Cooking with Indian Spicebox

Namita Moolani Mehra

Description

Cooking with Indian Spicebox features recipes, stories and tips for making Indian cooking both fun and easy. The book emphasizes enjoying flavorful food with friends, family, and loved ones. Grouped into modern lifestyle and entertaining-based menus such as how to throw a fabulous Chai party, having friends over for a spiced-up brunch, tapas-style Chaat parties, impressive dinner menus, healthy weeknight cooking for the family, and even a chapter featuring kid-friendly recipes, the focus is on good food and great times together! Filled with gorgeous full-color photos and featuring more than 30 go-to recipes, Cooking with Indian Spicebox is the perfect kitchen companion for Indian food fans ranging from experienced home cooks, to more casual cooks and even those too scared to boil rice. These are not recipes that require sweating over a curry for hours, and this is certainly not your typical Indian cookbook! A perfect addition to your cookbook collection and an impressive gift for a foodie friend.

Sujets

• Cuisine
• Cuisine du monde
• Cuisine d'Asie
• Ethnic Cooking
• Regional cooking
• South Asian
• Cooking
• Indian
• Cuisine d'Europe
• Cuisine d'Europe

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 04 décembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789810930646
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

eISBN: 978-981-09-3064-6
People don’t think of Indian foodas something you can easily make at home...
The general impression is that Indian cooking is too complicated and time-consuming.Indian food also has the unfortunate reputation of being unhealthy, heavy, and overlyspicy. Namita wanted to change these preconceptions when she started the IndianSpicebox page on Facebook in February 2010. The page gained speed and started a globalconversation about homemade Indian food, favorite dishes and recipes, the benefits ofspices, and the deep connection between food and the Indian culture. Since its inception,the Indian Spicebox community has grown to well over 50,000 fans.
In this, her first book, Cooking with Indian Spicebox, Namita shares her stories and tips for making Indian cooking both fun and easy.
She emphasizes enjoying flavorful food with friends, family, and loved ones. Grouped intomodern lifestyle and entertaining-based menus including how to throw a fabulous chai party, having friends over for a spiced-up brunch, tapas-style chaat parties, impressive dinner menus, healthy weeknight cooking for the family, and even a chapter featuringkid-friendly recipes, it’s ultimately all about good food and good times together!
Filled with gorgeous full-color photos and featuring thirty go-to recipes that Namita hasbeen feeding to many a happy belly for more than fifteen years, Cooking with Indian Spicebox is the perfect kitchen companion for Indian food fans—from experienced homecooks, to more casual cooks, and even those too scared to boil rice. These are not recipesthat require sweating over a curry for hours, and this is certainly not your typical Indiancookbook.
Join the Indian Spicebox community!www.facebook.com/indianspiceboxwww.indian-spicebox.com
Thanks to our partnership with Food for Life Vrindavan, with each book purchased, we areable to feed five street children in India a nutritious, hot meal.
cooking with

by Namita Moolani Mehra
Cooking with
Indian Spicebox
Copyright © 2014 by Namita Moolani Mehra
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced inany form without written permission from the author.
First Edition. Published October 2014.
eISBN: 978-981-09-3064-6
National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing- in -Publication DataNamita, Moolani Mehra, 1978 –
Cooking with Indian Spicebox / by Namita Moolani Mehra;
photography: Collin Patrick. Editor, Lisa Gordanier.
Singapore: Namita Moolani Mehra, [2014].
pages cmeISBN: 978-981-09-3064-6
1. Cooking, Indic. 2. Quick and easy cooking. I. Gordanier, Lisa, editor.
II. Patrick, Collin, photographer. III. Title.
TX724.5.I4
641.5954 — dc23
OCN890772682
Typeset and Printed by SC (Sang Choy) International Pte. Ltd.Designed by Allan Tay, Gordon Ling and Charissa HoFood Styling by Biona Boon
Printed in Singapore
www.indian-spicebox.com
www.facebook.com/indianspicebox
7
Mom
Pranay
Dedicated to
and my husband

Contents
Thanks!
My Story
Introduction
Getting It Right
Meet the Masalas
How to Throw a Fabulous Chai Party, Darling!
Weeknight Staples
Bring on the Chutneys—It’s Time for Chaat!
Come on Over for a Spiced-Up Brunch, Baby!
Beyond Bland for Kids
Dinner Party
Index
11
12
14
17
21
27
39
55
69
81
91
114

Thanks!
A big thanks to my awesome design team ledby Allan Tay and Gordon Ling, who helped bringthe Indian Spicebox brand to life. Collin Patrickphotographed all the food in this book—so youcan thank (or curse) him for making you feelhungry every time you flip through the pages.Incredible food stylist Biona Boon does magicalthings with props and food. A special shout-outto my sister, Samita Moolani; my cousin-in-law,Mitali Mehra; and gal pal Deepa Devnani for theirincredible support before and during the shoot;they even tested recipes.
The rest of my recipe testers include LeanderCoutinho, Radha Gupta, Gaurav Katyal, DhruvMehra, Nayantara Parpia, Devika Rao, GayatriSingh, and Jyoti Taparia. .. Many thanks to youguys for making sure the recipes were foolproofand airtight. I also want to thank Jocely Carreon,who tirelessly looks after my home and son,giving me the time and freedom to pursuemy passion. And I offer a bow of the head and namaste  to Tracy Hutton, my wise and wonderfulprofessional coach.
And last but not least, a huge thanks to allof you Indian Spicebox fans, friends, formercolleagues, and clients for cheering me on.You know who you are, and your support andwell wishes have gotten me farther than I couldever have imagined.
I owe my mom massive amounts of gratitude forevery single bit of culinary expertise I possess.Thanks, Mom, for always being there for us andfilling us up with food and love whenever we neededit. I owe infinite gratitude to my husband, Pranay,and his ever-growling belly for inspiring me tocook more than I would have ever really liked to.The man’s cravings would put a pregnant womanto shame. I love you, baby. To the best thing I evercooked (in my belly), my baby boy, Shivum, whoalready holds the honor of being my new cookingmuse. I want to warmly thank and acknowledge mydad, sister, mom-in-law, and dad-in-law for beinggreatly supportive of this venture. And a big hug tothe rest of my Moolani and Mehra families—thanksfor the blessings.
I especially want to acknowledge both Nani andGranny, who were phenomenal cooks and greatinspirations to me in the kitchen. They taught meso much about cooking and serving food with deeplove, for the ones you love. I remember their foodfondly and miss them greatly.
Writing a cookbook was a lot harder than I everimagined, and I have to thank my amazing, prompt,and patient editor, Lisa Gordanier, who took myrecipes from good to great. Lisa is an incrediblyexperienced and knowledgeable cookbook editor,and I have learned a ton along the way.
11
My Story
I’m not a chef. I’m not even going to pretend I’m aprofessional cook. What I am is someone fortunateenough to be born Indian. This means I magicallyinherit cooking skills of generations of women beforeme, and that spices run in my veins. I wish! In reality,I inherit a passion for good food, for eating, forflavors, and for perfectly balanced spices. As withmany other nations and cultures, Indians make foodthat is synonymous with all things good—family,blessings, togetherness, warm childhood memories,and celebration. We live to eat and certainly can’tsurvive too long without our homemade anddelicious food that’s always eaten together, sharedaround the table family-style.
Life for me began in a remote village in Nigeria,where our neighbors raised chickens and we raninto the occasional python problem. In this tight-knitexpat community of Indians, there were plenty ofsocial gatherings and potluck dinners. This is wheremy mom developed her passion for feeding others.When we moved to a small town in Somerset,England, in 1984 (I was four), there wasn’t anotherIndian family to be seen for miles. Before she knewit, Mom was in high demand with new friends,neighbors, and colleagues for her tandoori chicken,
aloo tikki,   and   pakoras.   These dishes remain my go-tos when I have to entertain and impress. At anearly age, Mom instilled in me a deep love for foodand feeding.
After seven years in England and countless hourshanging out with Mom in the kitchen, carefullywatching, learning, and assisting (in the form ofskinning chickens, kneading dough for Indian bread,rolling meatballs, and other such kid -friendly kitchenactivities), we moved to India. I was eleven years old.
The Indian cultural scene was different from theUK—more social and outdoorsy. At the same time,I was buried in crazy amounts of schoolwork andwas approaching my terrible teens. While I shouldhave been in the kitchen absorbing the show thatwas my grandmom’s and mom’s cooking,I was busy hanging out with friends, studying, andwatching Bollywood movies. So unfortunately, thereare no ancient manuscripts here and no preciousGrandmom’s words of wisdom on delicatelybalancing flavors and perfecting various techniques.What you have instead is the outcome of a greaturgency where, the minute I was accepted by auniversity in a land far away from the comfort ofmy mom’s kitchen, I was frantically scribbling downrecipes in a random notebook and taking a crashcourse on Indian cooking. It was tough leavinghome and all the things I took for granted. I leftwith a heavy heart, a pressure cooker, my recipescribbles, and a curated selection of carefully sealed
12
spice baggies. I started cooking on my own outof desperate human need. There I was, in freezingEvanston, Illinois, starving and studying my buns off.I had only been in the United States a few months,but I couldn’t bear to eat any more disgusting(though affordable) microwavable meals andtasteless cafeteria food. Fresh off the boat, I learnedthat most food outside of India was too bland for mycurried-up palate—and greasy Indian restaurant foodoften left me with an ache (literally!) for the healthy,hearty food I grew up on.
I missed the comfort and goodness of yummy homefood, but initially I was too scared to venture intothe kitchen because Mom wasn’t around to showme the ropes. Luckily, the time I had spent in Mom’skitchen during my childhood gave me a generalsense of knowing what to do—but I was certainly noexpert. In fact, at first my cooking was pretty bad. Iwas armed with the colorful spices and shiny  masala dabba  (traditional stainless steel Indian spicebox),but I was overzealous with the spices, used way toomuch oil in my cooking, and either undercookedor overcooked things. The good thing is that therewas definitely an unconscious absorption of Mom’scooking that guided me with an invisible hand—andin the end, practice really does make perfect.
It was especially after I got married a few years laterthat my act kicked into high gear in the kitchen.My husband, who moved down the street frommy house when I was sixteen, loves his homemade
Indian food. Aft