompe l’oeil. Serving style and visual presentation always impact our perception of what we’re consuming. By putting just two tablespoons of white rice into a bowl and filling the rest with this ridge gourd stir-fry, I don’t have that miserable feeling of holding myself back by skimping on the main part of the meal. Instead, the vegetables themselves become the main part of the meal. This dish is very much in the category of comfort food, and I sometimes literally eat bowlfuls of it!

This South Indian ridge gourd stir-fry is very simple, very unassuming and very wholesome. Just salt and turmeric are quite enough to enhance the natural flavour of the chief ingredient. In addition to the ridge gourd on my rooftop, there are coconut trees in my backyard that yield fruit all year around. I use my own homemade coconut oil and add freshly grated coconut to this dish too, so almost everything in this dish is homegrown and pure. Even a little kitchen garden can make such a difference to our cooking. There really is something special about cultivating and consuming our own ingredients.

Doing so is also a link to a traditional way of living and a traditional way of eating, and these are subjects I think about a lot, given how we need both of these for the sustainability of our planet. M husband and I love time-honoured dishes, but our adult children feel they require much more novelty and diversity in their diets. Being in sync with Nature and seasonal rhythms is important for our vitality too, and I wonder if this is something one becomes more aware of as we age and our palates change. Growing bodies and younger bodies with dynamic lifestyles do need more carbs and sugars, certainly. As discussed in my previous post, it’s quite interesting how kids and senior citizens have very similar tastes. I have been listening more and more to what my body, somewhere between those two extremes of life, needs. In my case, vegetables are what it often craves. If you’re the same, you’ll find much for your repertoire in this blog’s archives. While re:store is all about baked indulgences, the recipes here are more often than not about bringing pleasure and nutrition into everyday meals.

South Indian Ridge Gourd Stir-Fry

(Yield: Serves 2-3)

 

4 cups peeled and chopped ridge gourd

A few curry leaves

¼ cup grated coconut (optional)

2 tablespoons coconut oil

¼ teaspoon mustard seeds

¼ teaspoon cumin seeds

¼ teaspoon urad dal

Salt to taste

¼ teaspoon turmeric

½ cup water

1-2 green chillies

3 tablespoons soaked mung/yellow dal

 

In a pressure cooker, add the mung dal and the cut gourd. Add salt, turmeric and ½ cup of water. Allow to cook until tender (this should be about 2 whistles).

In another kadai, add the coconut oil. Once it has heated, add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds and ural dal. When they start to splutter, add the curry leaves.

Immediately after, add the vegetables from the pressure cooker and stir well. Once the concoction starts boiling, turn off the flame and add the grated coconut. You can skip this ingredient if you aren’t a fan, or if it isn’t available. Mix well. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot. This is usually an accompaniment to rice or rotis.

This South Indian-style ridge gourd stir-fry is a recipe I picked up along the way, and prefer to the Gujarati version that my mother used to make, which required chili and coriander powders. That said, sometimes it feels a bit painful when I’m confronted with very deeply-rooted authentic Gujarati dishes and find myself at a loss about how to prepare them. Fortunately, my sister who has had much more exposure to that cuisine is within reach, as well as friends and fellow bloggers, and I usually find what I’m looking for and learn through trial and error.

In fact, this gives me an opportunity to ask you: is it true that ridge gourd peel can be used in a chutney? Have you prepared this, and if so, would you care to share the recipe?

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Recipe: Not Quite Authentic, But Quite Amazing – Green Quesadilla

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We can’t get enough of food inspired by Mexican cuisine at home, and after last week’s Mexican-style pineapple salad, I thought it would be perfect to share another delicious recipe in the same vein. This green quesadilla, truthfully speaking, is re:store style – a cross between Indian and Mexican, but leaning towards being an Indian dish with a Mexican name. For the culinary purists out there, no, this is not authentic. For the rest of us who love our fusion food and things that taste good under any moniker, I can assure you that this green quesadilla is quite amazing just the same. If you don’t believe me, ask my mother-in-law, who at 85 relishes it to the point of requesting it specifically when it’s been missing from our menu for even a week!

I can’t recall exactly how it came into being, but can make a vague guess that I must have had an excess of broccoli in my kitchen one day. I must have decided to pack it all into a quesadilla, to use up my stock while also ensuring that my family got a good load of greens that day. I do know that when I began serving it to them, my grown kids didn’t blink twice, distracted by the yummy cheese that holds the “tortilla” together (you’ll see why I use the quote marks when you read the method). I realised then that this dish is ideal for my readers with kids, especially younger ones who detest vegetables and need to be tricked into having them. In fact, calling it a quesadilla – even when you’re using ingredients that are so basic to an Indian kitchen – will also help with this, as children are always curious about trying new things and are likely to enjoy the novelty.

It has since become a staple at home, and I usually accompany it with a soup of some sort. Depending on your personal preferences, I can recommend several of my recipes for this pairing too. From the richly indulgent to the comfortingly simple, I have shared quite a range on this blog. Do check out my minestrone, zucchini soup, vegan whole corn and lemongrass soup, broccoli and almond soup or watermelon gazpacho at leisure.

Long before I encountered real quesadillas, and long before those of us who grew up in Chennai had the slightest clue what Mexican cuisine was all about, I enjoyed another dish based on the same concept at my friend Sharmila’s home. Whenever a small group of us would land up there after school, surprising her mother who would be unprepared to serve lunch for unexpected guests, she would take some rotis and whip up a simple, but extremely satisfying, treat for us. She would put some jaggery between two rotis and flip them on a pan with ghee. The jaggery would melt, bind the bread together, and would ooze out so appetisingly the moment you took a bite. Looking back, I can imagine how this clever innovation came into being. I’m sure you can too. Do you have a dish like this, one you put together in a rush one day that then became a regular?

The category of so-called quesadillas is, as proved by Sharmila’s mother, a highly diverse one. Sprinkle some idli podi on it and make it a South Indian version. Change up the veggies so they fulfill a specific dietary restriction, or to make a colourful version. Add textures or ingredients that you like. Just remember that the cheese is the main factor. Without it, the whole thing will literally fall apart!

This green quesadilla makes for a filling dinner, or even a healthy snack. I flatten and slice it like a pizza, but you can also roll it up like a kati roll. Serving it in different ways will also keep your kids (or their grandmothers!) happy and enthusiastic. Isn’t it so interesting how our tastes when we are very young often have much in common with our tastes when we are very old? With that in mind, I’m delighted to share with you my recipe for a green quesadilla that is sure to satisfy several generations of your family!

Green Quesadilla

(Yield: 3 quesadillas)

 

Dough

¼ cup all purpose flour

¼ cup whole wheat flour

¼ cup water (or enough to make a tight dough)

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon oil

 

Filling

½ cup broccoli

¼ cup green bell pepper

¼ cup spring onions

2 teaspoons olive oil

Salt to taste

1 pinch pepper

½ cup grated cheese

 

Butter to cook

 

Make a tight and smooth dough using all of the dough ingredients and set aside. When it’s ready to be worked with, make six small balls of dough. Roll them out with the help of some flour. The method in my roti post may be useful here if you want to know how to do this.

Cook all six rolled-out rotis on both sides partially. Set them aside.

In a pan, add the oil. Once it has heated, add the vegetables. On a medium to high flame, stir the vegetables and cook them al dente. Add salt and pepper and mix well.

To assemble the quesadilla, place three rotis flat. Then, scoop the vegetables on top of them, making sure that most parts of the roti are covered. Now, sprinkle the grated cheese. Cover each of these prepared rotis with a plain one, sandwiching the veggies. Press down with your hands.

Add butter or oil on both sides of each quesadilla and cook on a hot griddle. Flip carefully. The cheese will hold the vegetables together, but be gentle anyway, else they will open up.

Cut them in half and serve. You may add jalapeños to the vegetable mix, or serve some alongside. As I said earlier, a soup makes a great accompaniment if you want to round it out into a full meal. A salsa or dip of your liking will also make it more delicious as a snack. You may want to adapt my peach salsa recipe, using complementary ingredients.

There you have it – a cheesy, nourishing dish that somehow blends the comfortingly familiar with the intriguingly foreign. Do you also make your own quesadilla-ish recipe, using the simple Indian roti, and how do you do it? I would love to know!

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Recipe: Sweetness Meets Nutrition – Mexican-Style Pineapple Salad

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With the fruit being in season, a wonderful meal of Thai-style pineapple rice led to an equally delicious pineapple curry, as you may have enjoyed recently too. I’m delighted to conclude this recipe series with a Mexican-style pineapple salad that I hope you’ll be just as excited by! As I had mentioned in one of the previous posts, I often grill pineapple for dessert. If you already have cut pineapple on hand, as I do with the abundance of it on the market right now, it’s so easy to do. As I was preparing some the other day, it occurred to me that grilled pineapple could make a perfect salad ingredient. In the magical way that food does, the idea transported me back to travels in South America, and I knew just how to prepare the dish.

I feel like I mention this in pretty much every blog post, but it’s true: I’ve been consuming a low-carbs menu for some months now, and am on a constant quest to diversify it. Salads are a reliable way to do so, and I’m always looking for new methods of preparing dishes in this category. You can turn this salad into a more complete meal by adding black or brown rice to it, which will fill you up while also being more nourishing than white rice. As an aside, if you’re a fan of black rice, be sure to try out this sticky rice and mango pudding from my archives. Also, while we’re on the subject of Mexican-inspired dishes, do try my peach salsa and Mexican-influenced Buddha Bowl recipes out too!

Despite my carbs-free diet, which I abide by as much as I can, I have also been trying to be kinder to myself about slipping off the bandwagon. Attempting to inculcate a mindset of judging my own food choices less is a work in progress, but it’s also a matter of practice. I know many of us struggle with this, which is why I’m sharing my own efforts to strike a balance. So nowadays, instead of chastising myself because a certain item or an extra helping may impact my health negatively, I am telling myself: “This will nourish me and give me joy”. Rather than eat something rich while feeling miserable and guilty about its sugar or carb quotient, which reduces my pleasure in the food or beverage itself, I am making it a point to mindfully enjoy it. This is a better attitude than self-criticism. It also helps you moderate your diet when you look at all parts of it the same way, rather than only the parts of it that you consider indulgent. Moderation in greens, moderation in goodies, and so on. It’s perfectly okay to eat what you’d like to eat – just eat it in the portions that are best for you.

This salad, as nutritious as it is, began with just such a spark of choosing joy over judgment. Of course I could have eaten the pineapple raw, but grilling it brought out flavours to the fruit that it wouldn’t have gotten to experience otherwise. Then, warm memories of a trip to Mexico embellished the rest of the recipe in my head: corn, jalapeños, kidney beans and chipotle sauce found their way into it. The result? Delicious, craving-satisfying and loaded with nutritional value even while it also packs a punch in the taste department.

One of the things I love about this dish is that while it’s internationally-inspired, the ingredients are locally grown or easily available. This gave me the idea of not just grilling the pineapple, but also giving the corn the Indian street food treatment. I wanted to bring the flavour of the wonderful roasted corn that we get at beaches all over India into the dish too, so I added some lemon and chilli powder and prepared that separately.

With the five year anniversary of this blog approaching (do follow me on Instagram for some celebratory fun soon!), I’ve been thinking about the broad range of recipes covered here, and I noticed that one of the things that many recipes have in common is that you can cook them no matter where you are. The ingredients used are largely simple and widely available, and the substitutes you can use to make them local or seasonal for you should be pretty intuitive. For instance, for this recipe, I found and ordered chipotle online, to add a bit of authentically Mexican flavour. If you’re unable to source it yourself, using paprika – which incidentally also originated in Mexico but which is widely available in supermarkets in India and abroad – will easily create the ideal dressing alternative. As I say often: good cooks always innovate, with what’s in reach!

 

Mexican-Style Pineapple Salad

(Yield: Serves 2)

 

1 medium-sized pineapple

⅓ cup finely chopped spring onion

2 tablespoons chopped jalapeños

½ cup kidney beans (rajma)

1 roasted whole corn

¼ cup coriander leaves

¼ cup finely diced bell peppers

 

Dressing

Juice of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon taco seasoning

1 teaspoon chipotle chilli (substitute: paprika)

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon olive oil

 

Slice the clean pineapple into circles. Grill approximately 2 cups of chopped slices in the oven or on a pan until charred. Allow to cool, then cut into small pieces and add to the bowl. Then, add the remaining vegetables.

Mix the dressing ingredients in a cup and pour over the assembled salad. Serve with some crunched-up nacho chips. If you have some fresh avocado, or some guacamole, these will also make a perfect accompaniment.

The nacho chips that I sprinkled over the salad evoked the texture of the maida-based tostada bowls that I’ve enjoyed similar Mexican salads in while travelling in the United States. Scrumptious and crispy, the bowl is a treat to eat along with the salad and the guacamole that is customarily served. While I know how it’s made, I don’t have a mould to make them with, and I’m wondering how to improvise. Would you have any suggestions? I’d love to scoop some of my Mexican-style pineapple salad into a homemade tostada bowl next time, and enjoy that crunchiness too!

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