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 …

Paneer with Spinach is the dish my mother used to make on Sundays when we had time to stand at the stove and stir the spinach until it thickened properly. …

Achari Murgh Kabab came into my rotation after a visit to a roadside dhaba near Amritsar, where the cook was threading marinated chicken onto skewers over a charcoal pit. The …

There is a particular kind of silence that falls over an Indian dinner table the moment a child spots methi in their sabzi. It is not a loud silence. It …

Thai Sweet Dumplings first caught my attention at a street market in Chennai, oddly enough, where a vendor was selling Southeast Asian sweets alongside traditional Indian snacks. I bought one …

Corn and Peas Curry showed up in my kitchen about five years ago when I was trying to use up frozen corn cobs that had been sitting in the freezer …

Kalakand is the first Indian sweet I learned to make without feeling nervous about timing or temperature. My aunt used to bring a box of it whenever she visited, and …

Ravi Poli came into my kitchen through my neighbor, who brought over a stack wrapped in foil one afternoon. She had made them for a family gathering and thought I …

Sesame Burger became a regular in my kitchen after a particularly disastrous attempt at store-bought veggie patties that fell apart the moment they hit the pan. I was frustrated and …

Somewhere in the back of most Indian kitchen drawers, wrapped in foil inside an old Horlicks tin or tucked into a steel dabba that has held nothing else for thirty …

Chara Sandheko (Cold Pickled Chicken) is one of those dishes I started making after a friend from Darjeeling brought a jar to a potluck and I could not stop eating …

There is a moment, just after you drop a handful of mustard seeds into hot oil, when the kitchen comes alive. The pop and crackle, the sudden cloud of sharp, …

Somewhere between the third song at the sangeet and that final round someone insisted on “just for the road,” you made a decision your body is currently very unhappy about. …

It is the kind of Chennai afternoon that makes the tar on the road go soft, and there is a man on the corner with green coconuts stacked higher than …

Key Highlights Mallika Badrinath kitchen tips focus on smarter and more organised home cooking methods. Traditional storage ideas help keep pantry ingredients fresh for longer periods. Popular dishes like dosa, …

Sweet Potato Quesadillas came into my rotation during a week when I had too many sweet potatoes and not enough patience for elaborate cooking. I grated them instead of cubing, …

Picture a Tuesday afternoon at 4pm. Your child has just dragged their school bag through the door, shoes still half on, already announcing they’re ‘starving to death’. The lunchbox came …