Vegetable Upma earns its place in my kitchen mostly because of mornings when I have not planned anything and need something real on the table fast. It is not a …

Crisp Fried Crab Claws found their way into my regular rotation because of a craving I could not quite shake after eating something similar at a small Thai restaurant years …

Mango Pulissery is one of those Kerala dishes I made badly at least three or four times before I got it right. My early attempts were always too sour or …

Rajasthani Mutton Curry came into my regular cooking because of a craving I could not place at first. It was not quite the spicy mutton curries I grew up eating, …

Shrimp with Tomato Sauce is one of those recipes I come back to precisely because it asks very little of me. On days when the fridge has shrimps, a few …

Every September, my neighbour Nirali stops buying onions. Not because she’s run out, and not because prices have spiked. Paryushan has begun, and for eight days her kitchen runs on …

Paneer Pulao did not come easily to me. The first time I made it, I skipped the cornflour in the paneer mixture because I thought it was unnecessary, and the …

Apple and Apricot Cake became a small point of contention in my household, and it started with a very simple question: do you add the apricots whole or chopped? My …

Russian Salad has a way of creeping back into my cooking rotation every few weeks, usually when I find myself craving something cold, filling, and a little bit special without …

Salmon and Avocado Salad was not something I grew up eating, but it has quietly become one of my most-cooked weeknight meals over the last few years. My husband thinks …

Mangalore Spicy Drumsticks came into my life through a colleague from Udupi who brought a tiffin box of this to office one afternoon, warm inside its steel container, smelling of …

Qorma Shahi entered my regular cooking rotation because my brother-in-law asked for it before a family dinner and I had never actually made it before. I said yes, obviously, and …

Sri Lankan Chicken Curry is one of those recipes I kept circling back to during a particular patch of winter a few years ago, when I was craving something with …

There is a particular kind of evening everyone knows. The kind where the day has gone sideways, the traffic took an hour longer than it should have, and by the …

Malaysian Chicken Satay Skewers started as a craving I could not quite shake after eating a plate of them at a small Malaysian stall during a trip years ago. That …

Papeta ma Gosh is the recipe my neighbour Ruksana asked me to write down after she tasted it at a small gathering I hosted last winter. She kept saying there …

Ginger Cookies were not something I planned to make regularly. My nephew had come to stay for a week, and somewhere around day three he mentioned, very casually, that he …

Chicken and Sweet Corn Fried Rice came into my regular rotation because my husband started requesting it every time we had leftover rice sitting in the fridge. He is not …

Dry Fish Pickle came into my regular rotation because of a specific and persistent request from my husband, who grew up eating something similar at his aunt’s table in Kerala. …

Coriander Chicken Curry was one of the first dishes I got badly wrong before I got it right. The first time I made it, I added the green paste too …

Peshwari Naan is one of those recipes I kept coming back to just because I could not stop thinking about the filling. There is something about that coarse grind of …