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I want to begin with a word of thanks to all my readers around the world. Many of you have stayed with this blog for a whole year! I hope you’ve loved peeking into my kitchen, and I’m so glad to have you here as re:store grows. As the festive season is in full swing here in India, I thought this would be the perfect time to share my mother’s recipe for sweet ghugras, which was promised many posts ago when I gave you my mother-in-law’s recipe for pea-pomegranate kachoris.

Whether you know them as samosas, kachoris or ghugras, these fried stuffed pastries are a timeless favourite. It’s the fillings that make the difference, and the one I’m sharing today fills my heart with so many beautiful memories of childhood. It was one of the food items that my mother reserved exclusively for Diwali. In the same way that most people make modaks only on Ganesha Chathurti, she made these sweet, nutty ghugras only on Diwali.

Let me paint you a picture of just what these ghugras evoke in me. It’s amazing to recall now just how consistent the scene was: coming home from school year after year the day or so before Diwali to my mother standing in the kitchen, preparing the sweets. The anticipation, and the enjoyment. How does it feel like it was the exact same sight every year, even though both she and I grew older? The scents of that kitchen, the sheer delight of it all!

In those days, all the sweets and savouries were made at home. Each family would make 3 or 4 variants, depending on their status. The preparations began a couple of days before Diwali, and the treats would last for a week – and therefore, in a sense, the celebrations too. It was customary to visit one another’s homes, where we would eat versions of the same sweets. Back home, those who cooked in the families – usually our moms and aunts – would trade notes. Did that person’s cardamom twist suit the sweet? Was her own ghee-rich version of a treat the tastier one?

I grew up in a middle-class home where everything was rationed. Two sweets per child, and the rest for guests – but first, if you remember from my jaggery-whole wheat prasad recipe, to God. Those two sweets each were so relished, and to this day I believe that fulfilment and gluttony are two different things when it comes to dining.

The day after Diwali is the Gujarati New Year, and these two festivities are indelibly linked in my mind. Growing up in Chennai, the latter was not a public holiday, so school remained open. I remember the mix of restlessness and excitement I’d feel through classes all day, waiting for 3pm when our parents would come to pick us up. For that one day of the year, we did not have to take the school bus home – and just having our parents come to collect us to take us for our New Year prayers was such a thrill!

There is a beautiful old haveli, a traditional mansion, in Chennai’s Kilpauk neighbourhood that I still go to every year, and this was where we would drive to – still in our school uniforms, so happy to be celebrating this special day with our extended family and community. Dedicated to Lord Srinathji, the haveli observes an annakut darshan – an unlimited offering – made to the deity on New Year. In the spirit of abundance, it is forbidden to count the number of food items given as prashad. In order to achieve this, the cooking tasks are divided amongst several people. Each person makes a different kind of sweet or savoury, and the total collection is presented to the deity at once. It was always such a wonderful experience, a time when so many families came together and enjoyed ourselves – praying, playing and eating together, keeping our traditions alive through simply being joyous.

Diwali is in fact only one day in a string of special occasions. For us Gujaratis, the season began with Dhanteras (in which goddess Lakshmi is worshipped for prosperity), followed by Kali Chaudas (where a fried vada, a lentil doughnut, is thrown over one’s shoulder at a crossroads; my modern version of this custom is to serve thayir vada, curd-soaked vada, at home on this day), then Diwali (the festival of lights, which invariably falls on a new moon – on this day I make a broken wheat and jaggery dish for good luck). Diwali is followed by the Gujarati New Year (on which I make specialties like kesari or lapsi), and subsequently by Bhaibeej (the day when brothers visit their sisters’ homes to feast, the reverse of which happens on a day in August known as Raksha Bandhan). As you can see, feasting is an integral part of our festivals!

And to your own feasts, this year and for all time, I hope you’ll add this heirloom recipe of mine…

Sweet Ghugras

(Yield – 15-20 pieces)

Ingredients:

Filling

½ cup white raw almonds (with skin)

½ cup shelled pistachio

½ cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons ghee

1 – 2 pinches of saffron

½ teaspoon cardamom powder

 

Pastry

See here.

 

If you tried your hand at my sweet-savoury pea-pomegranate kachori recipe, you’ve already had practice at making the pastry for these ghugras too. The ingredients and technique can be found by clicking through to that post.

Here, let me share the recipe only for the filling of the sweet ghugras. It is the filling that makes each samosa, ghugra or kachori different.

Roast the nuts until they turn into a light golden colour (you may replace the pistachio with cashew nuts if you wish). Allow to cool. Once cool, blend them to a coarse powder.

Now, add the powdered sugar and ghee. The ghee binds all the flavours together. Next, add the cardamom and saffron. Using your hands, gently blend the ingredients together.

The filling is as simple as that. Most Gujarati households will have a similar recipe for sweet ghugras. Many will use mava (known in Tamil as palkova), which is a sugary milk reduction. The mava version was my brother’s  favourite, and my mother made it for him for over five decades of Diwali celebrations – even the one in the hospital. But if you don’t like extreme sweetness in your desserts, you will prefer this nutty variation I’ve shared.

If you made the pea-pomegranate kachori recipe given earlier, making, rolling out and delicately folding the dough into a pretty shape should be very easy for you.

If this is your first attempt, do watch the video below to see how to stuff and fold the pastry casings. You will be able to make between 15-20 ghugras using this recipe, depending on the size. I like mine small and dainty, so that you’re both satisfied in a bite and have a slight craving for one more.

Once the pastries have been filled with the sweet, nutty stuffing, they must be fried.

I prefer the traditional method of deep-frying them in ghee over a low flame, but you can use oil if you wish. After a couple of minutes, increase the flame for about 15 seconds then lower it again for a minute. Continue alternating high and low flames. The ghugras will take 12-14 minutes to turn to a light golden colour. And then they are ready to serve.

These sweet ghugras have travelled a long way with me, from childhood. Isn’t it funny how we take our mothers’ food for granted? I’m so glad I made the effort to absorb her culinary wisdom. Now, during special occasions, my kitchen smells just like hers did when I was growing up – and I am filled with all the love she raised us with.

Heartfelt festive wishes from re:store to you and your family!

Once upon a time, before I decided to turn completely vegetarian again, I used to enjoy the very occasional meat dish. And more often than not, the particular dish that would kickstart my cravings was the chili bowl I discovered in L.A. some decades ago while pregnant. A rich, spicy stew with Tex-Mex origins, it’s a quintessential part of the cuisine of the southern American border regions – and something which reminded me of Indian food whenever I was homesick or longing for comfort food while travelling in the States.

Chili is a meal-in-a-bowl, although you can eat it with tortillas, rice, nachos, fries or other accompaniments if you like. Did you know that the Nahuatl (indigenous Mexican) word chīlli is what gives the chilli pepper its English name too? The dish too takes its name from this most vital ingredient. If you’re interested in a history of the dish, do read this comprehensive article with various legends and records.

Chilli fruits – yes, fruits! – were cultivated in ancient Mexico, and were introduced to the rest of the world through European colonists and traders. Then, based on different climactic conditions, certain places grew famous for particular cultivars: e.g. bhut jolokia (or “ghost peppers”) in India and Malawian kambuzi. In fact, the chilli powder I use to make my chili (yup, the spelling of the two words is close but not exact!) is a ground Hungarian spice known as paprika, made of sweet bell peppers and occasionally cayenne peppers. Each cultivar varies in pungency and intensity, and chillies are eaten in red, green, dried or capsicum/pepper variants. I also use capsicums in this dish.

The festive season has found me inundated with cupcake orders. Despite seeing so many in my kitchen every day now, I haven’t grown tired of stealing one now and again – all under the claim of checking the sugar level of course! Between some recent travel abroad and the sugar buzz around me now, I’ve missed the flavours and smells of Indian spices. Inspired equally by the memory of those long-ago chili bowls and my ongoing delving into the super-foods and smart-foods in our own Indian fields and forests, I decided to make a vegan millet-based chili. I tried and tested this recipe a few times before perfecting it. Fusion food can sometimes be a blunder, and sometimes be a wonder. I’d love to know what you think of this!

 

Vegan Chili Bowl

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon oil

1 teaspoon cumin

¾ cup carrots (chopped)

½ cup rajma/kidney beans (soaked)

½ cup onions (finely chopped)

½ cup capsicum (finely chopped)

½ cup green beans (finely chopped)

2 medium size tomatoes blended into a puree (approximately 1 cup)

3 pods garlic (grated)

1 piece ginger (grated)

¾ cup kodo millet

½ cup corn niblets and/or peas

Salt

Paprika

1 tablespoon lemon juice

4 cups of hot water

Chili may be Tex-Mex in origin, but the ingredients of my Vegan Chili Bowl are all easily available and highly affordable in India and elsewhere.

Take a pot and add oil to it. Once it is hot, add the cumin, followed by the grated garlic, ginger and onions. Sauté till golden brown.

Boil the green beans, peas and carrots and strain these. Keep the water aside.

Kidney beans take longer to cook so pressure cook or par-boil them before adding them to the pot. You may substitute the kidney beans for a lentil of your choice. Please note cooking time will differ based on which ingredient you use.

Add all the cooked vegetables to the onions along with the tomato puree, corn, capsicum (I used green capsicum, but you can use yellow or red too), millets, paprika and salt.

Now, add the strained water (approximately one cup) and the cooking water to the above ingredients. Cover with a lid and lower the flame. Allow this to cook for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally. I have used kodo millets, known in Tamil as varagu, which like all local millets has an extensive range of health benefits when eaten regularly. You can just as well substitute this with broken rice or wheat if you have them on hand, if you prefer. However, the cooking time will depend on the grain you’ve used.

Also remember that you can add all sorts of leftover vegetables to this chili – don’t feel restricted by the list I’ve suggested. They will only enhance the flavour and health quotient.

Once the grains are cooked well and tender, add the lemon juice and stir. Then, transfer the hot chili to small bowls and serve with some freshly chopped coriander leaves, fine slices of spring onions and other garnishings like roasted garlic or a handful of nuts. Chili is best eaten warm and fresh.

I love collecting beautiful crockery, and considering that this is a meal-in-a-bowl, I always take a little extra moment to choose the bowl itself well. When I made this the other day, I chose this pretty one with concentric blue circles on the bottom. It’s always a compliment to the cook when something is relished to the very last spoonful, and a nice design on the tableware is revealed.

As more people explore healthy or ethical dining options like turning vegan, our kitchen repertoires should also expand beyond serving and eating obvious items. This Vegan Chili Bowl is just the kind of unexpected dish that will make a vegan guest feel welcomed by your thoughtfulness. They are sure to enjoy it far more than picking at an ordinary salad or an unimaginative dressed-down version of the main course. The best part is that as it is a meal-in-a-bowl, you can be assured that they will be fully satisfied.

If you’ve been following my blog, you’d have noticed that despite my quintessentially Gujarati sweet tooth, my culinary adventures are often based on healthy eating. I hardly ever reach for a fried item first, but these banana-methi fritters are a part of our wide kitchen repertoire at home during Diwali. Perhaps one just can’t feel guilty about indulgence when it comes to special occasions! The festive season isn’t far away, so you may want to try your hand at these fritters and see if you’d like to share them with your friends and family too this year.

Growing methi (known in English as fenugreek, and in Tamil as vendeyakeerai for the leaves and vendeyam for the seeds) is as easy as throwing a few seeds in the soil and allowing them to sprout in a matter of days. This is why I can use freshly-plucked methi leaves for so many of my dishes. Alongside tulsi, lemongrass and numerous herbs, fruits and vegetables, it flourishes right in my home. Whether it’s a traditional Indian staple or a salad (Chennai’s weather makes fresh lettuce difficult to find in the city sometimes, and I love experimenting with healthy substitutes), these pretty greens are a familiar ingredient in the re:store kitchen.

Methi has an array of health benefits. Among them, it helps improve digestion, tackle respiratory allergies, cure anaemia, and lower cholesterol and blood sugar levels (which is why it is used in diabetes management). Due to its high estrogen content, it even helps lactating mothers in the production of milk – I remember being given lots of methi laddoos after giving birth. In addition to these benefits, methi is also known to have a beautifying effect on the hair and skin when used in a paste form as a mask or conditioner.

I’m telling you all this to put a healthy spin on the recipe below – which is a fried indulgence!

The other ingredient in this spicy, crispy snack I’m about to share with you hardly needs to be promoted on the basis of health, because it is so very sweet and tasty. That filling, versatile, portable and very nutritious fruit – the banana! It just so happens that bananas are rich in potassium, fibre, antioxidants and share blood sugar-lowering, cholesterol-management and overall wellness-boosting benefits with methi.

Hundreds of banana varieties are grown in India through the year, and with Tamil Nadu being the source of 23% of the country’s supply, we really have our pick of the fruit here. In fact, the banana tree is auspicious in many Indian cultures, and has a place in wedding and fertility rituals. Similar to the coconut, its various parts have many uses. The banana flower, known as vazhaipoo, is diced and eaten in Tamil cuisine – and traditionally, South Indian food is always served on a banana leaf.

So we have here two key ingredients so nourishing that you can forget you’re chomping on fried deliciousness. Without further ado, here are my banana-methi fritters, served with a green coriander chutney.

 

Banana-Methi Fritters With Green Coriander Chutney

(Yield: 20-25 small fritters)

Fritters
¾ cup chickpea flour
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 finely chopped green chilli or 1 teaspoon chilli ginger paste
¾ cup methi leaves, washed and finely chopped
½ cup ripe banana, pulped or finely chopped
2 cups of oil + 1 tablespoon hot oil
¼ cup water

Chutney

1 cup coriander leaves, washed and finely chopped
1 green chilli
1 tablespoon peanuts
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2-3 tablespoons water
1 generous slice raw mango (optional)
Salt to taste

In a mixing bowl, add the flour, salt, turmeric, cumin, grated ginger and green chilli and mix. To this, add the banana and the methi leaves. Mix them well with your hands, adding enough water to make a paste-like consistency. Allow this batter to sit for a minimum of half an hour.

Heat the 2 cups of oil. Add 1 tablespoon of hot oil to the batter. The hot oil in the batter helps make the fritters soft. Blend well with your hands.

The remaining oil should be in a pan on the stove, and you can check its heat by adding just a drop of the batter into the oil to see if it sputters. If it does, the oil is ready. Lower the flame and add small spoonfuls of batter into the oil.

Keep the flame low and allow the fritters to fry well. Once the fritters have cooked on one side, flip them over using a butter knife. At this point, you may increase the flame slightly then lower it again, ensuring that the oil doesn’t get so hot that the fritters burn and blacken. You want them to be fried to a golden colour on both sides. Once this colour is achieved, remove the fritters from the stove and drop them onto an absorbent paper to remove excess oil.

Serve hot. I like to complement these crispy banana-methi fritters with a green coriander-based chutney. For this, I use coriander, green chilli, ginger, peanuts, salt, lemon juice and water, usually with a generous slice of raw mango. Simply blend all the ingredients together well in a mixer-grinder. The result is a flavourful chutney that perfectly accompanies the fried fritters.

Between the sweetness of the banana, the bitterness of the methi and the tangy kick of the chutney, you won’t be able to stop at just one! Try it for yourself and see. Let me know what you think in the comments.

India contains a diverse mix of religions, both brought from abroad and homegrown. Among the latter category is Jainism, which has been practised for thousands of years. Some of my family members belong to this religion, and as the most sacred Jain festival, a time of fasting known as Paryushana, fell this year between August 19 and August 26, I was reminded of a particular temple we used to visit when we were kids… and a specific delicacy that was served there.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, food is ritually offered to gods in many Eastern religions. At the Mahudi or Madhupuri temple just outside Ahmedabad, the deity Ghantakarna Mahavir Dev loves a ghee-rich dessert known to Gujarati Jains as sukhudi. Gujarati Vaishnavites like myself know it as gol papdi, and offer it to the baby Lord Krishna. By whichever name you call it, it’s a very simple dish both in its preparation and in the ingredients used. It could have become a staple as a religious offering because of both reasons: any family would have been able to afford to make and serve it to God.

Jaggery is made of cane sugar or date palm. A sweetener that is believed to aid digestion, it is generally a healthier alternative to refined sugar. It has a cooling effect in the summer, and a warming effect in the winter. It’s a vital ingredient in Gujarati cuisine, and a pinch is used in so many dishes (even those which you wouldn’t classify as sweet) to add to the flavour. And it’s a sacred ingredient, of course – the gods certainly seem to enjoy it!

At this temple, this whole wheat and jaggery sweet is made in individual earthenware vessels. After it is offered to the deity, it is served piping hot to those who come to the temple. It is absolutely forbidden to either waste even a little or to take it outside of the temple compound. If you know you’ll be unable to finish your portion, you must give it to pilgrims rather than throw it away. And it is considered extremely bad luck to take sukhudi out of the temple – a theory which my grandmother once tested to her great surprise!

The story was recounted to me by my aunt Sam, whom I visited a couple of weeks ago. Many years ago, when Sam was still a teenager, some of the family had gone to Mahudi. When they returned, the parents and elders were chatting downstairs, while the kids played on the third floor. Sam had been sitting atop of a pile of mattresses that had been set by a window. Down below, her mother (my grandmother) was telling the others that she didn’t believe in the superstition about taking sukhudi out of the temple. Just as she firmly insisted, “Sam just brought some back for me, and nothing happened – I do not believe in such tales!” – a loud thud was heard.

Sam had fallen out of the window! Miraculously, for a fall from the third floor, she was absolutely unscathed. Her mother winced and bit back her words, and made a promise to offer sukhudi at the Mahudi temple as an appeasement. The incident ended any further attempt in my family to take sukhudi out of the Mahudi temple. Perhaps it was a coincidence, and perhaps all our beliefs are created with our own minds (I am reading Yuval Noah Harari’s amazing Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and it’s making me ponder such ideas deeply). Still, none of us has tempted fate since.

Whether you want to see these whole wheat jaggery squares as a religious offering or a treat for your sweet tooth is up to you. One thing is for certain: I hope they taste utterly divine.

Jaggery & Whole Wheat Squares

Yield: 10-15 pieces
Prep time: 20 minutes

1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup clarified butter (ghee)
¾ cup jaggery
½ teaspoon ginger powder
2 tablespoons slivered almonds

Call them whole wheat jaggery squares, call them sukhudi or call them gol papdi – these sweets are very easy to make once you have the ingredients on hand.

Grease a steel plate with some ghee and keep it aside. In a kadhai, or a wok-shaped pan, add ghee and allow it to melt. In a few seconds, add the whole wheat flour. With a spatula, stir and sauté until the mixture turns golden brown. This will take approximately 10-15 minutes on a medium to low flame. Remove from the stove and add the jaggery and ginger powder. As always, season to your taste – I even add cardamom, desiccated coconut, cinnamon or masala chai powder when I make this dish. Ginger in particular is something that is traditionally added during winters for its warming effect.

A word about jaggery: it varies in sweetness around the world, so you must gauge the correct amount to use when you make this dish. I had used a particularly sweet batch when I made this after talking to my aunt, and found it too cloying, then made it again to my taste. However, if you add too little jaggery, the mixture will not bind. As with any recipe, sometimes it takes more than one try to get it right.

Mix well until the jaggery melts and the ginger powder or flavours of your choice are distributed evenly. While still hot, pour the mixture onto the greased plate and spread evenly. Flatten it with a cup so it evens out, and add the almond slivers on top quickly, before it begins to cool.

Then, cut into even squares and allow them to cool before transferring them to an air tight container.

These whole wheat and jaggery squares are so simple to make – all you really have to do is stir it well for it to cook properly. That’s probably why they were such a staple in my childhood, something my mom could whip up quickly and store for several days’ worth of after-school snacks. As they don’t spoil easily, gol papdi was also something we took with us when we travelled. Memories, love and a sense of security – they are contained in every bite of a cherished dish, aren’t they?

Being born and brought up in Chennai into a traditional Gujarati home has given me a more expansive way of thinking, which is what opens one’s mind to explore. There are times when I think in Tamil while I’m cooking Gujarati food! Even as the world becomes a smaller place, I love keeping local culinary customs alive – but every once in a while, my imagination will take me on an adventure in the kitchen. So it was while making shrikhand one day, a sweetened Gujarati dish made of hung curd. I’d played with various Indian flavours for shrikhand before, including mango and an almond-saffron blend. But I had just met with a friend, Siddharth Murthy, who has an organic lavender farm outside Melbourne in Australia, and he had gifted me one of my favourite foreign ingredients. Next to rose, lavender is the scent I enjoy adding most to my cakes. I wondered: how would my family like to end a meal on lavender shrikhand?

The very first recipe I learnt from my mother was the foundation of all Gujarati meals: the humble yet hard-to-perfect roti. Or as we call it, rotli. The ideal Gujarati rotli has to be as thin as muslin, and it took me years of practice to expertly knead the dough and roll it into perfect circles. My mother insisted that a good Gujarati girl’s rotis had to be dainty and delicate. My early ones often turned out like Punjabi parathas, large and thick – and by the norms of the Gujarati kitchen, totally wrong! Curious about this cultural difference, I asked a Punjabi neighbour why their standard for the perfect flatbread was so unlike ours, and she gave me a beautiful answer: the big Punjabi paratha reflects generosity, large-heartedness and the desire to share what you eat with the world!

Rotis, known by many names and variations, originated in the Indus Valley civilisation, where grain grinding is said to have been invented. Indian breads are different from other loaves in that they do not contain yeast. This soft form of unleavened bread comes in various forms, shapes, sizes and flavours typical of the region it is prepared, with flour made of millets, wheat, rice and other grains.

All over India, the basics of a good roti are flour, fat and flavour. The fat comes from oil, butter, cream or ghee. There are so many kinds of flavourings and stuffings – from green chilli paste to potato to cauliflower to the quintessentially Bengali renditions made with fish.

I’d like to tell you more about a few Gujarati variants: the herbed thepla, the crispy bhakri, the sweet puran poli, the seasonal juwar and bajri, and the simple rotli. Of these, I’ll share two recipes – both are meant to be eaten hot, and bear in mind that an average person can easily eat several at a time! Some notes for kitchens outside India: while binding the dough, I work with my hands. However, if you’re used to the food processor, please do utilise it. You can use a standard rolling pin.

 

Rotli

Lunch during our summer holidays as children was a competitive affair: who could eat the most rotlis? These rotlis were the simple, everyday variety, washed down with aam raas, a seasonal mango purée. A blissful siesta would ensue, the heavy lunch and the heat lulling us to sleep to the sound of old Hindi songs on the radio…

The rotlis we had then were made from balls of dough joined together, then roasted and peeled from each other. They were as fine as skin. We also ate a sweetened “children’s” version, made with jaggery water. Another way to sweeten a rotli, if you want to, is to eat it with a strained yoghurt dessert known as shrikand. I’ll be sharing a recipe for that soon, and if you subscribe to this blog, you’ll be the first to know.

 

Thepla

 

(Yields: 12)

 

1 cup methi (fenugreek) leaves, picked and washed

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

2 teaspoons cumin powder

1 teaspoon white sesame seeds

1 teaspoon crushed green chili (adjust to your taste)

½ teaspoon ginger paste

1 tablespoon yoghurt

1 tablespoon sunflower oil + oil for sautéing

100 ml water or less

 

Traditionally, theplas are often made with leftover rice or khichdi, so as not to waste food, but you can make them fresh too. In a mixing bowl, add all the dry ingredients and blend them gently. Now add the 1 tablespoon of oil and the yoghurt. Slowly add water and continue mixing, until you feel the mixture is slightly tougher to the touch than bread dough. You do not need to use the entire 100ml.

Dust both sides of the ball with flour. Make small lemon sized balls and allow them to sit for at least half hour. Now, dusting more flour as you do, roll out the dough into discs. Make them as thin as you can.

On a heated iron pan, place the thepla on a medium flame for 30-40 seconds. Then turn it to the other side. In another 30-40 seconds, add a few drops of oil. Make sure the oil is spread to the edges too, as the thepla may dry out. Press down with a spatula to help it cook. Flip the thepla a couple of times until it is golden on both sides. Remove from the pan and fry the next disc, and so on.

As you make each thepla, either store it in a hot case, so it remains soft and warm, or pile them up on a plate. Serve hot, with a curry of your choice or a sweet mango or kumquat pickle, or simply enjoy them as some Gujaratis do – with a lovely cup of chai.

 

Bhakri

 

(Yields: 15)

 

2 cups whole wheat flour

¼ cup semolina

¼ cup oil

100 ml warm water

¼ teaspoon salt

 

A bhakri is really a type of biscuit, made with a greater quantity of oil than water. A version with jaggery water was my standard after-school snack while growing up. You can make this in the sweetened (what I call “children’s”) version too, by substituting plain water for jaggery water.

Assemble all the ingredients in a large bowl. Add water slowly as required and bind the dough together. Continue pressing firmly, until it all comes together and does not stick to the bowl or your fingers. The dough should appear as a smooth, firm ball. There’s no need to dust this ball of dough with flour, as it is quite tough and will not stick while rolling. If it does stick, you have probably added more water than required, and only in this case should you dust a little flour. Now, divide the dough into 15 smaller balls and keep aside.

Heat an iron pan. Roll out the dough into discs of about 1 cm thickness – this is where the thin-as-muslin standard doesn’t apply! Place the discs onto the hot pan and reduce the flame. Since bhakris are thicker they need to cook on the inside too, so it will take longer to cook. The flame needs to be maintained between medium and slow. Flip over each bhakri a couple of times until golden. If you’d like to, use a pair of tongs and roast the bhakri directly over the flame towards the end of its cooking time. This is the traditional way – dough to flame, directly, just like in this video!

Once they are crisp and golden, remove from the pan and let a trickle of ghee melt onto the bhakri. Serve with tea. They also travel well, so consider packing them for journeys. As my mum would say, a well-made bhakri will be like an easily chewable cookie – it can be eaten comfortably both by the elderly and by children alike.

Puran Poli

Sweet, stuffed and festive, the puran poli is enjoyed not just in Gujarati cuisine but throughout India. Made of toor dal (pigeon pea) and jaggery, it is a stuffed and folded variant that is half-roti, half-dessert.

Juwar & Bajra

It’s only after years of practice with the other rotis that one comes to seasonal variants like juwar and bajra, which are even more difficult to make, let alone master. Gluten-free, the juwar roti is made of sorghum flour while the bajra roti is made of pearl millet. These thick flatbreads were traditionally eaten during winters, roasted on a charcoal flame and thus imbued with a different flavour. They were most often relished with a thick layer of white home-churned butter and sugar or jaggery. Leftover juwar and bajra make delightful, healthy cereal when crushed and eaten with milk.

*

Many Gujarati rotis were created to satisfy two specific purposes: to suit the extremely dry summers and cold winters, or to be travel-friendly, a fact proven all the way from the traders of yore to families like mine who took cross-country train rides. Whether unpacked during a picnic or a road trip, or eaten fresh and piping hot from the stove, the roti satisfies.

Throughout the subcontinent, we eat with our hands. According to Indian philosophy, the 5 senses are at our fingertips, and the act of eating activates all of them. Eating is truly a multi-sensory experience: presentation, ambience, mood and texture (even the texture of the thaali or plate – is it silver, terracotta, bell-metal or steel?), who serves us, who we eat with, the memories we recall or create through the meal – all of these matter as much as the taste itself.

 

When most people hear the word “burger”, they think of an oily, low-nutrition meal full of sauces and heavy meat, polished off with unhealthy sodas and greasy fries! But what if I told you that I can share with you how I make something that looks like the real thing, tastes just as (or more!) delicious, and doesn’t do anything but nourish your body and soul?

My vegan bean burger is an improvisation on a dish that one of my teachers at the Kushi Institute, Chris Jenkin, used to make for us for lunch sometimes, in a strictly macrobiotic style using East Asian ingredients. I love innovating in the kitchen, discovering ways to turn a dish around and make it vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and so on. I also consider how to source ingredients that are seasonal and readily available. Call it Macrobiotics meets Madras! Here’s a perfect example of how I fine-tuned a recipe so that it makes the best sense for climactic and cultural conditions.