The tang of tomatoes and the heat of chilies make roasted tomato chili chutney a delightfully fiery partner for stuffed parathas and cutlets.
If you’re like me, you would want a range of color on your plate. The speckled beige of chapatis, the white of yogurt, the yellow of turmeric-tanned Indian curries, simply ASK for some green and red.
Peanuts and jaggery in toor dal? It sounded bizarre and it wasn’t something I had cooked or eaten before. When I saw this recipe for Gujarati dal on a food show on NDTV Good Times I decided to try it in my own kitchen that very day.
On regular days my simple yellow dal has a spicier accompaniment. On other days, the accompaniment is plain aloo-pyaz fry while the dal is spruced up. Here is one way I make my dal interesting with a green addition: toor dal tadka with spinach.
They talk of "trial by fire" as a true test of character – instances of it abound in medieval Europe as much as Indian mythology.
While one may question the veracity of such a test with reference to people, it does throw up interesting results when applied to fruits and vegetables.
I’m referring to roasting.
Placing raw whole vegetables on an open flame and slow-cooking them brings out latent attributes that you wouldn’t even know existed. Roasted capsicum becomes juicy and sweet, shedding much of its pepperiness; tomatoes take on a delicious smoky note.
This tomato olive capsicum pasta – with its key ingredients roasted – has a lot of character. It has been through trial by fire, after all.
Feeling blue? Liven it up with a bright red, green and white curry. The lovely concoction of colors and flavors in paneer capsicum curry is also surprisingly easy to put together.
Tomatoes are an essential ingredient for most curries – but you CAN do well without them! A collection of Indian vegetarian curry recipes without tomatoes.
Plantain is tailor-made for new cooks - easy to slice, quick on the stove, demanding no hifalutin artistry. Here's how to make a crispy spicy plantain fry.