persiflage

Bharti Kirchner's Healthy Cuisine of India is my favourite everyday cookbook. Her Bengali recipes are simple to prepare in under an hour and she often suggests complementary side dishes. Maya Kaimal's second book, Savoring the Spice Coast of India, is a pretty book but also a useful one. Every recipe I've made from this book has been a hit. Yamuna Devi's book has a lot of useful information on technique and ingredients. While some recipes are time consuming, others are really quick once you have picked up basic technique. My favourite recipe for sauteed cauliflower and green peas. Come home with whatever's freshest and use the index to find a good recipe. Dakshin is available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. The pictures are helpful, but some vegetables are referred to by curious names and never pictured whole or explained. Living in NYC, I am sure I can buy ash gourd or silk squash or drumstick somewhere, but I have no idea what these vegetables look like whole. (There's a whole perplexing genre of gourds and squashes... Ridged gourd, bottle gourd, snake gourd, etc) Healthy South Indian Cooking (Vairavan/Marquardt) is not a pretty book, but it has a surprising number of good, quick South Indian recipes. I often use the pachadi/poriyal/kulambu recipes with various vegetables and dals to turn out quick, tasty dishes. This is not a palaver type book where you will end up with six carefully arranged bowls of spices to deploy at various stages of preparation. I found a very tasty recipe for spinach and yogurt curry (cheera thayir) from Das Sreedharan posted on the web. But I think his book The New Tastes of India is only in the UK. Has anyone tried it? And of course I will add Suvir's book when it comes out....

For good vegetarian recipes with mostly mild spicing, try Bharti Kirchner's Healthy Cuisine of India. This book is full of Bengali-inspired dishes that rely on fragrant spices like bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, cloves and cardamon. The author gives the recipes twee names, but lots of recipes in this book have become stand-bys. Particular favourites include: Bhuni Kichuri (rice with toasted split mung dal and fragrant spices) Kumror Ghanto (squash with mustard sauce) Bandhakopir korma (Cabbage and potatoes in yogurt-onion gravy) Dahi rice (rice with yogurt and ginger) Mater alu dalna (potatoes and peas) Another good book is Yamuna Devi's Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking. Recipes are often prefaced by curious anecdotes about guru Srila Prabhupada, such as "This salad was a constant on my breakfast menus for Srila Prabhupada. He taught it to me in 1967 and commented that ginger root for breakfast aided his digestion all day. Eight years later, when I forgot to soak the chickpeas one day and had to omit the dish, he again reminded me how important this 'digestive' breakfast salad was for his health." Nonetheless, this is the sort of book where you can look up the vegetables you've got on hand in the index and whack out a tasty dish in no time. It has good sections on dals and panir, which provide an important source of protein. I don't use commerical curry powers. The manufacturers tend to substitute chilies for more expensive spices. You can make your own very easily with basic spices and a grinder. They'll taste fresher and you can control the level of heat to your liking.

No, not South Indian. Just like to tinker with recipes. I add fried urad and channa dal to lots of things because I like the crunchy taste. My favourite thing to do with fried dal lately is this simple salad. Carrot-Radish salad Peel and grate 5 carrots and about a quarter of a medium-sized mooli (white daikon radish, about 1lb). Salt about 1/4 tsp and leave to mingle. Heat 2 tbsp mustard oil over high heat. Sizzle 1/4 tsp hing, and then brown 2-3 tsp mixed split urad and channa dal. When dal is golden brown, toss in 1 tbsp mustard seeds and some crumbled dried red chili. When mustard seeds pop, remove from heat and throw in 3 tbsp chopped coriander leaves. Quickly wilt coriander and then pour sizzling on top of grated carrots. Add lemon juice to taste (about one small lemon). Mix well. Chill for 15 minutes and serve. Variations: subsitute chopped green chili for crumbled red chili, or use both. Throw in chopped ginger and green chili. Try using crushed black pepper for heat instead. Substitute 1 tsp cumin seeds for mustard seeds. Brown a spoonful of sugar in the oil and add lime juice instead of lemon. Or throw in a couple curry leaves. (I know you're supposed to accompany the radish with ajwain, but there's an aggressive pong about ajwain I don't much care for.) I make this every few days from whatever odds and ends of herbs and spices are left over from the main dish. It goes nicely with dal and (what else?) tomato chutney.

I made a quarter batch with the addition of adding a tablespoon of urad and channa dal during the frying bit. The fried dal then cooked in with the chutney, adding texture with the mustard seeds. Don't know how well the dal would store long term with home canning, but it was nice for a quick batch. Thanks for a great recipe, Suvir.