Indian

A dish from the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu, this quick stir-fry has all the wonderful spices used in the cooking of the Chettiyars, a trading community—lots of black pepper, fennel seeds, mustard seeds, cinnamon, and the split pea, urad dal. (Yellow split peas may be substituted for the urad dal. They will be used here in a very southern way, as a seasoning.) This dish has a 30-minute marinating period, but it cooks in about 7 minutes. It is a good idea to have all the spices measured out and ready, as the stir-frying is done quickly. I like this chicken with Basmati Rice with Lentils and a green vegetable.

Here is a very easy-to-prepare egg curry. As the entire curry sauce is made in the blender, I call it a blender curry. If you like, 2–3 medium-sized boiled and diced (a 3/4-inch dice is best) potatoes may be added to the sauce at the same time as the eggs. Serve with rice or any of the three breads in this book. You may also have the curry with French or Italian bread.

In our house, we all like different types of omelettes. We tend to make our own. This is how I make mine. Indians generally eat their omelettes with sliced bread, toast, or parathas.

Here is our family’s most beloved Sunday breakfast/brunch dish. I prepare all the ingredients beforehand and then scramble the eggs as we are sitting down to eat. Toast or heated flatbreads should be served on the side. I like to use the asafetida as it gives a truffle-like aroma, but you could leave it out if you wish. You may have this with slices of French or Italian bread, with toast, or with any of the three Indian breads in this book.

Here is a dish much beloved by my husband and children. Medium-sized clams may be substituted for the mussels. You may serve this as a first course, as the main course, or as a light lunch with a salad. Indians eat this curry with rice, but you may serve the mussels by themselves in individual bowls.

Goa, on India’s west coast, is tropical, by the sea, and a haven for tourists from Israel, Germany, the United Kingdom, and, indeed, the entire affluent world, which cannot get enough of its easy ways, its sun and sand. Some of the best food in Goa is not in its expensive resorts but in thatched shacks right on the sea. The fish is always fresh, and usually nothing can beat the fiery shrimp (called prawns here) curry, served with a mound of short-grained local rice. Serve with Plain Jasmine Rice and a green or salad of your choice.

Make this curry as fiery hot as you like. That is how it is preferred in many parts of South India. This dish is generally served with plain rice or with the thin, fresh rice noodles known as idiappam. I have given a method of preparing dried rice sticks, sold in Thai and Vietnamese markets, on page 224 (see Thin Rice Noodles). They are the closest to the Indian noodles. I have also been known to serve this curry over thin spaghettini or angel-hair pasta.

Here is a quick stir-fry that you might serve with Plain Jasmine Rice and Corn with Aromatic Seasonings.

Some version of this fish curry is eaten all along India’s long coastline. I like to make it with fillets (with skin) of Spanish mackerel, but any mackerel or kingfish, indeed, any fish that does not flake too easily, will do. This cooks quickly and easily. This dish is perfect with rice. Add a green vegetable and a salad as well.

I used a thick fillet of wild sea bass with skin here, cut into 3-inch segments. Use whatever fish looks good and fresh—haddock, halibut, salmon (steaks or thick fillet pieces), kingfish steaks, or even mackerel pieces. This is a creamy curry best eaten with rice. In Kerala it looks red from all the hot chili powder in it, but I have softened the heat with some paprika, which helps with the color. Serve with Plain Jasmine Rice and South Indian–Style Green Beans.

I used to make this dish with fillets of halibut until the cost, at least in New York, made me look at other fish. Now I use cod or hake. They both flake a bit more but still manage to hold their shape. Salting them ahead of time helps hold them together. I like to use fresh tomatoes even if they are out of season, as they are gentler in flavor. I grate the tomatoes on the coarsest part of a four-sided grater (see method on page 289), which removes the skin but keeps the seeds. Four medium tomatoes will yield roughly 1 3/4 cups of fresh puree, about what you need here. Light and lovely, this dish is best served with rice. I like to add a dal and perhaps a green, leafy vegetable.

You can use almost any fish steaks here—salmon, kingfish, cod, haddock, swordfish, salmon, trout, pomfret, pompano, or tilefish—depending on the part of the world you live in. Instead of having to look for ajowan seeds (use 1/4 teaspoon, if you can get them), you can use dried thyme, which has the same flavor. When using the blender here, make sure you put the chopped red pepper in first, as that will provide the liquid needed to make a paste. If your blender remains stubborn, add a tablespoon or two of water. You could serve this with Zucchini and Yellow Summer Squash with Cumin, and Bulgar Pilaf with Peas and Tomato.

In India we frequently use a paste of ground mustard seeds. I have simplified matters here and used already-prepared Dijon mustard instead. You could serve this with Basmati Rice with Lentils and South Indian–Style Green Beans.

Somewhere between the famous Mulligatawny Soup of the mixed-race Anglo-Indians and the soupy lentil-tomato-pasta dish, dal dholki, of the vegetarians of the western state of Gujarat, lies this soup. It is made with red lentils and tomatoes and may be served with a dollop of plain white rice or with some cooked pasta (pappardelle, noodles, macaroni) added to the soup just before it is heated for serving. This soup, plus a salad, makes for a perfect lunch or supper. There are three simple steps to follow here. First you boil up the lentils. As they cook, you sauté the seasonings. Then you combine the two and blend them.

I make this a lot when tomatoes are in season. It makes for a simple, nutritious lunch or first course.

This has always been a favorite soup of mine. I made it very recently with the last of the bell peppers on my plants. The leaves had shriveled already, but the peppers were still hanging on. It was such a cold, damp day that I decided to add some warming ginger to the soup for added comfort.

Here is a soup that is perfect for cold winter days, the ginger in it providing lasting warmth. The ginger also helps if you have a cold and acts as a stabilizer for those who suffer from travel sickness. Apart from all its health-giving properties (which Indians always have in the back of their heads), this is a delicious soup that can be served at any meal.

Gujaratis in western India do not actually drink soups as such. They do have many soupy dishes, which are meant to be eaten with flatbreads, rice, or spongy, savory, steamed cakes known as dhoklas. Here is one such dish. It makes for a gorgeous soup. I serve it with a little dollop of cream and a light sprinkling of ground roasted cumin (page 284), though these are not at all essential. In the summer months, I make my own tomato puree and use that to make the soup. Store-bought puree is perfectly good too. In Gujarat a similar dish is served with homemade noodles in it. It is known as dal dhokli. I sometimes throw small quantities of cooked pasta bow ties or even macaroni into the soup.

Here is a soup of colonial, British-Indian origin, born in the early days of the Raj and a favorite among the dwindling mixed-race Anglo-Indian community of India. All the ingredients and seasonings are completely Indian. It is just the way it is served (in a soup plate) and eaten (with a soup spoon) that is British. This soup may be served at the start of a meal, but it may also be offered as the main course for a Sunday lunch, the way the Anglo-Indians do. At such times, plain rice is served on the side, with diners adding as much as is desired to their soup plates, a little at a time so as not to solidify the soup in one go. I like to give my guests individual bowls of rice so that a single large bowl of rice does not have to move around the table like a whirling dervish.

The French drop a dollop of spicy, garlicky rouille in the center of fish soups. It perks them up. Well, this is its Indian incarnation, a quick version of the southern Yogurt Rice, perfect for placing in the center of not only the preceding Cold Cucumber Soup, but all manner of bean and split pea soups. I like to serve the soups in old-fashioned soup plates, which are shallower than soup bowls. This way the dollop of garnish stands up and is not drowned.