Kali Mirch - by Smita

Celebrating Passion for Food

Masale Bhaat (Maharashtrian Spicy Rice Preparation)

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Masale Bhaat

This time of the year, monsoon gradually spreads across the India and summer lazily packs its bag and lingers around as if it is in no rush to leave the scene. It is akin to that reluctant kid who has been asked to leave but he just hangs around in case if he would be asked to come back in. However, with the end of summer season it is also the end of wedding season in India. In India when every small task is done within the shubh muhurat (auspicious time to perform a ceremony), every job change, house warming, job interview is done as per shubh muhurat, and then it should be no surprise that every wedding is also fixed for a sacred time. In India there are primarily two seasons for wedding summer and winter.

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Phanasachi Bhaji (Unripe Jackfruit dry masala preparation)

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Phanasachi Bhaji

What happens, when a Konkani visits Kerala for vacation? Well, it is like a home coming which is what I experienced when I took a vacation to Kerala last year. The breath taking beauty of coastlines, canvas of beaches, houses built of laterite stones and the striking resemblance of food items used in the cuisines. The list includes fishes, coconuts and many more food items. However, in today’s blog I would like to discuss about a fruit that is also a vegetable. You must have guessed it by now that I am referring to jackfruit.

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Methi Matar Malai

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Being an Indian my obvious choice of entertainment like millions of other Indians have been cricket and Bollywood. Let me talk about Bollywood here. While growing up national broadcaster Doordarshan was the only source of entertainment, and weekly they used to telecast some Bollywood movie that I would eagerly wait for. Sometimes they would telecast some serious meaningful cinema by directors like Guru Dutt, Shyam Benegal and I was ill-equipped back then to understand their movies and would go to sleep half way through.

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Stir Fry Cabbage with chana dal-Cabbage Upkari

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I love to sleep. In fact my husband is jealous of my sleep, more so when he is prone to even slightest of disturbances like neighbor’s barking dog. I agree barking dog could give many of you sleepless nights especially when other stray dogs decide to join the party and all these canines end up howling and whining entire night for no reason. I do not get disturbed by these unearthly howls and still manage to get sound sleep.

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Kadhai Paneer in Microwave

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Growing up, we all have our personal likes and dislikes regarding food that influence our eating habits. I had developed aversion for lactose in my childhood and I shied away from milk, curd, paneer (cottage cheese), cream and other dairy products. Initially, mom used to cajole me into eating these dairy products, but later she gave up and I ended up not eating these for my entire childhood.

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Lakhnawi Khatti Dal

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India has been predominantly a vegetarian country. As per UN FAO statistics India has lowest rate of meat consumption in world. I have often come across people who are very surprised and wonder how vegetarians fulfill protein requirement of their body. There are actually quite a lot of options for vegetarians (lacto-vegetarians have much more considering dairy products are also a rich source of protein). Beans, lentils, leafy greens, tofu are some examples of protein sources in vegetarian world.

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