CHICKEN SALAD WITH TAHINI DRESSING

Caesar, but not quite Caesar. I’ll elaborate: this salad has all the makings of a typical Caesar salad—lettuce, toasted bread, Dijon, anchovies, garlic, lemon and olive oil—but with one wildcard ingredient..tahini! Sounds strange to be adding this Middle Eastern sesame paste into the mix, but its nutty creaminess really complements the punchy hit of Dijon… Read more »

YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS WITH PEAR & GINGER COMPOTE

I lived in Yorkshire for a year and a half and never learned to make Yorkshire puds there (I did eat my fair share of them though). And here I am in Chennai fiddling about with ratios and proportions. I wish I’d foreseen this obsession a bit sooner. But thankfully these are ridiculously easy to… Read more »

OATMEAL CONGEE WITH MUSHROOMS

At this rate, I may as well make it official, pivot into a ‘breakfast only’ website and not worry about my lack of enthusiasm for anything else. If you’ll stick around, I promise to make it worth your while with (more!) French toast variations and nestling eggs into anything that even closely resembles a sauce…. Read more »

OVEN-ROASTED HONEY-CHILLI POTATOES

I often replace potatoes in recipes with yams, sweet potatoes and plantains. Not just for their better nutritional content, but also to get some variety in the food that we eat at home. Needless to say, I obviously wouldn’t replace them if they didn’t taste good. They do of course taste good. Dare I say,… Read more »

SOBA NOODLES WITH TOFU AND MANGO

Noodle salads have a lot going for them: they’re simple to throw together, versatile in terms of ingredients – vegetables, meats/meat alternatives and dressings, and they also keep really well for make-ahead meals. Any kind of noodle will work here but I’m partial to soba for its distinct nutty flavour. Try and find the Japanese… Read more »

BREAKFAST EGG SALAD (NO MAYO)

Had to add the ‘no mayo’ banner to the title to make it loud and clear that creaminess can be achieved without dousing everything in (my very biased, crude opinion)—goop. From being a downright rejecter of the eggy dressing, I’ve now become somewhat tolerant to it in a few, very specific things. But either way,… Read more »

LOADED SWEET POTATO WEDGES

Think loaded nachos with all the fixins—peppers, corn, onions, tomatoes, cheese—but with sweet potatoes instead of tortilla chips. Keeping with the Tex-mex theme, I also sometimes add olives and pickled jalapenos to the mix. Choose your own adventure and go with what you want/have on hand. The assemblage: I do a double layer here. You… Read more »

BALSAMIC FIG JAM

We make sure to get a good rotation of fruits and vegetables into our diet and not eat the same thing every week. So in this pursuit, I bought a whole load of figs when I chanced upon them. And then broke my head over what to make before they rotted on me. Typical. Nothing… Read more »

PASTA ROMESCO WITH KALE

What makes something a pasta sauce and not a dip? Or a soup, even? You roast and blend vegetables to make soups and dips, but can you not use the same emulsion to coat pasta? I don’t see why not. As an extension to that thought, I present to you my pasta romesco. Traditionally eaten… Read more »

ROASTED PLUM AND PANEER SALAD

    There’s no real stone-fruit season in Chennai. Sure, you have those few weeks around this time every year that you get plums, peaches and if you’re lucky, cherries and nectarines. But other than plums and the odd batch of rock-hard peaches that come from nearby hill stations, stores rely solely on produce from… Read more »

◀ ▶
Latest

  • SPINACH AND YOGURT DIP WITH FRIED GARLIC

    I say “dip”, but honestly, I just end up eating this straight out of the bowl. (Yes, I do mean the mixing bowl.) Please don’t skip or skimp on the fried garlic – it’s really what makes this dish. How much is too much fried garlic, anyway? Rhetorical question. It couldn’t be easier: blanch the… Read more »

  • HARISSA PASTE

    I think it’s high time I put this harissa recipe out there since it’s all I’ve been on about since last week. We ate it in and on everything from paneer köfte wraps, to roast chicken, and.. the pièce de résistance: an Ottolenghi inspired flame-roasted aubergine and whipped paneer dish which might possibly be the… Read more »

  • KOREAN CUCUMBER SALAD

    Disclaimer: I’ve used regular Indian chilli powder in this recipe, and not gochugaru, the traditionally used Korean chilli flakes. I’ve done my fair share of sourcing gochugaru in the past, but have since realized that the few Korean dishes that I cook and use them in actually work well with our more ubiquitous Indian variant…. Read more »

  • SOBA NOODLES WITH ROASTED TERIYAKI MUSHROOMS & BOK CHOY

    I love a good teriyaki sauce provided it’s not too cloyingly sweet. Which, unfortunately, always seems to be the case with most dishes/recipes associated with the name. So although I say teriyaki here, you’ll find that it doesn’t really have that same sweetness that you might expect from it. All the same flavours, only, not… Read more »

  • CHEESY SAVOURY FRENCH TOAST + GARLICKY MUSHROOMS & SPINACH + CHUNKY TOMATOES

    I’m back with *another* French toast recipe. No surprises there but it’s a savoury one this time! The title is a mouthful but there’s no other way to describe what this is: you sandwich melty cheese between two slices of bread, dip in a Dijon-spiked egg mixture and cook over a low flame for the… Read more »

  • BAKED PANKO & PARMESAN CRUSTED ZUCCHINI

    I never know what to make with zucchini. I’m always tempted to buy them when they’re fresh at the store and then they’ll sit languishing in my fridge until I finally pull them out and turn them into..soup. Nothing wrong with zucchini soup, but I constantly feel like I’m undermining their potential. I can count… Read more »

  • (LOW-SUGAR) JAMMY STRAWBERRY CAKE

    Two punnets of strawberries for a 9” cake might sound a bit mad, but trust me, there’s a reason for this: 1) as they cook, they shrivel up, so what looks like an excessive amount is actually just right to get nice big wodges of tart strawberry in each bite. 2) this cake takes slightly… Read more »

  • (MOSTLY) WHOLE WHEAT WAFFLES

    This is not one of those recipes that claims its whole grain and then when you scroll down it reads—¼ cup whole grain and 2 cups plain flour. Just wanted to get that out of the way right off the bat. Here’s the split up of these (mostly) whole wheat waffles: 1 ⅙ cups whole… Read more »

  • PASTA WITH SPINACH & CHILLI PESTO + QUICK ROASTED TOMATOES

    I’m on a mission to 1) sneak spinach into everything. 2) take my spinach+chilli+cheese combo and apply it to as many variations as I can possibly think up. Cheese in question for said combo is usually paneer, but this is a slightly different take on it. I say ‘sneak’, but we actually love spinach. But… Read more »

  • CHICKEN SALAD WITH A SPICY YOGURT DRESSING

    Okay first up, guess what makes the yogurt dressing spicy? PICKLE! I’m not talking about gherkins or brined vegetables, I’m talking about our very own ooruga! (South-Indian pickle for the uninitiated.) I figured if you could use curry pastes, harissa and other such punchy condiments to boost the flavour of dishes with one simple addition,… Read more »

  • SPINACH & PANEER STUFFED BANANA PEPPER BAKE

    The main idea and concept for this dish comes from my aunt. It’s her adaptation of the Mexican classic – Chile Rellenos. In typical Rellenos fashion, her version uses only cheese in the filling (no spinach). After stuffing the peppers, she batter-fries them in an egg white-flour mixture before dousing in tomato sauce. Traditionally they’d… Read more »

  • ORANGE FRENCH TOAST

    If you haven’t put it together yet—I’m a French toast junkie. Not only are they ridiculously simple to throw together, they are versatile too. Use any fruit that’s in season, switch up the spices, and it’s one of those dishes that’s comforting and easy to do while at the same time giving you something new… Read more »

  • THAI CHICKEN SALAD

    If you’re someone that makes curry pastes and the like in bulk, there’s a good chance you’re also looking to use them in as many different ways as possible. I make and squirrel away huge batches of pesto, pasta sauces, curry pastes etc. and to be honest, as much as I revel in the idea… Read more »

  • MUSHROOM MASALA

    I fashioned my own little spiral-bound recipe book before I moved to Chennai, and this is one of the first recipes that I jotted down in it. Sounds simple enough, but just you try getting a generational recipe from your grandmum whose main units of measurement are ‘palmful’, ‘fistful’, a very rough translation of a… Read more »

  • THAI GREEN CURRY PASTE

    I already have a recipe for Thai curry paste on here. It’s one where I’ve used red chillies for heat and borrowed from the yellow and green pastes in terms of spiceage to make a kind of a hybrid orange version. I personally prefer a Thai red curry to its green counterpart, but that’s not… Read more »