Caramel Custard takes me straight back to the school tuck shop where I first had it — served cold in a small steel bowl, wobbling slightly as it was set …

Vegetable Paneer Kabab earns a regular spot in my kitchen because it solves a specific problem: what to do with the half cup of boiled carrots, beans, and peas that …

Murgh Badam Pasanda came into regular rotation in my kitchen because of my sister-in-law. She had eaten it at a wedding years ago and kept describing it as “that almond …

There is a particular kind of silence that falls over an Indian home the morning after a wedding or a Diwali party. It is the silence of someone standing in …

The smell hits you before you even walk into the kitchen. Ghee sizzling with cumin, a faint nuttiness from roasting kuttu ka atta, the particular sweetness of sabudana pearls turning …

Ratatouille Tart was not something I got right the first time. My earliest attempt was a cautionary tale: I skipped the pre-roasting step because I thought the oven would handle …

Fish in Methi and Garlic is one of those recipes I make when I want something that feels like a proper cooked meal without spending the whole evening in the …

Jackfruit Elayappam came into my life during a Kerala home stay I stumbled into years ago, somewhere outside Thrissur, when the family I was staying with decided a rainy afternoon …

Spicy Leg of Lamb is one of those recipes my husband and I have argued about more than once. He insists his mother’s version needs no tomato at all, just …

Bhopali Gosht Korma came into my regular rotation because my husband kept requesting it before every dinner gathering we hosted. He had eaten a version of it at a relative’s …

Coriander Paneer came into my life during a particularly chaotic college farewell dinner that a friend decided to cook entirely by instinct. She ground the coriander paste without measuring anything, …

Picture a typical morning in a South Indian kitchen. The stove hisses, milk simmers in a heavy-bottomed vessel, and somewhere close by, someone is pouring coffee decoction back and forth …

In Mumbai, the govinda troupes have been practising for weeks, stacking themselves four and five humans high in a park at dusk, working out who goes on top. In Vrindavan, …

The kitchen goes quiet an hour before midnight, and that’s usually when you smell it: roasted coriander seeds and ghee, somewhere between a temple and a home. Someone’s mother is …

Seafood Risotto is one of those recipes I return to whenever I want something that feels genuinely good without requiring a full afternoon in the kitchen. I first made this …

Chicken in Wine Sauce became a regular in my kitchen because of my husband. He is not someone who asks for the same thing twice, so when he came back …

Vegetable Dosa has been on my breakfast table more times than I can count, mostly because my younger nephew decided a few years ago that plain dosa was boring. He …

Capsicum and Peanut Curry came into my regular cooking through a photocopied recipe a colleague gave me years ago, scribbled with margin notes about how much tamarind to use and …

The first sign of jamun season was never the fruit itself. It was your tongue. You’d come home from the terrace or the school ground with a mouth stained deep …

The lipid panel came back a shade past normal, and your doctor said the word every Indian household dreads: cholesterol. Somewhere in the back of your mind, a chorus of …

Every June, my grandmother’s terrace in Chennai turned into a pickling ground. Mangoes lay in neat rows on old cotton sarees, drying in the sun until their skins wrinkled just …