The first time I made dal on my own, I seasoned it the way I’d watched my mother do it for twenty years – a quick flick of salt from …

The cork leaves Arjun’s hand with a sound somewhere between a gunshot and a giggle, and for half a second nobody on the terrace breathes. Then the foam comes, racing …

Nobody thinks about their bones until something makes them. For a lot of people that moment arrives quietly: a knee that complains on the stairs, an aunt’s hip replacement after …

Kerala Style Duck Roast has been the subject of a low-grade argument in my household for at least five years. My husband insists his family version uses no coconut milk …

Bhagara Baigan came into my regular rotation because my husband asked for it, specifically. Not a general request for something Hyderabadi or something with brinjal — he asked for this …

Spinach Mushroom Quiche was the first thing my colleague Priya and I genuinely disagreed about in the kitchen. She insisted the crust needed to be blind-baked with weights before the …

Somewhere between October and February, a small hard green fruit shows up on every roadside cart and in every subziwala’s basket across India, and something in the collective memory switches …

Spiced Baby Potato Salad is one of those recipes my husband and I genuinely argue about. He insists that a proper potato salad should use only boiled, peeled potatoes with …

Stuffed Vegetable Paratha came into my regular rotation because of a very specific request. My nephew, who visits most weekends, went through a phase of refusing plain rotis entirely. He …

Rajasthani Bati came into my regular cooking life because my husband kept asking for dal baati whenever we had guests over for Sunday lunch. He grew up eating it in …

Mutton with Potatoes is one of those recipes I kept coming back to not because I planned to, but because the craving would just arrive. Midweek, usually. Something about the …

Corn and Cashew Nut Curry was not something I grew up eating — it came to me sideways, through a Thai-influenced cookbook I picked up at a sale years ago. …

Spaghetti with Eggplant was not something I got right the first time. My earliest attempt ended up soggy and slightly bitter because I skipped the salting step, thinking 30 minutes …

Walk into most Indian homes at dinnertime and you will find a small plate sitting quietly at the edge of the thali. A few rings of onion, a wedge of …

Lunch just got over on a Sunday afternoon, sambar, rice, a quick poriyal, maybe some curd on the side, and the kitchen looks like it survived a small battle. The …

Thai Duck Curry with Tamarind came into my life at a small Thai restaurant in Bengaluru that has since shut down, which makes me glad I asked the owner how …

The first sign that Ganesh Chaturthi has arrived in a home isn’t always the clay idol travelling home on someone’s shoulder, balanced carefully past the potholes. More often, it’s the …

Kheerer Chop has earned its place in my kitchen for one simple reason: it uses up a large quantity of milk in a way that feels genuinely worth the effort. …

Ragi Dosa is one of those recipes I got badly wrong the first time and kept making anyway. My original mistake was treating the batter like regular dosa batter — …

Chapat is one of those recipes my mother-in-law made for special Sunday breakfasts, and I watched her fold each golden pancake into neat quarters before stacking them on a plate. …

Picture a mall food court on a sweltering June evening. The queue at the frozen yoghurt counter is longer than the one for ice cream, and the couple ahead of …