The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

Capsicum and cherry tomatoes are tailor-made for worknight meals, with simple chopping needs and small cooking times. Combine with some pre-cooked tomato masala and you have a capsicum cherry tomato curry that looks so regal, it’s hard to believe how easy it was to create.

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Weekdays are busy times for many of us who come back from work late evening and then fix a meal. We want easy weeknight dinners that take little time to move from kitchen to plate. [Not counting the blessed few like Rohit’s boss who can whip up a fancy meal at that hour ;) ]

One could cook loads on Sunday and freeze for the week. But that’s not so exciting, is it? So how does one attain that elusive balance between easy + quick (pre-cooked) and tasty + interesting (freshly cooked)?

Here’s a middle ground.

Make ahead food parts. Mix and match. Embellish.

Use the Pareto Principle to your advantage: identify the steps in cooking that consume a majority time and labor, and do them beforehand. The chopping of greens. The slow-frying of spices. The boiling of dal. When the time comes to make your weeknight dinner, all that remains to be done is the remaining 20% of cooking that produces 80% of the result.

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Few things compare to the taste and smell of just-fried onions. What’s usually an embellishment in meals plays starring role in this recipe: spiced fried onions strips with an aromatic peanut-sesame spice mix. Try it!

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Till about a decade back, a mention of sattu in conversation with a non-Bihari audience would be greeted with puzzled stares. Things have changed today. The world around is more health-conscious, and sattu has gained currency for its great nutritional benefits. Rich in minerals, proteins and fibre, low of glycemic index – sattu is said to be the most economical antidote to diabetes.

The better-known style of consuming this miracle food is probably in the form of a cooling sattu drink, but my favorite way is as sattu paratha – flatbread stuffed with a spiced sattu filling.

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Seeing that a nutty ingredient does a great job of taming the bitter notes of other ingredients (think curry leaf peanut chutney or sesame fenugreek chutney), I dared to make a rice dish seeped in curry leaf, with a load of cashews for good effect. And I loved the result.

Here’s my curry leaf pulao recipe – for those who share taste buds similar to mine! How many of you?

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A pickle that’s healthy, easy to make, and has a quick gestation time? This no-oil ginger garlic pickle says yes to all three. Not for delicate taste buds – this one’s for fans of the zingy and the zesty.

You don’t need much skill to make no-oil ginger garlic pickle. Just care, fresh ingredients, and long hours of pleasant sunlight.

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The tart sweetness of roasted cherry tomatoes and the freshness of coriander leaves come together in this lovely chutney.

Garlic and dry red chilies give it that extra zing.

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