South Asian

This is such a soothing rice dish—slightly sweet and salty, with just a hint of black pepper. (Do not eat the peppercorns. Push them to the side of your plate. They are just for flavoring.) As the dish is South Indian, I have made it with jasmine rice, which is closer in texture to the shorter-grained rices commonly found in that region. I love to serve this with northern lamb and chicken curries, thus breaking tradition and combining north and south in an exciting new way.

One of the oldest Indian dishes and continuously popular these thousands of years is khichri, a dish of rice and split peas. (Starting around the Raj period, the British began to serve a version of khichri in their country homes for breakast: they removed the dal, added fish, and called it kedgeree.) There are two general versions of it: one is dry, like well-cooked rice, where each grain is separate, and the other is wet, like a porridge. Both are delicious. The first is more elegant, the second more soothing. This is the first, the dry version. Serve it like rice, with all manner of curries.

I have only eaten this slightly sweet and slightly sour dish in Gujarat, and how good it was, too. It isn’t just corn grains that are cooked in the dal but the cob itself, lopped off into reasonably sized rounds. The woody part of the cob flavors the dal in mysterious ways. You just cannot pick up these corn pieces with Western cutlery. Hands are required to eat the corn off the dal-and-spice-flavored cob sections. If you cannot find toor dal (also labeled toovar dal and arhar dal), use any other split peas that you can find easily, such as red lentils or yellow split peas. Just remember that red lentils cook faster than toor dal. This dal is put into individual serving bowls and served with rice or Indian flatbreads. A selection of other vegetables and relishes are also included in vegetarian meals. Non-vegetarians might add fish or chicken.

The Indian split peas, arhar dal and toovar (or toor) dal, are closely related. Both are the hulled and split descendants of the pigeon pea. Arhar, the North Indian version, is milder in flavor, whereas toovar, used in West and South India, tends to be darker and earthier. Use whichever you can find. If you cannot find either, use yellow split peas. Serve with rice or Indian flatbreads. Add a vegetable and relishes to complete the meal. Non-vegetarians may add meat or fish, if they like.

Basmati rice is easy to cook if you follow these simple directions: Buy good-quality rice with unbroken grains. The rice should have a pronounced basmati odor. Wash, soak, and drain the rice. Cook it with a light hand without heavy-handed stirring, as the grains can break easily. This could be an everyday rice when served with a simple dal, vegetable, and relish, or a party rice if served with a fish or meat curry.

This is a Bengali specialty that requires that the moong dal (hulled and split mung beans) be lightly roasted first and then, when the dal is almost done, quick-cooking greens such as mustard greens, spinach, or green chard are added to make it more nourishing. There are several tiny steps required here, but each is simplicity itself. I find that most split peas and beans are so clean these days that they need no picking over. You do need to rinse them off. In the case of this recipe, the rinsing is done after the roasting, for obvious reasons. Bengalis might use mustard oil for the final seasoning. It complements the mustard greens and adds its own unique flavor. But since it is frowned upon by Western food authorities for the harmful acids it contains, I have started using extra virgin olive oil instead, another strong flavor, though a different one. For many peasants, such a dal, served with rice and perhaps followed by a yogurt dessert, makes for a rich, ample meal. You may add a fish dish.

Our family can eat this every single day of the week. It is my soul food. I love this with Plain Basmati Rice and any vegetable I feel like that day. I also love to add Lemony Ground Lamb with Mint and Cilantro.

Red lentils, sold in Indian shops as skinless masoor dal and in some places as Egyptian red lentils, usually come in various shades of salmon pink. They originated in the Middle East but came into India quite early and are eaten throughout North India. This particular dish may be served with most Indian meals. It also happens to be particularly scrumptious over a pasta such as penne or fusilli.

This delicious dal curry may also be made with moong dal or an equal mixture of red lentils, masoor dal, and moong dal. Serve with rice and fish.

An everyday dal to be served with rice, vegetables, and curries. (In Bangladesh, the curry would often be made with fish.)

For vegetarians, these refreshing lentils, accompanied perhaps by Yogurt Relish with Okra and a bread, Indian or crusty Western, could make an entire meal. For non-vegetarians, meats or fish curries may be added.

There was a time when the easy-to-use canned chickpeas came in such a tin-tasting liquid that they needed not only draining but rinsing as well. The liquid was unusable. Lately, I have found canned organic chickpeas that are in a lovely natural liquid, quite similar to what I get when I boil my own. This is a giant leap, indeed. Look for them. The chickpeas may be served with Indian flatbreads or rice. Eggplants, greens, and relishes would complete the meal. Meats may always be added.

I use cremini mushrooms here since they are very firm, but ordinary white mushrooms will do as well. You may add finely chopped fresh green chilies (1–2 teaspoons) toward the end of the cooking, as many Indians do, if you want the dish to be hotter. This may be served at a meal but also makes a wonderful snack as a “wrap” if rolled inside any flatbread. Thinly sliced onions, cilantro, and chopped tomatoes may be rolled inside too. Any chutney from this book or good-quality store-bought salsa could be used instead of the onion-cilantro-tomato mixture.

Here is an everyday dish with a fair number of ingredients. Once you have them all prepared and assembled, the rest is fairly easy. Remember that you can chop the onions in a food processor. I have used two 15-ounce cans of organic chickpeas, draining them to separate the liquid so I can measure it. If you are not using organic canned chickpeas, use water instead of the can liquid. If the can liquid is not enough, add water to get the correct amount. Serve with Indian or Middle Eastern breads (you can even roll up the chickpeas inside them) with Yogurt Sambol with Tomato and Shallot, page 249, on the side. At a dinner, add meat and a vegetable.

In India, dried beans and peas may be combined with almost any vegetable. Here, I use either pumpkin or butternut squash. It gives a mellow sweetness to the dish. In India, this would be eaten with whole-wheat flatbreads, yogurt relishes, salads, and pickles. For a Western meal, the beans may be served with a sliced baguette as a first course or with roast pork or roast lamb.

Known as a vegetable kurma in the Tamil Nadu region, there are hundreds of versions of this dish throughout southeastern India. Its basic premise is very simple: you parboil diced vegetables—two vegetables or ten, whatever is in season—drain them, and then dress them with a coconut-yogurt mixture seasoned with spices such as mustard seeds and whole dried chilies. All vegetables are fair game—eggplants, zucchini, squashes, peas, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, pumpkins.… The motto of this dish seems to be “What have you got? I can use it.” It is also quite delicious. Grated fresh coconut is now sold in a frozen form at most South and Southeast Asian stores. If you wish to use unsweetened, desiccated coconut instead, soak 2 1/2 tablespoons in warm water to barely cover, let that sit for an hour, and then proceed with the recipe. In the South it is generally eaten at room temperature—balmy—with rice and legumes, but I often serve it in the summer, when my garden is at its most productive, as a salad/ vegetable dish that accompanies Indian or Western meats.

Sometimes when I am in a rush and still longing for an Indian dal, I take the simple way out and use canned beans—black, great northern, cannellini, or any other beans I like. Today we can get organic canned beans of excellent quality, and it barely takes 15 minutes to cook them. Even the liquid in the can tastes good, so I do not have to throw it away. Serve these with rice or Indian flatbreads.

Here is a dish that takes about 10 minutes to prepare. It is ideally made when tomatoes are in season, but even second-rate, out-of-season tomatoes are given a new life by this very Gujarati mixture of seasonings. It may be served at a meal with rice, a bean or split-pea dish, vegetables, and relishes. I also love a meal of this curry, Shrimp Biryani, and Spinach with Garlic and Cumin. If you are cooking Western-style grilled pork chops or chicken pieces, just slather this over the top. The combination is marvelous.

Here is how my family in India prepared our everyday summer squash. It was utterly simple and utterly good. The squash itself was different, shaped liked a bowling pin and slightly curled up, but the taste and texture were similar. I like to use yellow squash and zucchini together, but you could use just one or the other. This dish may be served hot at most Indian meals, and cold as a salad.

I have not measured out the spices in this recipe, since all you do is sprinkle them over the top. A little more, a little less hardly makes any difference. Serve this with curries or grilled or baked meats.

I make this curry through the summer, whenever tomatoes overrun the vegetable garden, and then freeze some to last me through the winter. This may be served as a vegetarian curry at an Indian meal or as a gloppy, spicy sauce to ladle over hamburgers, grilled fish, and baked or boiled potatoes.

This is a Delhi/Uttar Pradesh–style dish. I like to use very small, waxy potatoes, each cut in half. If they are larger, you will just have to dice them. The potatoes hold together best if you boil them whole and let them cool at room temperature before you peel and cut them. We generally serve this curry with Indian flatbreads or with the puffed-up pooris. Pickles and chutneys are served alongside. This combination is very popular in North India for breakfast. Sips of hot milky tea ease the spicy potatoes down nicely.

This belongs to a category of Bangladeshi foods known as bharats. Part relish and part vegetable dish, they add extra flavor to a meal. We are beginning to find peeled and seeded butternut squash in our supermarkets now, making this dish a snap to make. Those who cannot find it will need to use a peeler to get the skin off. I like to use mustard oil here, as it gives a very Bengali taste to the dish. If you have never used it, this might be a good time to try. Otherwise, use olive oil. I love this with all pork dishes and at vegetarian meals with other vegetables, dal, and pooris (a deep-fried flatbread).

This is a quick stir-fry, and could be served with most Indian meals.