From My Kitchen

I met Priyanka on my first day in school in Bombay and for 3 decades after that we have remained soul mates. In the last five yrs her daughter and son have added so much delight to my life. I’ll have to teach myself to live again when they move to the USA the coming weekend. Most of her life my friend has survived on PCM – potatoes, chocolate and milk. It has been a project to introduce her taste buds to anything besides that and I can assure you if it was not from my kitchen Dr. Priyanka would never have tried out the falafel. She now relishes it. Over the weekend I had to cook for my friend, something she likes, so besides a chocolate pudding, we had a falafel lunch. This blog is for you my dearest friend when you miss me try making a meal for your new friends and family. When I miss you, I’ll just fly over, it will be more like move in xxxxx. I have listed and shared recipes of everything besides pita bread that is needed to make a del...

Its been a long and short week and now a lazy weekend. Considering the number of dinner parties, birthdays and more dinners that we have treated ourselves through the week, I thought I’ll try out something that it is light on the tummy today. An experiments in my kitchen that went right. It is delicious, easy to make, on most days I’ll have all the ingredients at home, it is healthy and very filling. I have often made it for dinners with friends and also carried it with me for potluck, friends have loved it and always asked for the recipe. So here it goes my roasted veggies with hung curd, truly from my kitchen ! Note : Peri peri is a secret ingredient in my kitchen. I first discovered it on a routine spice garden tour in Goa. This small, dry, sharp chilli has some exotic flavor. I haven't found then in Mumbai yet, however often seen them in European supermarkets well packeted and sold for 4 - 5 Euros for 20 gms. My dear friend Venu sent me a Kilo (some Rs 800 a kg) ...

Like many others in India, my grandma didn’t appreciate we eating onions in the house, so getting in eggs was unthinkable. As a teenager the only interest in the kitchen was to bake a cake, I famously followed the ‘Tarla Dalal’ recipe and managed the version with condensed milk and chocolate powder. It was eggless, the batter managed to rise and plus it had chocolate, Voila !!! My gourmet tongue soon realized that it deserved much better. It was easier to buy a nice rich batch of intense chocolate cake from ‘Theobroma’ or just not eat at all then to convince my parents to bring eggs into our home, till such day my American returned brother decided that to survive in India he must eat omelette for breakfast. My kitchen never looked back and welcomed the new all important entrant. Brownies, chocolate, cookies, bread, biscotti and list goes on. I baked, friends and family alike feasted.   I tell you the discovery of the egg in my home changed it all. Proteins my...

Bhatti ka paneer : Taj Mahal Hotel We all headed to Masala Craft/ Taj Mahal Palace Bombay for a family dinner a couple of weeks back. Chef Hemant Oberoi’s masterpiece. Happens to be my favorite fine dinning for Indian cuisine. The the langarwali dal, lasooni palak, peepaywale chole and the bhatti ka paneer, yum !! The paneer so soft it melts in your mouth, spiced up with the perfect masala. Curiously I asked the attendant if I could have a word with the chef and try my luck getting the recipe from him. True to Taj’s hospitality and warmth what I was presented in return was something I’ll cherish on my bookshelf, a collection of recipes from the Taj. The hotel by all means lives up to its founder’s values. The warmth, hospitality and generosity are impeccable and it does make a happy difference to our lives. I have tried the recipe several times at home since, shared them over my kitchen counter with friends and family and believe me its perfect!!! The pane...

My yoga teacher yesterday presented me with a yoga belt and very sweetly mentioned it was a gift in return for the chocolates I once offered him. So I offered to bake him a cake, something that he can’t easily buy of a bakery store in India. A couple of weeks back I found Deborah Madison’s recipe for a Poppy Seed Cake from her book ‘Vegetarian cooking for everyone’. I was waiting for the right occasion to try it. Today I am back home at 4 pm and what better thing do I have to do then be in my kitchen. With the Bombay rains tapping on my window, today seems perfect. So how should I describe my new experiment? Lets put it this way - this cake is so so yummy ! Perfectly moist. Just a little crunchy and not so sweet. The original recipe uses black poppy seeds, I didn’t have enough in stock at home and couldn’t find it at my neighborhood grocery store, so I just used a mix of black and white poppy seeds ( posto, the one we use in BengaIi food ) I had handy, and for the buttermi...

Morwenna my friend in Australia is the reason I cook. Her home in Dunsborough a small town West of Australia always smells fabulous and inviting of fresh baked cakes. I loved them and she loved to make them for me. She  introduced me to a whole new world of baking. So from then to now I am practicing for the day kids come back from school and want to be on top of my kitchen counter digging out the perfect muffin or brownies or just a slices of my Banana Walnut Cake. I picked up this recipe during my stay in Australia and it is yummy. Ingredients 125 g butter 3/4 cup castor sugar 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla essence 1 cup mashed banana (ripe to overripe bananas) 1 + 1/2 cup all purpose flour 1 + 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp soda bicarb 1/2 cup chopped walnut Method all ingredients should be at room temperature cream the butter, sugar and egg with a hand mixer until light and fluffy (3 minutes) add the essence and banana and whisk again (1 minute) add all the dry in...