There is no spoon!

Doodhpak – a dessert for all days!

Ingredients • 1.5 litres of full fat milk, • A little ghee, to smear inside the pan used for cooking, • 3tbsp of short-grained rice, ( I used Gobindobhog, you can use any fragrant short grained rice of your choice ), • 3/4th to 1 cup of sugar ( or to taste ), • 1/2tsp or to taste, cardamom powder, (freshly pound, for best results ), • Some Charoli / Chironji / Cuddapah Almonds to garnish ( or use…

Tava Pulao – the next best thing after PavBhaji!

Juhu Beach style Tava Pulao of my favourite ways to jazz up dinners without a fuss. It’s just rice tossed with Pavbhaji style wet spice base. It is rustled up on huge iron Tavas which are used to make Pavbhaji by the street side sellers usually from leftover spice base of Pavbhaji. Now, i don’t have a humongous tava that is as wide as my arms spread out wide, but a little Jugaad here and there…

Idadaa or Khatta Dhokla is a Gujarati savoury snack made by steaming an overnight fermented batter of Rice and Urad Daal. It is soft, savoury and delicious to say the least. To pronounce Idadaa correctly, the first da is pronounced softly and the second strongly, like Daa in Darwin. It is served on its own as a snack, or as a side as a part of the more varied Gujarati Thali/meal as a savoury side…

Paneer Bhurji – Soft creamy paneer scrambled with spices!

For me, there are two kinds of Paneer, the one I make routinely, dryish not so spicy or indulgent. And then there is another Bhurji which is a rare phenomenon, once in a while Bhurji Pav occasion of celebration. I know that most people associate rainy nights with Fried food, Bhajiya and Bajjis and the sorts. But on the kind of nights when it rains as if there will be no tomorrow, when the…

{ Book Review } – All The Names They Used For God by Anjali Sachdeva!

All the Names They Used for God by Anjali Sachdeva My rating: 4 of 5 stars

All The Names They Used For God is a motley of tales that has everything from tragedy to mythology to science to human despair tied together to discuss the known and the unknown in this world. It is a collection of short stories, quite eclectic in nature and not one bit preachy or sermon-like to be honest. I have to make…

{ Book Review } – In Defence of Food: an Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In a pill sized summary, the book tells us to ” Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It opens with this and it is also all that it has to offer to us. But it ends up winding 200 pages filled with small portions of excellent food wisdom, some of which is pretty common today, and large portions of extremely…

Sev Tameta nu Shaak ( Sev added to a cooked gravy of tomatoes, a dab of jaggery and a few basic spices ) for the evening when you lose track of time panicking about something and realise that you are “cannot-afford-to-spend-more-than-10-minutes-on-fixing-dinner” kind of desperately hungry! Sev Tameta nu Shaak is quite popular in Gujarati, specifically Kathiyawadi, restaurants. Tangy, garlicky…

Ghee Gaud / Ghee Gol – and some happy memories of a Gujarati childhood!

ઘી ગોળ | Ghee Gol or Ghee Gaud is Jaggery mashed with Ghee until smooth, shiny and silky. Since the last time I shared it in one of my meals, it has had quite a few requests. So I decided to get it up on the blog asap. If I were to be absolutely candid, I am a tad bit hesitant and awkward as I type this. Because never in my mind ( or in any true blue Gujarati’s mind ) does it occur that Ghee Gol…

{ Book Review} – The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu!

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It would be extremely easy for me to club The Paper Menagerie into Science Fiction genre. And technically, it would not be so wrong either. It is an anthology of 15 stories each of which picks one thread from a varied range of human frailties or whims and then takes you on a story telling trip where the reader would easily…

Today, Shahi Paneer isn’t a big deal or a speciality for dinner for me but as a kid, I was so so fascinated by it. Creamy, silky orange gravy a little on the sweeter side than the paneer Butter Masala with fat Paneer chunks floating around. Paneer was such a rarity then that I remember mom making sure one of us didn’t monopolised or took more than our share of pieces 😆. So, before YouTube and…

{ Book Review } – Eating Wasps by Anita Nair!

Eating Wasps by Anita Nair My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If books chose a word to represent themselves, Eating Wasp would choose Poignant. Because it leaves you restless and sad, akin to a traumatic experience where you feel a little shaken, gasping while you still try to make sense of what elapsed. Like the protagonist, who actually eats a wasp as a kid, it leaves you a little stung and tainted with…

Tehri – a potful of simplicity, comfort, winter produce and deliciousness!

So, I had heard about Tehri on and off from friends for about a decade, Tehri being a very popular weekend meal consisting of a rice and vegetables cooked in a pot with minimal spices for a lot of families in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Or so I have been told by friends. And due to my unfamiliarity, those conversations always ended in ‘Yes, it is kind of like Pulao but not the same.” sort of ending.…

Baghare Tamatar | Tamatar ka Salan – juicy, ripe tomatoes cooked in a thin, flavourful broth of sesame seeds, peanuts and spices!

If you are even vaguely familiar with the cuisine from the Deccan Plateau, often called the cuisine of the Nizams and their princely legacy, I am pretty sure you would have heard of the brinjals cooked in a nutty, slightly sour and aromatic base, where the final dish is called Baghare Baigan. Baghare Tamatar are cooked in a very similar way in the same flavourful base. Some people even drop hard…

{ Book Review } – A House Without Windows by Nadia Hashimi!

A House Without Windows by Nadia Hashimi My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read A House Without Windows for The Reading Women Podcast challenge in 2019. A House Without Windows is all that you can conjure up when you close your eyes. It is dark and desolate. It is bleak and cold, somewhere the warmth of the sunshine cannot reach you. It is where nobody can take a peek in and ask you how your are doing.…

Al Yakhni , Bottle gourd cooked in a mustard oil flavoured, yogurt based broth with fragrant spices!

My relationship with bottle gourd, aka Lauki/Gheeya/Doodhi, is pretty complicated. I have got nothing against its taste which is, to be honest, pretty neutral. But I did not grow up eating several versions of curries made with Lauki. We Gujaratis love our Doodhi Na Muthiya and Doodhi Na Theplas/Dhebras but Lauki doesn’t really shine in those preparations. It definitely adds a lovely moist texture…

I do not claim the bragging rights to making a mean Risotto. I have been only on one trip to Italy and have eaten at Italian restaurants a few times, neither of which give me the rights to call it authentic. But never mind them, if something catches my fancy, I certainly try to make it for my own self once. I had been looking for barley based salads when I accidentally discovered this Risotto.…

Vatana Muthiya nu Shaak!

Hello you lovely, lovely folks! Hope you are doing well. If it is summer in your part of the world, I hope you are staying in shade as much as you can and staying adequately hydrated. Bengaluru weather is behaving like a petulant teenager who has been denied parental permission to attend a likely-to-get-wild party. There have been sporadic showers when it is feeling particularly rebellious, but…