Ever since I made sauerkraut a few weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about using it in a borscht. I had my mind set on the more traditional beef version, but bad planning and an overload of beets languishing in the fridge made me go down the veg route. I was skeptical at first; just grated… Read more »

Hundredth post on The blurry lime. Like, 100. One hundred. And I made soup to celebrate. I clearly haven’t figured this out yet. I realise that this pea and pesto soup is a far cry from being celebratory, but it’s so good I made it twice last week! And I’m not even a big fan… Read more »

You need two ingredients to make this sauerkraut. If you think that sounds ridiculous, let me tell you that one of those ingredients is salt. Salt and cabbage. Super ridiculous. Fermented foods excite me. The other day I was in the kitchen when I heard this strange buzzing sound. After eliminating the possibility of a… Read more »

Horse gram is a lesser known variety of lentil that is used a lot in South India. Chock full of nutrients, I often use them in place of the more common green or brown lentils. I find that unlike other lentils, they hold their texture upon cooking; meaning, they are slightly more forgiving when it… Read more »

I wrote this recipe for Better Homes and Gardens, India, for their ‘breadless sandwich’ challenge. It’s in their July issue if you want to grab a copy! I contemplated lettuce wraps, veggie stacks, and polenta muffins for the base but they aren’t really sandwiches, are they? The real challenge here was to find a suitable… Read more »

The common green bean is an unsung hero. When you think about it, you mostly only see it used alongside other vegetables in curries or stir fries, as one of the sides for grilled meats, or in a kootu or poriyal to accompany rice; it’s always that default vegetable that gets bunged in with other… Read more »

If you had asked me what my least favourite foods were ten years ago, I would’ve said mayonnaise, eggplant, and broccoli (in that order) without batting an eyelid. Although I seem to have gotten over and even come to love eggplant and broccoli, there’s no love lost in the mayo department. There’s nothing you can… Read more »

  I think I may have done my fair bit of preaching about using ground almonds in desserts to replace flour. Not just from the health point of view, no, but for the texture and nuttiness that you get from the ground up nuts. I buy them in bulk, make big batches of this crisp… Read more »

Leafing through my untidy pile of scribbled notes and ingredient lists, I chanced upon a tattered piece of paper from when I was travelling in Turkey. It said ‘dolmas’ (stuffed grape leaves) on the top, and ‘rice, beef, garlic, sumac, raisins, and tomato paste’ jotted below. Not a recipe by any means, but ingredients that… Read more »

The lip-puckering tartness of lemon curd never fails to excite me. Be it in a tart, dolloped over pavlova, or in a parfait like this one I made a while ago, if there’s a dessert with it on the menu, that’s invariably what I’d end up ordering. Some like their curd more sweet than tart,… Read more »

This recipe has been a long time coming. Ever since the mango season began this year, I haven’t been able to stop buying these luscious beauties. Deceptively so, most of them however. Vibrant, voluptuous, and yielding, they are seldom as sweet and flavourful as you think they would be. Freezing and adding them to smoothies… Read more »

If I had to pick one favourite salad, I think this would be it (with Caesar coming in a close second). When my mom and I were travelling in Bangkok and Pattaya many years ago, we ate Som tam (raw papaya salad) in almost every street-food stall that we went to, accompanied with aromatic bowlfuls… Read more »

Korean corn tea, or Oksusu cha is a classic Korean beverage. Although called ‘tea’, it isn’t tea in the normal sense; it’s essentially boiled corn water. Corn kernels are slowly roasted until almost blackened and charred, and boiled in water until the water takes on the slightly nutty flavour of the corn. Drunk hot or… Read more »

I grow tomatoes all year round in my little terrace garden – grape, cherry, heirloom, pear-shaped ones, black plum ones, I’ve tried the whole range. Although I do get a steady harvest all year round—owing to the soaring heat and humidity levels in Chennai—this time of year, in the months of March – June, I… Read more »

Two times in a row I’ve written about pudding with cooked fruit (this is more a porridge, but it’s so good that it could pass off for a pudding!) and two times in a row I’ve written about breakfast foods. A little monotonous I know but bear with me, we’re onto something here. Stewing fruit…. Read more »