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Recipe: The Benchmark – My Best Chocolate Cake

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My children are all grown up and all of them live away from me, so every time they come to visit, I always try to think of what they will enjoy eating during their stay. One of my sons loves chocolate cake, so this particular treat is the welcome home dish that I currently have in the oven, ahead of his next arrival. It looks so beautiful that I couldn’t resist picking up the camera – and subsequently came the idea of sharing the recipe with you too.

Before I began to bake, many years ago now, we would often order from a friend of ours who used to bake from her home in Chennai too. Hers was one of the most fantastic chocolate cakes we had ever tasted, and it remains the benchmark for us all. It served as my inspiration too, when I became a baker myself.

Creating this recipe of my own was the result of many trials, exploring recipes from across cookbooks and the Internet, tweaking them based on my taste and my experience. Eventually, I formed a chocolate cake recipe that hit the spot, and became a personal benchmark. While my almond cakes are the most popular among customers (hyperlink), it’s this chocolate cake that is my own family’s favourite.

When I think about the experiments that lead toward this recipe, and indeed many others, I feel grateful for my blogger and Instagram friends and the accounts I have followed over the years who inspired me – both in terms of food and in terms of photography.

But there are many things that I have been contemplating lately about the world of food blogging and how it is changing. Now that re:store’s own online presence is over seven years old, I am able to observe and comment on the vast shifts that have taken place in this time and I wonder about what is still to come. For instance – many of the people whose work I used to look forward to no longer post, or sometimes have even disappeared altogether. Even though new bloggers have come up, some equally fantastic, there was a sense of community in the past that is less experienced today. It all feels different now, both as a creator and as someone who enjoys the content. I wonder if you feel similarly, or if you have other thoughts?

Then, there is the dominance of reels. Food photography as a genre is dwindling, and to be honest I don’t see the kind of aesthetic that I used to love exploring online and which challenged me to keep growing as a photographer too. While I respect reels as their own format, they are not for me. Even as photography loses popularity, I pick up my camera time and again because it is an artform that I am passionate about, and because in certain ways I would define myself as being old school – especially in the sense that I believe that if the going is good, keep going.

The going is good, so to speak, when it comes to photography. I am just as enthused and as inspired as ever as a photographer, and some of you may know that my explorations in this medium go beyond shooting for this blog. I also work with still life and nature themes, and I’ve been fortunate to have received gallery support for the same, and I sometimes accept commercial commissions too.

I still approach every kind of shoot with my old and faithful Nikon and the lenses I’ve used all these years, and remain perfectly happy with the outcomes. I don’t intend to go in for an upgrade because I know I don’t need to. Although I love finding new appliances for the kitchen, somehow with photography the tried and tested just works for me. I like to think that my not constantly seeking out new technology helps reduce my personal impact on landfills. None of us is perfect and none of us is going to avoid creating waste, but being mindful about our consumer choices is something that is in our hands.

And when it comes to something that is literally in my hands – my camera – I really don’t want to let go of the instrument that has brought me so much creativity and joy. I will also say that I sometimes feel disturbed when people say, “Oh your photographs are so nice – you must have a good camera”. I do, but there is so much more to this artform than just the device. Even as trends move away from it, I continue to learn and to grow within it.

So yes: the world, and not just the world of food blogging, is always changing – but we can have some constants, too. A decadent chocolate cake will almost without fail please anyone, for instance. In that sense, this is a timeless dish, and I hope you’ll enjoy my version of it.

Chocolate Cake

(Serves 5-6)

2 cups sugar
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup hot water
1 tablespoon instant coffee
½ cup oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 170°. Prepare two 8’ cake tins by greasing, lining and dusting the pans.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt – thus combining the dry ingredients. Add sugar.

Separately, add hot water to the coffee powder. Keep aside.

Using a hand blender, mix the eggs, vanilla extract, oil and buttermilk. You can make buttermilk at home by adding a tablespoon of white vinegar to a cup of room temperature milk, and allowing it to sit for 15 minutes before usage.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and mix well.

Add the hot coffee to this mixture now. The batter will be a little runny. Avoid over beating.

Pour this batter into the two tins equally and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. After the cakes sit for 15 minutes, turn them onto a tray and allow to cool completely. Decorate with chocolate icing.

If you’re new to all this and would like a little primer or refresher to the basics of baking, check out this citrus bundt recipe with lots of tips.

As I said earlier, this recipe is really the best one I know for the classic chocolate cake. I wonder how it will compare with ones you have made or tasted. I do hope you’ll enjoy it just as much as we do!

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Recipe: Effortlessly Excellent – Easy Biryani

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When my children were growing up, they were really fond of biryani. Biryani is a speciality in India. It is basically a type of rice, loaded with flavours, aromas and vegetables and/or meat. The specific ingredients included will be based on what is locally available, as well as preferences unique to a community – and it is made by many different communities, each in their own styles. By and large, the authentic method of preparing a fragrant biryani loaded with spices came with the Mughals, and trickled into other cuisines. The dish may even have other names in some parts of the country. We are fluid here when it comes to biryani, and it is very much a pan-Indian dish or dish category. A real biryani takes time, effort and skill – but I’ve perfected the recipe for an easy biryani that tastes very good, smells just as lovely and requires the above three elements only minimally!

So here’s the truth: I never really did know how to make biryani when the kids were younger. So I always resorted to this easy and quick method. I feel that this is essentially a masala rice in preparation, but it comes close in flavour and scent to authentic biryani.

However, as my children grew and started eating around the world, they got smarter and were quick to spot when my masala rice was being passed off as a biryani. So I in turn learned how to make real biryani too. That, however, is a long process. The traditional method varies both in its ingredients as well as its cooking. Today, I have opted to share a simple method for an easy biryani instead. While I have kept it vegetarian, you can add meat at the same time in the method that I add the veggies. All else remains the same in the recipe.

When I began to share recipes on this blog some years ago, one of the essential ideas that went behind its conception was that it should appeal to young adults. Whether they were off at university, or were newly-wed and starting a family of their own, I wanted to offer recipes that they could pull off with ease. So I like to present dishes that require accessible ingredients, and simple methods. While I do enjoy sharing exotic or more complex fare here too, and I quite often throw in traditional recipes that keep my readers connected to their roots, I do keep adaptability and time-efficiency in mind most of the time. I know this particular easy biryani recipe fits the criteria because it’s the version that I myself still keep making when I visit my kids in other locations, and encourage them to cook when they’re on their own too.

So, now that I’ve shared one of the core motivations behind how I come up with my recipes, let me also say: I hope this blog has served many. Feel free to leave comments on what else you’d like to see here or what you would like to know about the culinary realm, especially if you’ve just started your journey in the kitchen.

Easy Biryani

(Yield: Serves 2)

2 tablespoons ghee

1 bay leaf

2 cloves

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 cardamom

2-3 garlic cloves

½ cup chopped onions

2 cups chopped vegetables (beans, carrot, peas, potato)

1 tablespoon tomato purée

1½ cups water

1 cup rice

Salt to taste

2 teaspoons garam masala

2 teaspoons dhaniya/jeera powder

¼ teaspoon turmeric

Coriander and mint leaves (to garnish)

 

Rinse and pick the rice and set it aside.

Heat the ghee in a saucepan or pressure cooker. To this, add the bay leaf, cumin, cloves and cardamom. Once they have heated, add the garlic and sauté for a few seconds. Then, add the onions and the remaining vegetables. If you are using meat, add it now as well. Sauté on a medium or high flame.

Now, add the tomato purée. Stir for a few minutes.

Then, add the rice and the water. Add the remaining masala and close the lid of the pressure cooker or cover the saucepan. Allow to cook for no more than 2 whistles or until the rice is tender to the touch, but not too soft. Turn off the flame.

Once it has cooled, open the lid. Sprinkle with coriander leaves and mint leaves. Cover again for some time.

Serve while still hot. Biryani is usually accompanied with raita. Here is a fancier version of this curd side dish, if you’d like to try it out.

I hope you’ll enjoy this delicious, fragrant and flavourful biryani, and I also hope that you find it very easy to make!

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Wishing You Good Health And Joy This New Year

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(above: re:store’s almond brittle)

(above: re:store’s date squares)

(above: re:store’s fig rolls)

(above: re:store’s chocolate cupcake)

Maintaining a standard of quality that is always up to the mark is very important to us at re:store.

Everything that is prepared in the re:store kitchen is exactly what my own family eats, and I put the same amount of care and effort into preparing it. In fact, when one of my kids comes home to visit, I always pack them a parcel of re:store goodies (sugar-free, as well as some with sugar) when they go back. The date squares, almond brittle and fig rolls are perfect for this, as they are travel-friendly and keep for a while. And when my kids are here at home, they regularly enjoy many of the re:store cake varieties too.

Before I introduce any new product, I put in a lot of research, conduct several trials, and get as much feedback as I can from friends and family. Only after that will I offer it to my clients. You can see the current product list here. I really look forward to your orders in the coming year and beyond.

As I said, quality is everything at re:store, as it is with everything else in life too. That’s the thought I am going into 2023 with.

My wish for us all is for good health. I can see that ever since the pandemic began, food has become a major focus for many. People have come to accept that what we consume can be the cause or the prevention of many illnesses. That said, let us not body-shame or take medications to change our bodies. Let us instead reflect on how food can be the source of our overall well-being. Let us also consider traditional and seasonal ways of eating, as passed down in one’s community or location. Let food be what helps us resolve issues.

I’m not denying that we need our indulgences, yet I believe – especially through the creation of my baked goods and confectionery at re:store – that even these can be nourishing and clean.

Wishing us all a healthy and delicious year ahead!

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Recipe: Second Helpings – Khichdi Thepla

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When the grain-based series concluded last weekend (you can catch up here, here and here, I promised a recipe that would make use of leftover khichdi in a unique way that transforms it into an entirely new dish. Years ago, I had mentioned in this post on rotis that khichdi is sometimes used to make theplas. That’s exactly what we’re going to do today.

Theplas are really a category, not a dish. They are a flatbread staple in Gujarati cuisine, and the diverse range includes methi thepla (made with fenugreek leaves), dudhi thepla (made with bottlegourd), bajra ke thepla (made with pearl millet) and more. The main ingredients change, but the seasonings and masalas tend to remain the same. The simplest form of theplas are the plain ones, made without any vegetables or other ingredients that spoil quickly. They are often made especially for travel, as they store well. I believe I’ve mentioned in previous posts how theplas were a part of all our train journeys, to Bombay and to other places. As kids, we ate every two hours, and so our mother would pack a large quantity of plain theplas, which would keep us well-fed for the two or three days that it took us to arrive at our destination. They were healthy, clean and home-made, and we would enjoy them with mango pickles as our train criss-crossed the country.

Mango pickles, specifically chhundo, which I’ve shared the recipe for before, are the chief accompaniment to most theplas. A dollop of yoghurt is also enjoyed alongside, and a dry vegetable like roasted potatoes can round out the meal. Theplas can be a light meal of just the flatbread and a pinch of pickle, or a full meal with the works. They are often a taken-for-granted dish too – “chalo (‘come/okay’), let’s have thepla” is a standard refrain when planning dinner in many a Gujarati household.

This style of thepla, which incorporates leftover khichdi into the dough and which is deliciously flavoured with ginger and green chilli (you may add garlic too, if you wish), is a perfect dinner dish to prepare with the unused portion of a simple khichdi made for lunch. Every family that uses this resourceful technique will have their version of what goes into the recipe.

Growing up, I was always impressed by the way my mother had a knack for turning over leftovers. It is a skill I’ve observed time and again in so many intelligent homemakers, who innovate ways to make a large meal go further, while appeasing picky children who demand fresh and interesting food. So this is especially for those of you who have fussy mouths to feed. Unless they are right there in the kitchen with you as you transform old khichdi into new theplas, they’ll never guess your little magic trick!

Khichdi Thepla

(Yield: 10 theplas)

½ cup khichdi

¾ cup + 2 tablespoons wheat flour

½ cup wheat flour (for rolling the theplas)

Salt to taste

¼ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon dhania-jeera (coriander-cumin) powder

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon oil

¼ teaspoon ajwain (carom seeds)

1 teaspoon green chilli and ginger paste

1 teaspoon oil + 3 tablespoons to cook

 

Keep aside the oil.

Assemble all the remaining ingredients in a wide bowl. Make a dough by mixing them together with your hands, until the mixture is smooth. Towards the end, once it begins to turn sticky, add 1 teaspoon of oil and spread it around the bowl. Knead the dough completely.

I have used a soft and wet khichdi, and thus did not need to add any water. If your khichdi is dry, then you may need to add water too.

Once the dough is prepared, either make the theplas right away or refrigerate the dough as it will release water and turn soft again. Remember that as you are already working with leftover khichdi, it is best to make and consume these theplas on the same day. If you’ve kept the dough in the fridge for a while, do not wait for it to thaw. You can roll out your theplas right away.

Heat a roti pan. Make small discs of the dough, and dip them in the wheat flour. Roll out each thepla into a thin disc.

Place each thepla on the pan. Allow it to cook on one side, then flip over after 5 seconds. Once it has slightly cooked on the second side, add a few drops of oil and spread them. Flip the thepla and repeat until large dark spots appear on both sides. This indicates that it has been cooked well.

Set aside. Fry all the discs the same way. I usually intermittently lower the flame so that they are cooked evenly, but also do not end up dry and crisp.

Here are a few more tips that will help ensure that your theplas are soft, which is their ideal texture:

  • The dough needs to be pliable and smooth.
  • When adding the oil as you cook each thepla, make sure that the edges are oiled. They tend to dry up otherwise.
  • Once done, take each thepla off the pan immediately and pile it on top of the other ones. Somehow, this results in them all staying soft without becoming moist.

If you’ve enjoyed this, I hope you’ll take a look back at my original Second Helpings series, which featured Gujarati masala curd rice, dal dhokli and rotli na ladoo for a sweet finish. Do let me know in the comments about how you innovate new dishes using your leftovers too! As always, I love to learn more about recipes and the stories behind them.

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Recipe: A Good Breakfast – Bajra Ghensh

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After making the nutritious (and labourious) seven-grain khichdo to share with you last week, I felt inspired to do a short series of similar dishes. This series will showcase the versatility of the staple grains we consume, and the many ways they help make up the traditional Gujarati menu. So here is part two of this series: bajra ghensh, which uses the goodness of broken pearl millet. Pearl millet has been cultivated in India for thousands of years, and is a vital part of both the authentic Gujarati and authentic Tamil cuisines that I grew up surrounded by. As you may know, I truly believe in the revival of higher quantities of millet usage in our diets, especially as a preferred alternative to white rice, and have written many times about their value to us.

I’ve been spending more time with my sister recently, and as always this means exploring her cooking style and picking up new techniques to include in my own. As she sometimes does, she said to me the other day, “Come, I’ll teach you a new recipe.” Working alongside her in her kitchen, I was very surprised to discover that it wasn’t a new recipe to me at all, but only a different interpretation of one I knew well, and made for a different meal of the day. My sister prepares bajra ghensh as dinner, whereas for over three decades my mother-in-law and I have been eating it for breakfast.

What did I tell you about the versatility of millets? In this highly adaptable bajra ghensh, we see an example of how dishes themselves become versatile too depending on the choices of the cook and the habits of the one consuming the same. The method of preparing it, as either breakfast or dinner, is still less the same, but storage and serving determine the type of meal it becomes. It’s a very simple dish with three base ingredients and a generous helping of dry fruits and nuts.

Bajra ghensh wasn’t something we ate while we were growing up, and just as my sister was introduced to it after getting married, I too first encountered it thanks to my mother-in-law. I remember how when I first moved in, my mother-in-law would make it as a porridge or cereal to be had in the mornings, and I loved it from the start. Soon, I was frequently whipping up a big pot of it for both her and I and we would share it for breakfast. We both enjoyed it so much that we would have the same dish for two or three mornings in a row, without needing variety. This was the only way I’d ever eaten it, until my sister served it for dinner the other day.

As delicious as that was, to my mind this is still a breakfast dish, and so my recipe and my photographs here reflect this perspective. It’s a very healthy post-workout meal, and it’s an ideal replacement for supermarket cereals, which make tall claims about nutrition values but are usually full of processed ingredients and sugar. On the other hand, this is comparable only to the simplicity and goodness of whole oats. It is also gluten-free, for those who are making a dietary switch, but it is not dairy-free.

Traditionally, just like the seven-grain khichdo, bajra ghensh was also a winter dish. Pearl millet is warming and high in iron, and the Macrobiotic principle of darker grains being considered winter-friendly applies here. They are harder to digest, whereas in summer lighter grains like jowar and amaranth that are light on the stomach and easiest to digest are better, as per the time-honoured logic of seasonal culinary usages. As I said earlier, since I usually have bajra ghensh in the mornings, I’ve noticed that on days when I have done so, I tend to not become hungry again till at least lunch time or even later. A dish like this cancels out your snack cravings, which automatically increases its already high healthiness quotient.

Finding out that this works well both as a filling breakfast and as a heavy dinner, as well as making the connections with Indian seasonal logic and Macrobiotics, also made me ponder how my mother-in-law and I prepare this at night and store it in the fridge. Since this is a traditional recipe, this meant that in earlier times it could only have been made in winters, when the climate as well as the type of vessels used would allow it to be stored overnight. Only certain probiotic foods would be kept to be on eaten the following day (including homemade yoghurt). There could be no such thing as leftovers, and if there were there were resourceful ways to ensure that these were consumed quickly too. Particularly for Jains, wastage goes against religious philosophy and practice, so quantities are an important part of cooking methods. In the absence of refrigeration, and often with access issues or resource concerns to consider as well, creating perfect portions that satisfy the entire family without any excess is a special skill, and one that cooks across the centuries had to cultivate. It is only in our modern age that we can rely on certain conveniences.

So what happens is this: because of its thick consistency, this bajra ghensh sets when you keep it in the fridge. In the morning, take a chunk, add a bit of milk and have it as a cereal. Or else, prepare it in the evening and eat it hot, right off the stove and with no milk added for breakfast, just like a khichdo.

Bajra Ghensh

(Yield: 2 persons)

 

½ cup broken bajra (pearl millet)

1½ – 2 cups water

½ cup thick yoghurt

Salt to taste

20 grams kharek (dried dates)

10 grams dried coconut slices

10 grams cashew nuts

 

Clean, rinse and soak the broken bajra for 2-3 hours.

Once soaked, cook the bajra along with the 1½ cups of water in a pressure cooker until the grain is soft and tender. Open the pressure cooker lid when ready.

Place a kadai on a medium flame and pour the bajra into it. Now, add the yoghurt and stir continuously. Next, add the salt. Finally, add the dried nuts, dates and coconut and mix well.

This is the point at which you have a choice: today’s main meal, or tomorrow’s breakfast?

Let’s say you decide to have it for breakfast. Just pour the concoction into a container and set it aside for some time. As the bajra ghensh cools, it will solidify. Once it is at room temperature, refrigerate.

You don’t have to do anything the next morning but scoop out a portion into a bowl, add a little milk or buttermilk (which I prefer for the tang) and enjoy!

Do you have a recipe in your own repertoire that you’ve been making and having a certain way for ages, which you later found in an alternate rendition somewhere else? It’s always fascinating to me how the very same dish is prepared or consumed in different ways, depending not even on the community but just on the family or the person who does the cooking. I hope you’ll enjoy this bajra ghensh, and be sure to let me know which meal you had it for!

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Recipe: A Sweet Finish – Coconut Pudding

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And so, the coconut series comes to a sweet finish with a dessert, just in time for Diwali! The first time that I had this coconut pudding was at a friend’s potluck, a long time ago. I had not yet started re:store then or become known for my baking, and so my standard contribution was always some kind of traditional Gujarati fare, like a kachori or a dal dhokli. Each of us would bring something, and we would partake in a lovely and diverse feast together. It was at one such gathering that I first encountered this sublime coconut pudding. Whose preparation it was, and at whose house, blurs in my mind. Every one of the posts in this series (podi, oil and stew) has involved the inspiration of one or several friends of mine, and while I wish I could recall exactly who inspired this one, I can say with certainty that my friendships were a big part of it too.

Despite forgetting the other details, I still remember vividly that first coconut pudding itself. It looked very pleasing to the eye, giving off a sense that it would be cool and refreshing. The first spoonful confirmed my expectations. It was just fabulous, and tasted so light. I can recall that it was summer at the time, but the elements and sensations of the dish are the same no matter when in the year you have it. It is simply a delight.

Every Diwali, I usually prepare the ghugra that my mother taught me, as well as boondi. This year, given the circumstances, I wanted to create something lighter, something that would not only have a subtle flavour but would also feel more breezy overall. I also wanted something that would be consumed quickly, given that we cannot have guests for days on end as we usually do. The coconut pudding was perfect on all counts. With the exception of the ceremonial laapsi, there are no other sweets at home for Diwali this year.

But rest assured that we are, finally, in a celebratory mood, and I hope very much that you are too. I have had an instinct for a while now that November would be the turning point when things would begin to get better. The news of Joe Biden being elected the next President of the USA seems to usher the good times in, and as I have American family members, the feeling of hope is quite close to home. Moreover, our Gujarati New Year is also around the corner. This time of year is always a new chapter for us, and the number of lovely traditional dishes I’ve linked from my native cuisine in this post also honours the same.

To return to the uplifting and delicious star of our Diwali this year, this coconut pudding… While I can’t remember who brought this dish to the potluck where I fell in love with it, or who shared their recipe with me afterwards, I’ve been making it for years. You may recall an earlier rendition, with chia seeds, here. This is a different version, and the twist here is rose – re:store’s most preferred flavour, as many of you who have made orders with me know. Somehow, a rose represents so many things at once: love, coolness, fragrance, birth, death, celebration and more. It is a universal symbol, and a timeless flavour. One of the things I love most about roses is that they are locally available and very accessible. It’s so easy for me to bring that aroma and those soft petals into my day.

 

Coconut Pudding

(Yield: Serves 4-6)

1 cup condensed milk

½ cup cream

1½ cups coconut milk

11 grams agar agar

¾ cup water

1½ tablespoons rose water

 

Place a saucepan with the water and the agar agar on a double boiler. Stir until the agar agar melts and becomes translucent. Cool and strain.

The method for this dish is quite simple, but agar agar – which is a vegetarian substitute for gelatin – is a bit tricky to work with. If required, add another cup of water while melting it.

Making sure that all the other ingredients are at room temperature, mix them well together. Add the strained agar agar at the end. Pour into cups or moulds.

Leave to set in the refrigerator, and serve chilled. I hope that this dish uplifts your mood as much as it does mine.

I am lighting a lamp this Diwali to wish you all the best for a hopeful and healthy 2021. Even though we have not yet become able to open our homes in the ways we used to, let us open our hearts even wider to make up for it. May the festive season bring you and your family joy!

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Recipe: Cherished and Relished – Coconut Stew

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What is it about the food we taste while we are growing up that somehow, no matter how far we go, becomes the basis of our most important culinary memories? So it is for me and a very special coconut stew (or to be authentic, “ishtew”), which would be served at my friend Girija’s house. We met in the 8th grade and were neighbours, and her mother prepared wonderful Keralan fare. Her ishtew was the first I’d ever had, and fortunately for me, Girija learnt how to prepare it exactly the same way. I’m so delighted to share this love-filled, coconut milk-based deliciousness with you today, as part of the ongoing coconut series.

“Ishtew” is possibly the Malayalam-ised word for “stew”, which I suppose is what the British must have called this dish when they first encountered it. Or perhaps it’s the other way around, and it’s the English word that is derived from the Indian one? Made with vegetables or meat and warmly spiced, it is usually served alongside aapam, a kind of rice-and-coconut-milk pancake that is also known as hoppers. You can also have this coconut stew with rice, idly or dosa.

The only recipe I have for this dish is the one that Girija shared with me, and to me it’s absolutely the best one. As with any food item, there will be variations from kitchen to kitchen and community to community, and I know of many who prepare it in different ways. The core of this dish, as with most very popular and commonly consumed traditional ones, is that it is quite simple to prepare and uses ingredients that are easily available. Coconut, of course, is the star.

Girija and I were such tight friends as teenagers that it was a given that if I was not at my home, I could be found in hers, and vice versa. Decades later, we remain close, and now, whenever I visit her in Singapore, there is always a large bowl of coconut stew being prepared for me. The photo below is from a few years ago, from one of the times when she prepared it for me and I happened to have my camera on hand. Somehow, over the decades, it’s her stew – not even her mum’s – that is most vivid in my mind. We create new memories and reminisce about old ones whenever we enjoy a meal together, and I hope that this dish becomes a part of yours too.

 

Coconut Stew

(Serves 2-4 people)

50 grams onion

125 grams potato

20 grams ginger

A few curry leaves

2 teaspoons coconut oil

½ cup water

Salt to taste

One coconut

 

Cut the onion and potato into thick juliennes. Set aside.

This recipe requires two cups of fresh coconut milk – a first press cup, and a second press cup. Prepare the first press by grating the coconut flesh and grinding it in a blender with a ¼ cup of water. Strain this and set aside. The first press milk will be thick.

Now, repeat the process using the same grated coconut flesh – this will be the second press milk, and it will be thinner in comparison to the first press. Set aside.

Take the second press milk and boil the julienned potato and onion in it until they are soft. Ensure that you add the onions after the potatoes, as they cook faster. Add the ginger too. You can press down on the potatoes a little using a masher.

Once this is done, add the thick first press coconut milk to the pan. Add the curry leaves and coconut oil as well. Stir well. Your coconut stew is now ready to serve, and a plate of aapams, idlies or dosas will go perfectly with it.

This stew evokes for me one of my most cherished friendships, and so many childhood memories. Although Girija and I are in different countries at present, perhaps one of the many reasons she and her stew have been on my mind is because the lockdown this year has meant that meeting at home has become how most of us socialise now. Here in Chennai, my friends and I often discussed wanting to meet but felt it wasn’t safe to go out to restaurants like we had in the past. Instead, what we now do is something that we had quite rarely done in the past: meeting in each others’ homes over home-cooked meals. It’s so nice to get together this way, knowing that everyone is comfortable and care has been taken.

The lovely thing about old friendships is that even if we don’t see each other often, the bond is absolute. I truly feel relaxed and comfortable when I am with dear friends like Girija. It’s easy to put my feet up with her, and that is the kind of ease that can only come with knowing how much love is given and shared between oneself and another. That love speaks in the food that she cooks for me. We have an understanding that she cooks for me, and I cook for her. The “trade” for this Malayali coconut stew is always a Gujarati dal. Perhaps I will share that recipe some day soon too…

In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out the previous posts in this coconut series: coconut podi and coconut oil. Stay tuned for a lovely Diwali dessert next weekend, to round the series off!

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Method: Worth Its Weight In Gold – Coconut Oil

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The coconut series continues with something a little different this time: coconut oil! Yes, the oil that most of us are used to purchasing can indeed be made not just at home, but even in a city like Chennai, as long as you have coconut trees around. With about a dozen coconut trees at home, and a reliable coconut harvester who was willing to visit, I collected a big batch of coconuts and embarked on my next adventure.

I’m going through a phase where I feel like I want to learn everything there is to know about food and cooking. Nowadays, when I hear about someone making a special jam or baking a new kind of cake, I experience FOMO (“fear of missing out”). Maybe this comes from having been very naughty as a child, and never focusing on my studies then – at least, that’s what I jokingly say to my kids each time they’re surprised to hear that I’ve taken up a new course or have signed up for some workshop. But I believe in challenging myself and growing. I want to be more self-reliant, and discover new things. Even though it’s impossible to truly learn, let alone master, every single possible recipe or method out there, I feel an urge to try. So when my friend Sujata told me that she had successfully made her own coconut oil, I immediately went, “OMG, I want to do this too!” My motivation was perfectly-timed, as the trees were ripe for harvest just then.

Coconut oil is only one of the many ways that the different parts of the bountiful coconut tree can be used. As I create this series for the blog, I’ve been reflecting on the versatility of the tree in its entirety, even though I’m personally only using its fruits. For instance, I recall how when I was growing up, there was a lady who would come home sometimes, take a knife, sit outside with some coconut tree fronds and use a knife to craft a broom (“thodapam” in Tamil) whenever a new one was needed. I’d watched this process many times over the years. Wherever the tree grows, the shells are used as utensils and even as a charcoal replacement, the husks to fashion ropes out of, the leaves in weaving and thatching, the flowers in herbal medicine, and so on. The edible flesh and water aren’t the only good things to come from this amazing tree.

What follows is more of a method than a recipe as such, and what is produced as a result will be a beautiful and versatile ingredient that you can use in everything from food to beauty essentials. Coconut oil is a staple in South India, used for everything from improving hair health to daily frying needs. It’s also something that has attracted the attention of beauty and health enthusiasts internationally. The latest trend I’ve read about is to have a spoonful of pure coconut oil in the mornings, as this is said to be good for the brain. What I will do in this post is walk you through my own process of preparing coconut oil, and my learnings from the same.

In order to prepare your own coconut oil, you’ll need: coconuts, access to a cold pressery, and space to sun-dry. There are many places in Chennai that do cold-pressing, and it should be possible for you to find a unit near you wherever you are.

The first step is to harvest the coconuts, of course. Then, they are peeled and chopped into smaller pieces (they will need to be small enough to feed to the cold pressing unit). The flesh is left to sun-dry for between four and seven days, depending on the coconut. You will know that it’s done when you press it with your thumb and it releases a little bit of oil.

Next, the dried pieces are sent to the cold pressery. I wanted to supervise the process to ensure that there was no dilution of any sort. The unit where I had my coconut oil made used a lovely old machine made of wood and canvas. I put in about 20 kilos of coconuts and got back about about half as much in raw oil.

The process doesn’t end there, however. This huge container of oil I came home with then had to be dried again, so that residual moisture from the coconut flesh gets evaporated. What you have to do at this stage is to pour it out into flat pans, and allow these to dry in the sun for anywhere between three and five days. You will know that it is done when all the dust particles settle at the bottom, and the raw smell goes away. This being my first time making my own oil, I was not sure whether the final product was less fragrant than the store-bought versions because I hadn’t let the coconut pieces dry long enough, or simply because they were free of artificial additives. Either way, once the oil completed the drying stage, it was ready to use. I couldn’t help but marvel at the result.

And there you have it: coconut oil that you can be sure is free of contamination, preservatives or any other issue that may come with commercially-produced brands. I can’t tell you what a delight it is to have your very own cold-pressed coconut oil. That’s something that you must experience for yourself, and if you can, please do.

Embarking on this little adventure was very rewarding for me, but the thing about my FOMO and subsequent hunger to do more is that sometimes experiments don’t turn out as expected. Whenever this happens, I always tell myself that it’s okay, and that I can focus on what I know I do well and can take pride in. For instance, expanding my repertoire of cakes is something that I am really keen to do, and I’m constantly exploring new recipes and whipping up trial batches. You may have seen the new additions I made to the menu recently, and it’s been really wonderful to prepare your orders for this festive season too.

I would even go as far as to say that I like to show off a little with each successful experiment, but when I share how I did it, I pass on that sense of achievement to you. It’s so exciting to have something that is all handmade, and made to order just for you. I’ve been sharing the oil from my coconut trees with very dear friends in glass jars, so in addition to being used at home both in cooking and in grooming, they’ve also become perfect for gifting this year.

I’d love to know if you try out preparing your own coconut oil based on my own experiment here. I’d also love to know how you use it. I am sure that you will find, as I have, that making your own batch of coconut oil is worth its weight in gold.

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Recipe: Garlicky Goodness – Asian-Style Buddha Bowl

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Having travelled through the tastebuds from right here in South India to Mexico and the Middle East and North Africa, the internationally-inspired Buddha bowl series on this blog arrives at its final destination: back on this continent. As I’ve said earlier, every one of these dishes qualifies as fusion cuisine, a tribute influenced by foreign flavours but by no means authentic. The same goes for this delicious, garlic-infused bowl of goodness, reminiscent of cooking from East Asia.

Indians have been very fond of Asian cuisines for the longest time, and what we eat here is really its own sub-cuisine, commonly known as Indo-Chinese food. While I’ve loved ordering these dishes while dining out, I had always been under the impression that Asian cooking involved too many ingredients or prep and that it somehow wouldn’t work for me. All this changed with the lockdown, which has had my daughter living here with us for the past few months. It’s a joy to have her safely here, rather than alone in Mumbai during the pandemic, and what she’s brought along with her is her love for Asian-inspired recipes. They are her own cooking go-to. Somehow, these dishes seem to come together rather naturally for her, and they taste fabulous. Due to her influence, I’ve been leaning towards (and learning how to make) this cuisine more and more, and enjoying the homemade versions, which tend to be healthier.

Fortunately for us, the ingredients are easily available and fresh. The recipes my daughter and I make together are all vegetarian or vegan, which suits us both. We have lunch together daily, and it’s wonderful to share dishes that I’d always only associated with the restaurant experience. I belong to a generation for whom Indo-Chinese food usually had something to do with a social or celebratory occasion, as I described here, so some of those special memories are also evoked at home now too. Nowadays, due to the large expat population in Chennai, we are lucky to also have a proliferation of Korean and Japanese restaurants, giving diners lots more wonderful variety when it comes to international food. My Asian-influenced and daughter-inspired Buddha bowl below, however, takes its cues from the Indo-Chinese restaurants that I was first exposed to. As a relative newbie to recipes like this one, I can assure you that this one is so easy and so tasty to make that you’ll be whipping it up in no time too!

Asian-Style Buddha Bowl

(Serves 2)

Garlic Rice

2 cups cooked rice

2 tablespoons finely sliced spring onions

2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic

1 tablespoon sesame oil

½ tablespoon light soy sauce

Salt to taste

Garlic Bok Choy

1 tablespoon crushed peanuts

½ tablespoon sesame oil

1 bunch cleaned and dried bok choy

½ tablespoon sliced garlic

½ teaspoon grated ginger

2-3 finely cut shallots

¼ teaspoon honey

Salt to taste

A pinch of chili flakes

A dash of lemon

Tofu

6 – 8 slices tofu

1½ tablespoons light soy sauce

1 tablespoon hot water

A pinch of sesame seeds

¼ teaspoon honey

¼ teaspoon sesame oil

Broccoli

1 cup sliced broccoli

Salt to taste

Garnish

Cilantro (finely chopped)

Spring onions (finely chopped)

Chili flakes

 

As with all Buddha bowls, each component must be made separately and brought together only when you are ready to serve the meal. Begin by preparing the garlic rice. In a pan, heat the oil. Add the garlic and allow it to sauté until it is golden and aromatic. Now, add the rice. Stir. Add the salt, soy sauce and spring onions. Mix well and set aside.

Then, prepare the garlic bok choy. Heat the oil in a pan. Once it is hot, add the garlic, ginger and peanuts. Stir them together. Now, add the bok choy and the honey, allowing the flavours in the pan to coat the leaves well. Sprinkle salt, add the dash of lemon and stir. Set aside.

I prefer the leaves to be a bit raw and crunchy. However, if you like them cooked well and wilted you may make them this way. You may also replace the peanuts with cashew nuts. If you have a nut intolerance, you can avoid the nuts altogether.

To prepare the tofu, first stir all the ingredients except the tofu together in a cup to make a sauce. Set this aside. Now, sauté the tofu lightly in oil.

To prepare the broccoli, drop the sliced vegetable in hot water for a few minutes. If you prefer to, you may sauté it next, or leave it as is. Remove and sprinkle with some salt.

Start assembling the bowl by plating the rice, followed by the boy choy and the broccoli. Finish these off by adding the tofu, which you can top with a teaspoon of the prepared sauce. Place the remaining sauce near the bowl to use as a dip for the tofu and even for the vegetables, if you like them crunchy like I do.

Before serving, garnish the bowl with the cilantro, spring onions and red chilli flakes. As I said right at the start of this series, a beautiful bowl allows the eyes to feast first, and I encourage you to pick one out that elevates your experience of the meal.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these Buddha bowl recipes, which pay tribute to different cuisines that I have loved. For other meal-in-a-bowl dishes, do click on the link and see some of the recipes I’ve shared over the years that fit the bill. Some of my favourites include two Indian classics, the dal dhokli and khatta mung, as well as another Asian-style dish, a stir-fry. I hope you’ll check them out!

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Recipe: Travelling Through Food – Mexican-Influenced Buddha Bowl

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As promised, the Buddha bowl series now goes international, after the comfortingly familiar South Indian Buddha bowl. This is a Mexican-influenced Buddha bowl, and I’m making sure that you notice that I emphasise the word influenced.  My family enjoys Mexican-style cuisine very much, and I always end up making the more popular dishes, such as tacos, salsa, nachos and even my vegan take on chili, which you may remember from awhile back (this is a vegan recipe too). But over the years, whenever Mexican friends have visited my home, as much as they relish the meals I put together for them, they also tease me by saying that my style is Indian-Mexican, not authentic. I’m proud of this though. To me, fusion cuisine is all about feeling inspired and bringing different worlds together.

I’ve only spent one night in Mexico, en route to Cuba several years ago. That night, my family and I enjoyed dinner at a really nice restaurant, where we ordered a delicacy featuring black ants as a key ingredient. While I didn’t have a bite, my kids found the dish crunchy and tangy and very exciting. What to us was an adventurous dish was just local cuisine in another part of the world. Most of the Mexican food we had tried before was in the USA, and that too must have been one degree removed from authenticity. So to return to today’s Buddha bowl, let’s just say that it has a hint of Mexico, my culinary interpretation.

I often make this Mexican-influenced recipe for lunch, and the current abundance of avocados on the market is all the more reason to do so. These come from Karnataka, where the climate is conducive for their growth. Perhaps it’s because of my Macrobiotics background, but I feel that when all the ingredients in a dish are locally sourced, they tend to go together better. Aside from the fruit, the bowl contains cilantro rice, beans, vegetables and two types of salsa.

I was thinking about the term “Buddha bowl”, and although I know it’s a recently coined term, I believe I can imagine the thought process behind it. Could it be that it was because the Buddha carried a bowl for alms, and as he went from home to home, always received a motley combination of foods, just like the different components of this modern dish?

Carrying a bowl to seek food alms also exists in the Jain community, which many members of my family belong to. My sister, who lives in Mumbai, frequently has saintly women and men come to her home. They carry a bowl, called “patra”, and are supposed to graciously accept whatever is offered to them, although they can request a preferred quantity so that there is no wastage. The alms they receive are called “bhiksha”. Their arrival is considered a blessing, and whatever has been cooked at home that day will be shared with the monks, who are known as “Mahasatiji”. In the Stanakvasi sect of the Jain Shwetambari tradition, there is no idol worship, so the preaching of these monks is sacred and so is their presence. Whenever a Mahasatiji has come by while I’ve visited my sister, I’ve noticed that it feels like a special occasion. There is some protocol involved: the person offering alms needs to have bathed, there is some chanting, and then the Mahasatiji will bless the home before moving on to the next one, where the next person offering alms will look into the bowl and determine what to offer. If my sister had offered roti, for example, they will ensure they offer something that goes with it.

The Mahasatijis also ask for a teaspoon of chickpea flour, which they use to dry wash their patras. They won’t even waste this, as they will let this dry and eat it as well. They do not use soap due to the chemicals, and refrain from electricity too, so they take the stairs up six floors to my sister’s house. The tradition has many principles based on nature and doing no harm.

The patras themselves are made of natural wood, with lacquer, and I have seen them being sold as antiques as well. Perhaps I noticed this because I am always looking for interesting crockery and props for my photoshoots. What kind of vessels do you serve your Buddha bowls in? I’d love to know, as you try out more of this series.

Mexican-Influenced Buddha Bowl

(Serves 2)

 

Beans

½ cup beans (soaked overnight)

2 tablespoons tomato purée (find my recipe here)

Salt to taste

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon chipotle cooking paste

 

Tomato salsa

2 tomatoes

Salt to taste

3 slices jalapeño

1 tablespoon cilantro

1 tablespoon finely chopped onion

1 tablespoon olive oil

 

Pineapple salsa

2 cups finely chopped pineapple

2 tablespoons finely cut jalapeño

2 tablespoons cilantro

2 tablespoons finely cut onion

Salt to taste

Spicy red sauce

 

Cilantro Rice

1½ cups cooked rice

1 tablespoon oil

¼ cup finely cut cilantro

½ lemon

2 slices jalapeños

Salt to taste

 

Vegetables

2 cups sliced bell peppers

1 cup whole corn

1 teaspoon oil

Salt to taste

Pinch pepper

 

Topping

1 avocado

Salt to taste

Olive oil to drizzle

A squeeze of lemon

Prepare each component, and keep them separate until you are ready to assemble and serve the bowl. Here is the method for the beans. First, pressure cook the beans in water. In a pan, add the oil. Now, add the purée, chipotle paste and salt. I used my fabulous all-purpose tomato puree, which you will surely find convenient to have on hand for many recipes too. Stir. Finally, add the beans. In order to make it in a slightly more gravy style, I added some of the water that I had kept aside.

Next, here are the methods for the two salsas. For the tomato salsa, begin by roasting the tomatoes directly in a low flame until the skins are charred. Peel the charred skins and chop finely. Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl. Mix well and refrigerate until use. For the pineapple salsa, simply combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Refrigerate until use as well.

Now, onto the cilantro rice. In a pan, sauté the rice in oil. Add all the other ingredients and stir on high until it all comes together. You can replace the rice with any grain of your choice.

The vegetables should be sautéed in oil on a pan, and seasoned with salt and pepper as you stir.

Assemble the different components in two medium-sized bowls and add the toppings. Make sure you slice the avocado just before serving, or it will lose colour. Remember what I said in the previous Buddha bowl post about the aesthetics of this serving style and feasting with the eyes first. This dish is best enjoyed warm. You may wish to sprinkle some crushed nacho chips on top for texture too, and I think my kids wouldn’t mind some authentic, crunchy black ants either, if we could find that recipe! As you can see, I’ve also added a bit of green salad on top, as I do love my veggies.

I mentioned earlier that there are avocados galore on the market now, so be sure to come back for the next post, where they will be a starring ingredient…

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