I bought a pack of dried black limes a few months back; after one use, the rest of the pack sat dormant in the pantry. Recently I wondered if the limes were still fit for consumption – and learned to my pleasant surprise that dried limes store extremely well and should be usable for over a year.
So I experimented with making a dried black lime beverage.
We are truly blessed in India to have access to a wide variety of mangoes* – from the tangy Totapuri to the syrupy-sweet Chausa, from the small Sindhura to the massive Banganapalli – each abundant in our neighborhood stores.
Regional variations exist of course: try as we might, we cannot get Bihar’s Malda mangoes in Bangalore (no, please don’t tell me they are on Blinkit; you need to eat the real deal) – but these variations only add to the richness of India’s mangoscape.
Assorted food photographs from a summer 2026 trip to warm and cheerful London. Strawberries and olives, shapely tomatoes and flat peaches, tea and a vegetarian Sunday roast!
What do you do with an assortment of vegetables when the clock says snack-time? Make mixed vegetable pakoras, if you ask me. This pakora recipe does not demand exactness; take the broad template and switch around the veggies and/or quantities as you wish.
Wondering what gift to pick for a food lover or home cook, without burning a hole in your pocket? Here are nine unique, great-looking, budget-friendly kitchen gift ideas under $50 for you to choose from.
From handcrafted kitchen tools to quirky tea accessories, beautiful serving pieces and illustrated cookbooks, there’s something here for every kind of food enthusiast.
Chickpeas lend themselves generously to experimentation. The classic channa masala with its onion-garlic base is by no means the only way to cook this legume curry-style. Chickpeas CAN be curried without a shred of onion and garlic – check out these recipes from the blog archives, for example: aloo chhole, dahi chhole.
And now, let me add yet another no-onion-no-garlic chickpea recipe to your repertoire.
Sliced aloo “chokha style” is a spin on Bihar’s aloo chokha, with the potatoes sliced instead of mashed. The trick to making this recipe is in boiling the potatoes just right: neither so soft that they give way when pressed, nor so firm that they need extended sautéing post-boiling to make them bite-friendly.
This light and nourishing ginger lime moong dal has a healing touch. Excellent for days when you want to soothe a sore throat.
While surfing Afghani food channels, I paused when I saw this layered, brilliantly colored thumbnail: “kaddu borani“, said its label. I hit play and by the end of it, had my mouth salivating and my heart saluting the beauty of this dish.
Kaddu borani takes a set of independently prepared ingredients (pumpkin + tomato sauce + yogurt sauce) and meshes them into something so exquisite, the end product is nothing short of a work of art.
