ROASTED BEETS WITH GARLICKY YOGURT

I love a good beet number. Especially a good roasted beet number. Other than a few traditional South Indian preparations where they are sautéed in a pan (poriyal), or blended into a chutney, this is actually the only way I cook them. Beets get gloriously sweet and concentrated in flavour when roasted. A far cry… Read more »

ONE-POT RASAM RICE

Rasam rice is one of my favourite things to eat, and considering how it’s always described as ‘comfort food’, I’d wager this is the case for a lot of us. (After 10+ years of eating Kimchi Jiggae—Korean kimchi soup—I think at this point it comes a close second.) Rasam rice is simple enough to make… Read more »

VIETNAMESE RICE PAPER ROLLS

As Chennai goes through another sweltering summer, dishes like these offer a brief respite from both the cooking and eating perspectives. Other than the tofu which gets a quick fry in the pan, there’s no other cooking involved. Admittedly, they’re a bit fiddly to assemble and here—do as I say, not as I do—don’t overstuff… Read more »

CARROT, TOFU & EGG FRIED RICE

Whenever I develop recipes and throw them into our weekly rotation, they have to check a couple of boxes. In no particular order but all equally important: it should take less than 45 minutes from start to finish, all the ingredients must be easily available, and it has to include a good amount of fibre… Read more »

PUNCHY CHICKPEA SALAD WITH PICKLES AND FETA

Chickpeas are versatile, inexpensive, and an excellent source of protein and fibre. We should all be eating more of them, and here’s one way to add them to your rotation when you can’t think beyond hummus. I love a salad that can be bulked up with a bean or lentil, to the point where it… Read more »

MUHAMMARA (WITH TAMARIND)

We do a Mediterranean-inspired lunch almost every week. It usually involves chapatis (predictably, with some vegetable kneaded into the dough), hummus, a vegetable-and-paneer/potato cutlet, pickled onions, and a simple salad. Hummus is my sure-shot way of getting chickpeas into our weekly rotation. It goes down a treat with my preschooler, so I try not to… Read more »

BAKED FETA WITH MUSHROOMS, TOMATOES & PESTO

Remember the time during Covid, when the internet lost its collective mind over the baked feta trend? The original recipe came from Finnish food blogger Jenni Häyrinen, whose “uunifetapasta” (oven feta pasta) went viral in 2019 and made its way into kitchens everywhere. It was a genius move: Jenni nestled a block of feta among… Read more »

CANDIED WALNUTS WITH JAGGERY

My son and I often make these as part of birthday gifts to give out. They’re quick to pull together, fun to make, and always appreciated. Pile them into a glass jar, tie on a bit of ribbon or twine, and you’ve got a simple, thoughtful gift that feels personal without any of the fuss…. Read more »

SWEET & SPICY TOFU

There are a few tofu dishes that I go back to on repeat, and this sweet and spicy version is one of them. It pretends to be complicated, but it’s really just me, a frying pan, and a couple of bottles from the fridge door. Twenty minutes and you’ve got crisp, golden cubes in a sauce… Read more »

PUMPKIN, FIG & KALE SALAD

There are salads that feel like afterthoughts – a little something green pushed to the side of the plate. And then there are salads that demand attention, the kind that get eaten first and remembered last. This one is firmly in the latter camp. Sweet roasted pumpkin, jammy figs, and salty little nuggets of feta,… Read more »

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Latest

  • Aubergine Parmigiana (Melanzane alla Parmigiana)

    Remember that time I made this aubergine and broccoli pasta bake? So this is a slight variation from that, with regard to inspiration (and photo clarity. Thank goodness!) I’m slowly trying to get my head around exploring the plethora of options and features on my DSLR, so please bear with me as I share the developments… Read more »

  • DIY : Thai yellow curry paste

    There are precisely 2 things that make cooking Thai food from scratch hard for me. One, you don’t get the necessary ingredients very easily here; lemon grass, whenever I get my hands on I bulk buy and freeze, and kaffir lime leaves are almost never available (replacing it with lime rind I’ve found to be… Read more »

  • Cinnamon French toast with stewed apples

    I think this is my first breakfast dish on here. Which when I think about, doesn’t make any sense since I’m that person that loves to eat breakfast foods at any time of the day. No strict time restrictions in my head. A full English breakfast for lunch? Oh yes, please. Dosa for dinner? Hell… Read more »

  • Lime & Basil Iced tea

    I have an affinity for iced teas. Living in a city with soaring temperatures and oppressive humidity all year round, that doesn’t come as much of a surprise. My favourite would have to be the plain lemon iced tea closely followed by this peach version, but of late I’ve been trying a few other variations… Read more »

  • FULLY LOADED BEEF TACOS (with re-fried beans, purple cabbage yogurt-slaw, guacamole, and salsa)

    Sitting amidst the chaos that is moving houses is not the perfect setting I’d envisioned to share this recipe with you. But if you think about it, it is fitting in a way : all the separate components coming together in the end in perfect harmony (which will hopefully be the case with the home… Read more »

  • BRUSCHETTA PLATTER (with tomato & basil, mushroom & thyme, olive-caper tapenade, and oven-dried tomatoes)

    I never realized this until now, but food blogging brings together a few of my favourite things..cooking (of course), food styling & food photography (which have been a more recent discovery) and my penchant for mindless writing. Don’t get me wrong, I make sure that the recipes that I post on here are my absolute… Read more »

  • Apple tarte tatin & an anniversary

    I know I’m treading on the territory of culinary arrogance when I say this, but I don’t understand why the Tarte Tatin has been regarded as an insurmountable feat for an amateur cook. Sure, the caramel is a blink-and-it’s burnt kind of ordeal but other than that, it’s literally just some minor pastry action (shop-bought one at… Read more »

  • Chicken laksa

    I’m so excited to tell you about this recipe. I’ve made this laksa a few times now, tweaking it here and there and adding/omitting ingredients along the way, and I think what I’ve landed up with now pretty much hits the spot, if I do say so myself. If you’ve already taken a quick glance… Read more »

  • Couscous with roasted vegetables

    Is it just me, or did you also think that Couscous was a grain? I remember reading somewhere a while ago that it was actually a pasta in a minuscule granular form, but it must’ve completely skipped my mind when I made it alongside some Spaghetti arrabiata for dinner last night. How very un-savvy of… Read more »

  • Baked eggs with purple Amaranth

    Confession – I bought this without knowing what the hell it was, because it was purple. Didn’t have a name, and didn’t know what I was going to do with it. But I had to have it. A quick Google search along the lines of “purple spinach like plant” threw up a ton of options… Read more »

  • Roasted pumpkin & garlic soup

    I’ve been mildly obsessed with oven-roasting vegetables. In the last two weeks, I’ve made two huge batches of heirloom tomatoes (much to my family’s profound bliss), and now, this roasted pumpkin and garlic soup. I knew that the tomatoes would shrink in size upon roasting, but little did I know that all those 12 plump… Read more »

  • Spiced baked figs with Vanilla mascarpone

    I’ve recently discovered a part of myself that I never knew existed..an inherent need, a kind of maternal instinct if you will, to feed my family with an extra dose of fruit and vegetables. I’m not getting ahead of myself here, I’m still talking mascarpone, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be the kind of mum… Read more »

  • CHICKEN AND SOBA NOODLE SOUP

    I recently discovered the joys of Japanese Soba (buckwheat) noodles. I’d eaten it several times at restaurants, but only recently found out that a speciality store I frequent stocked them. If there was one term that I could use to describe this dish, I think ‘restorative’ would be it. The noodles, made from buckwheat flour… Read more »

  • Nectarine crumble

    Brace yourself for this. I may just have the simplest, quickest recipe for you which actually looks like you put in a whole load of effort (says the same person who layered lemon curd over fresh fruit and made it a dessert), so you know I’m onto something here. This crumble can be used as… Read more »

  • Peach iced tea

    We know that iced tea is synonymous with summer. It’s not often that I find peaches in my market, and the mere sight of these plump beauties had me so excited! For something that doesn’t grow locally, I expected them to be tart and almost inedible, leaving me with the only option of cooking them…. Read more »