Masala Tori (Spiced Ridge Gourd)

I don’t know what tori (or turai) is called in English. A google search throws up ridge gourd. But this gourd is not ridged. It has a dark green, smooth exterior. It obviously belongs to the same family as ridge gourd. For the sake of convenience, I am referring to it as ridge gourd. I…

Oothappam (Rice Pancake)

I posted about various types of dosas yesterday. A variation of the dosa is oothappam, a thick rice pancake. In most South Indian households, there is always a stock of idli/dosa batter available. When this batter turns a little sour, it is time to make an oothappam. I, however, do not leave it to providence….

Pesarattu (Whole Green Gram Crepe)

Dosa, though originating from South India, has become a kind of a national dish now. In South India, there are myriad versions of the basic rice and split black gram dosa. I have already posted a few in my blog. Several more will follow. Last year, I did some research into the breakfast dishes from…

Arachu Kalaki

Arachu Kalaki is a typical Palakkad dish. It requires minimal use of the stove. An ‘almost’ raw dish, it tastes fabulous! I can eat a whole meal of just arachu kalaki and brown rice. When my avidly non-vegetarian German friend, Robert Fuchs, came home for dinner a few years ago, I’d planned this dish. He…

Seppankizhangu Roast (Roasted Colocasia)

In South Indian cooking, several root vegetables are often roasted. This includes potatoes, elephant yam (jimmikhand, chena, senaikizhangu) and colocasia (taro root, arbi, chembu). These are fiery looking dishes, but are actually quite mild in chilli quotient. I love to pair such preparations with a bland main dish such as mulakootal, mulakooshyam or even the…

Killu Pakoda (Pinched Onion Fritters)

As I have had occasion to mention before, most Indian snacks deep fried. This recipe is no exception. The air fried version presented here is as tasty as the deep fried one, but with no guilt associated, I have grown up on this tea-time snack and was missing it sorely when I gave up oil….

Ghia Kofta (Bottlegourd Dumplings)

I love yogurt based dishes, whichever region of the country they come from. However, I avoided the North Indian ones for a couple of decades as the koftas are deep fried. It is only after I turned WFPB vegan that I began experimenting with transforming deep fried food to air fried ones. With singular success,…

Oats Upma

When I turned vegan some years ago, I was told to avoid processed oats like, for example, Quaker Oats. These very knowledgeable people told me to stick to whole oats. I did some research on whole oats and found several varieties. Steel cut, rolled oats… It all left me very confused. So, I decided to…

Potato Cutlet

Since I turned vegan a few years ago, the choices for an evening snack became really restricted. Most Indian snacks are deep fried. That is when I began experimenting how to transform the traditional snacks into whole food plant based. Hari has proved to be a godsend in this regard. No matter what recipe I…

Punjabi Bhendi Masala

One of my summer pleasures (there are several) is bhendi (okra, vendakai). Like the brinjal, this is indeed a versatile vegetable. It is abundantly available in the Indian subcontinent. But I am not sure that this super-tasty vegetable is available in many other parts of the world. Some years ago, I was having dinner with…