Indian Recipes & Food Ideas

I have a cookbook problem. No, I don’t have too many (well, maybe that too). While the bookstores are glutted with cookbooks, and a new crop inundates us every season, I cannot find the one definitive cookbook I crave — a South Indian cookbook to guide me through learning how to cook recipes from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Goa. I crave South Indian food like nothing else, and today’s recipe is another effort to reproduce the lighter, fresher, coconut-driven curries I love.

Many of us have had a basic raita, comprised of yogurt and a few fresh vegetables to form the much–needed cooling antidote to spiced foods, but did you ever think to throw some pineapples in the mix? Get ready for your new favorite condiment.I spotted pineapple raita during a brief trip to Northern India. This beloved side dish made perfect sense because the foods in this area were heavier and meat–oriented than their Southern counterparts.

I have a secret love affair with peas. Yes, I love them in their fresh-from-the-pod form, but during the winter months, I use their frozen cousins. I spice them in my favorite manner, similar to a dish I had in Cochin, Kerala, in Southern India, and eat them up with a large spoon, stopping only for a quick bite of naan or dollop of raita. This dish is a perfect accompaniment for something hearty like a braised meat or stewed lentils because of its decided spice and bright lemony flavors.

We’ve all probably tried a mango lassi at our favorite Indian restaurant, but have you ever tasted a papaya lassi? Full of sweetness and tang, this dreamy drink will cool you off and transport you to the subcontinent. Acha! (Hindi for ‘All right!’). I grew up ordering mango lassis anywhere I could find them. I loved their electric yellow color and the velvety texture of blended fruit and yogurt.

Here’s a simple curry that can stay vegetarian (vegan even) or, with the simple addition of some shrimp or chicken, make a fine dish for the carnivore. The most important thing is that this delicious curry is built largely from your canned goods stash: coconut milk, tinned chickpeas and tomatoes. Just add a few fresh veg, some spices and Bob’s your uncle! This curry is extremely versatile.

We love the spices in Indian dishes, and dahl is pretty simple to make. However, it still takes about an hour to prep it and some accompanying rice – on many weeknights that kind of time simply isn’t there. Lucky for us, dahl freezes and reheats very well. Here’s what we do to keep from resorting to those prepackaged microwave Indian meals from the grocery shelf: Dahl is simple, but it has a lot of ingredients.

We’re new to curries and taking it in baby steps. We developed this quicker, weeknight curry using several of our favorite recipes. It uses a lot of ingredients and spices that we already have in our pantry and the result is a fragrant, very satisfying Indian stew for a chilly winter evening – or any other night! While the curry is cooking, prepare a pot of rice. We threw a bay leaf, a few cardamom pods, and the leftover nub of garlic into our pot of rice for some subtle seasoning.

My untraditional use of chutney may have been influenced by the fact that it came to me in a very international way: from an Israeli woman whom I met at a Thai Buddhist temple in San Diego. She got it from a German woman who got the recipe while in India.

My Easter meal this past weekend was a fusion menu between my own cultural heritage of Eastern European food (fried rolls, rich sweet bread) and Indian cuisine (tandoori-spiced leg of lamb, sunny yellow pressed rice). This cucumber salad bridges the cultural divide between Eastern Europe and India: both cultures have creamy, cooling salads with dairy and cucumbers. Here’s my easy fusion version.

In Devesh and Tara’s Spice Pantry kitchen tour, Devesh shared two recipes: one for an Indian breakfast called Poha, or flattened rice, and another for authentic Chai – that strongly spiced, milky tea we love.The Chai was so different from what I’ve come to know as the slightly cloying, heavily spiced Chai from local teashops that I couldn’t believe it was the same thing. It was truly wonderful.