A Cupboard of Spices – A Quiet Kitchen – A Taste of India
Can I ask you how often you cook with turnips? Yes, I thought so. Me too. But do try this Indian dish with a hint of the North and a touch of the South. The coconut milk pairs very well with creamy turnip. The recipe is adapted from one provided by The Splendid Table.
Similar dishes include Vegetable and Barley Soup, Green Mango in Coconut Milk, and Eggplants in Coconut Milk.
Browse our Turnip recipes. Our Indian dishes are here and our Indian Essentials here. Or browse our Late Winter dishes.
We try to keep up our Salad consumption all year. It is easy to forget about salads in cold weather, moving instead to soups and broths, roasted and baked dishes and hot snacks. But salads bring a freshness into the diet, lifting the day with its flavours, and complimenting the hotter dishes. We will eat them as a snack or a course before the main meal. In Summer, naturally they are cooling and refreshing.
This one is special – an Indian salad of carrot, capsicum and cashews and can be made any time of the year. It is dressed with yoghurt and tempered black mustard seeds.
You might like to read What is a Kachumber?
Similar dishes include Apple and Yoghurt Kachumber, Kachumber, and Mooli Kachumber.
Browse all of our Kachumber recipes and all of our Carrot Salads. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Mid Summer recipes.
Continue reading “Carrot and Cashew Salad | Carrot Kachumber”
We’ve had a little focus on Swedes and Turnips last Winter, as we realised that we were not appreciating these underrated vegetables enough. It is Spring as I write, but swedes, turnips and parsnips are still in the green grocers, and the weather is cold. So we decided to add a gratin to our list of recipes for these Wintery roots.
Similar recipes include Turnips in Coconut Milk, Vegetables with Indian Flavours, Potatoes and Cumin Gratin, Sweet Potato Gratin, and Gratineed Tomatoes.
Browse all of our Swede recipes and all of our Turnip dishes. Our Gratins are here. Or explore our Mid Spring recipes.
Rocket, or arugala as it is called in some parts of the world, goes so well with pasta. This salad, quite simple to make, mixes the two with a lemony dressing. It is a more filling salad than those that we have made lately, so very suitable for cooler weather during Late Summer and Autumn, and also as Winter approaches.
Are you looking for other Pasta dishes? Try Pasta with Zucchini, Pasta with Cauliflower, Light Pasta Salads for Lunch, and Orzo Pasta with Wilted Spinach and Feta.
Browse all of our Pasta recipes. This is a Bittman Salad, and others can be browsed here. Or explore our Late Autumn dishes.
Yoghurt is used in salads all over the world, except, it seems, in cuisines such as English based countries. Let’s remedy that by mixing yoghurt and cream (yum!) and using it to dress apples and celery. It is delicious.
Add some fresh walnuts if you wish. They go really well with celery and apples.
Similar dishes include Bondhi Yoghurt Salad, Celery Yoghurt Salad, and Cucumber Yoghurt Salad.
Browse all of our Salads and all of our Yoghurt dishes. Our Apple recipes are here and Celery dishes here. Or explore our Mid Spring recipes.
Bisi Bele Bath, meaning hot lentil rice, is a much loved dish of the Karnataka and surrounding regions of South India. In some parts of Karnataka it is also known as Bisi bele huliyanna which means hot lentil sour rice. The dish usually includes a range of vegetables. “Huriyanna” is sometimes written as “Huliyanna”.
There are many modern versions of Bisi Bele Huliyanna. As the name suggests it has to be served hot. It tastes best when spices are seasoned in ghee and it is served as soon as it is cooked.
The rice and dal can be cooked together or separately. We have cooked them together today but added the rice after the dal has been cooking for some time. Cooked separately, it is a great way to use up left over cooked rice and/or toor dal, and makes it a very easy dish to prepare.
Similar dishes include Goan Bisibelebath, Punjabi Aamti Bhat, Eggplant with Toor Dal (Rasavangi), and Indian Dal Soup.
Browse all of our Bisibelebath recipes, Kitchari dishes, and all of our Rice recipes. Our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Mid Summer dishes.
This dish gets its name from the fact that it is prepared with 7 vegetables. It is a South Indian dish, actually a Tamil dish, which is often prepared on Thiruvathirai Day as a side dish for Thiruvadhira Kali (a sweet mung dal and rice dish made on this festival day). Although its name means seven vegetables, often nine, eleven, or even more are used! It is a blend of sweet, salty, tangy and spicy flavours that meld so well together, and is a perfect clean-out-the-fridge dish.
It is a dish that is also made on Thai Pongal, where it is called Pongal Kootu and as an accompaniment to Sakkarai Pongal. For this dish it is made thinner than for Thiruvathirai.
But you can also make this dish at any time – don’t keep it only for a festival dish. The recipe is one of Meenakshi Ammal’s from her cook books Cook and See. One of our very special projects in the kitchen is to cook through these books, as they are very traditional Tamil recipes.You can find all of Ammal’s dishes that we have made here. Most of them are from Vol 1 so far.
I love this dish cooked just with potatoes. It is divine. Today I made it with Colacasia, Chenai Yam, Cluster Beans, Pumpkin, Potato, Ridged Gourd, and Drumstick. Delicious!
Similar dishes include Poritha Kootu, Poritha Kootu with Simple Spices, and Moringa Leaf Dal.
Browse all of our recipes for Thai Pongal. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Mid Autumn dishes.
We use Australian measurements: 1 tspn = 5ml; 1 Tblspn = 20ml; 1 cup = 250ml.
Continue reading “Ezhukari Kuzhambu / Kootu | Seven Vegetables Kuzhambu | Pongal Kootu”
Swede – the unloved vegetable on the green grocer’s shelves. We are on a mission to show that this vegetable deserves as much love as other Winter vegetables. Known also as rutabega, a fancy name for sure, it is often mistaken for turnip, but turnip is a completely different beast.
The turnip is sophisticated, while the swede is common and a bit bogan. Turnips are white with purple tops, crisp and slightly bitter. They are perfect eaten raw in salads or as snacks, and are delightful if cooked but still retain some crunch. The swede is pretty unusual in that it’s yellow, less bitter than its sister vegetable, turnip, and some will say that they are sweeter. They have been described as strongly flavoured but today’s swede tastes a little of turnip and a little of apple. They can also be eaten raw in salads, or, more commonly, are cooked.
This is a salad where Swede is used raw and mixed with Fennel and tart Apple. It is a salad that really celebrates winter vegetables. You will love it. I have given you two forms – the first is a crunchy salad, and the second option is to add some yoghurt and pine nuts. Both are great.
Similar recipes include Florentine Fennel with Parmesan, Fennel Salad with Orange Vinaigrette, Fennel and Apple Salad, and Fennel Salad with Fresh Prunes.
Or browse all of our Fennel dishes, and all of our Swede recipes. All of our many Salads are here. Or explore our collection of Late Winter dishes.
Continue reading “Swede, Fennel and Tart Apple Salad | Rutabega, Fennel and Tart Apple Salad”
When there is an abundance of greens available, what is better to make than Sarson ka Saag. Our green grocer stocks mustard greens now, so for the first time they are easy to obtain. We don’t get bathua greens though. It is traditional to use these but we have to substitute with other greens.
This is a rustic Punjabi dish, common in the Winter when the fields are filled with mustard. It is so loved it can bring tears to the eyes. The dish is easy to make – the greens are cooked with spices until tender, then coarsely pureed. Some people prefer to be pureed to a smooth paste, but traditionally the greens would be hand-ground with a wooden mixer called a mathani to get a puree. However, you can make this to whatever is your preference.
Similar dishes include Khar, Sri Lankan Mustard Greens, Mustard Greens with Daikon, and Turnips with Mustard Leaves.
Browse all of our Mustard Greens recipes, our Chilli Greens recipes and all of our Spinach dishes. All of our Indian recipes are here, and our Indian Essentials are here. Or explore our Late Spring recipes.
Another recipe from my cooking sessions in India, scribbled almost illegibly as I tried to keep up with the dishes appearing in front of me. It is a simple Poha dish with potatoes. It’s also a common dish, probably because it is so very delicious and relatively cheap to make. Eaten primarily as a snack with coffee or chai, it is dish for the monsoon season – excellent in rainy weather.
Are you looking for similar dishes? Try Sweetcorn Chaat, Kanda Poha and Lemon Poha.
You can browse all of our Poha recipes and all of our Indian dishes. Our Indian Essentials are here. Or browse our Early Winter collection of recipes.
