Onion

I make this curry through the summer, whenever tomatoes overrun the vegetable garden, and then freeze some to last me through the winter. This may be served as a vegetarian curry at an Indian meal or as a gloppy, spicy sauce to ladle over hamburgers, grilled fish, and baked or boiled potatoes.

This is a pot roast. It is a specialty of Sri Lanka’s Burgher community, which owes its origins to a happy mixture of European colonialists, mostly Dutch but some Portuguese and English as well, with the local population. Burgher cuisine is a glorious by-product of this union. Here, a simple pot roast has been made wonderfully Sri Lankan with the addition of roasted coriander, cumin, and fennel seeds—the main ingredients in Sri Lankan curry powders—and, of course, coconut milk. Some people add a little simple lime pickle, or tamarind water or vinegar, to give it a tart edge. I have used red wine vinegar. A few simple steps are required here: The spices need to be roasted and ground. Then, after the meat is browned, everything goes into a pot and is braised slowly in the oven. The meat is sliced, and some of its own sauce is ladled over the top. It may then be served with rice, noodles (Sri Lanka has exquisite rice noodles, so Thin Rice Noodles would work), or mashed potatoes, if you prefer.

Here I have taken a Pakistani recipe for stir-fried liver made in the wok-like karhai and changed it just enough so Westerners, who like their liver softer and pinker than South Asians do, may enjoy it too. If you want the Pakistani recipe, after the liver has browned, cut it crossways into 1-inch squares and add these pieces to the onion sauce when it is ready. Continue to stir and cook on low heat until the liver is done to your satisfaction. Serve with rice and a salad or a green vegetable.

Lamb shanks make for some of the best braised meat. The bone and marrow enrich the sauce and the gelatinous nature of the meat nearest the bone gives it a silken texture. In India we braise shanks in dozens of ways. Muslim families sometimes eat the shanks for breakfast with all manner of flatbreads and raw onion relishes. You could serve them with rice as well, such as the Yellow Basmati Rice with Sesame Seeds.

Our family eats this so frequently that, along with a moong dal, rice, a yogurt relish, and pickles, we consider this to be our “soul food” meal. Nothing fancy here, only the homey and soothing.

Bhuna means “browned”—actually, the process of browning. So in this dish the meat has a browned look to it, and whatever sauce there is, it is thick and clings to the meat. This is a family recipe that comes via my niece, Abha. If you like, two slit hot green chilies may be added at the same time as the cilantro, just before the final stir. I like to eat this with Indian flatbreads (pita or other store-bought flatbreads may be substituted) as well as Potato and Pea Curry. You could also serve it with rice.

These duck breasts are not cooked in a tandoor, and not even in an oven, but they do taste like tandoor-baked poultry, hence their name. I marinate them in the same manner that I would a tandoori chicken, then I quickly pan-fry them so they stay a little rare inside. They take just minutes to cook. As for the skin, which is flabby if not crisped to perfection—well, I just remove it entirely. I like to serve this duck with Sri Lankan Rice with Cilantro and Lemon Grass and Swiss Chard with Ginger and Garlic.

This is an oven-cooked version of the Indian classic Murgh Mussallam—a whole chicken cooked in a rich spicy sauce. Although Indians like their chicken skinned, partly to let the spices penetrate better, I have not bothered too much with that in this book, just to make life easier. But it would be good to do it for this recipe, as this is a dish for special occasions. You can ask your butcher to skin the chicken, but it is really not difficult to yank most of it off yourself. The wings are a bit troublesome, so I just leave them alone. I might go to town here and serve Black Beans, Yellow Basmati Rice with Sesame Seeds, and Sweet-and-Sour Eggplant. On the other hand, you could treat this as a spicy roast and just have parsley potatoes and fresh summer peas!

An 8–24-hour marination period is required here. This chicken tastes just as good cold as it does hot, making it perfect for everyday meals, formal dinners, and picnics. (Once cooked, if properly wrapped and refrigerated, the chicken will hold for 5–6 days.)

There is a whole family of Goan meat and chicken dishes that have in common the use of garlic, vinegar, and hot chilies—all of which help preserve the food and give it a slightly “pickled” feel. As in the case of the more famous vindaloos, the garlic and vinegar combination probably came from Portuguese culinary traditions—Goa was their colony for four hundred years or so. It was the Portuguese who introduced chilies to India in the late fifteenth century. Indians, already familiar with their own black pepper, took to them with a passion. The chilies used in Goa are often of the Kashmiri variety, which give off a very red color but are of medium heat. Each dish requires rather a lot of them and ends up being very hot and very red. I have used a mixture of cayenne and paprika. You can add more cayenne if you like. In Goa this is eaten with partially milled red-hulled rice. You could serve it with Plain Brown Rice, Plain Jasmine Rice, or Coconut Rice. Add vegetables and salads.

I like to use bird’s-eye chilies here, but any fresh hot green chilies will do. Use only as much of the larger chilies as you think you can handle. I often make this when I am in a hurry, as it cooks fast. You could serve this with any rice dish. I like it with the Tomato Pullao. This is also great to take on picnics or serve at a summer lunch: fill pita bread pockets with this, spoon in a little Fresh Green Chutney, and eat!

A dish from the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu, this quick stir-fry has all the wonderful spices used in the cooking of the Chettiyars, a trading community—lots of black pepper, fennel seeds, mustard seeds, cinnamon, and the split pea, urad dal. (Yellow split peas may be substituted for the urad dal. They will be used here in a very southern way, as a seasoning.) This dish has a 30-minute marinating period, but it cooks in about 7 minutes. It is a good idea to have all the spices measured out and ready, as the stir-frying is done quickly. I like this chicken with Basmati Rice with Lentils and a green vegetable.

Make this curry as fiery hot as you like. That is how it is preferred in many parts of South India. This dish is generally served with plain rice or with the thin, fresh rice noodles known as idiappam. I have given a method of preparing dried rice sticks, sold in Thai and Vietnamese markets, on page 224 (see Thin Rice Noodles). They are the closest to the Indian noodles. I have also been known to serve this curry over thin spaghettini or angel-hair pasta.

In Sri Lanka, an island nation, fish is a staple. It is used in salads, as stuffing for savory pastries, as a flavoring in relishes, as a snack food with drinks, and, of course, in hundreds of curries. This particular curry was served to me for breakfast on a sunny patio at Castlereigh, a tea planter’s home turned boutique hotel, along with fresh rice noodles and good, hot tea. On that cool morning in the mountains nothing could have tasted finer. Almost any fish may be used here, as long as it is firm and holds its shape—swordfish, salmon, pompano, sole, haddock, kingfish, and mackerel. I have used swordfish. Serve with Plain Jasmine Rice and Gujarati-Style Okra.

Somewhere between the famous Mulligatawny Soup of the mixed-race Anglo-Indians and the soupy lentil-tomato-pasta dish, dal dholki, of the vegetarians of the western state of Gujarat, lies this soup. It is made with red lentils and tomatoes and may be served with a dollop of plain white rice or with some cooked pasta (pappardelle, noodles, macaroni) added to the soup just before it is heated for serving. This soup, plus a salad, makes for a perfect lunch or supper. There are three simple steps to follow here. First you boil up the lentils. As they cook, you sauté the seasonings. Then you combine the two and blend them.

This has always been a favorite soup of mine. I made it very recently with the last of the bell peppers on my plants. The leaves had shriveled already, but the peppers were still hanging on. It was such a cold, damp day that I decided to add some warming ginger to the soup for added comfort.

Here is a soup that is perfect for cold winter days, the ginger in it providing lasting warmth. The ginger also helps if you have a cold and acts as a stabilizer for those who suffer from travel sickness. Apart from all its health-giving properties (which Indians always have in the back of their heads), this is a delicious soup that can be served at any meal.

I make this a lot when tomatoes are in season. It makes for a simple, nutritious lunch or first course.

This soup, mellowed with coconut milk, is as delicious as it is surprising in its final blend of silken textures.

Before cooking, the meat-spice mixture requires a rest in the refrigerator to bring all the flavors together and to give the kebabs their requisite melt-in-the-mouth tenderness. If you cannot get a baking pan of just this size, something a bit smaller or a bit larger will do. (You could also use a 6-inch-square cake tin and cut the kebabs into rectangles—in which case, bake for only 30 minutes.) Serve these pâté-like kebabs with drinks, offering flatbread pieces or crackers to eat them with, or serve them as part of a meal with vegetables or salads. They need an accompanying chutney, such as the Peshawari Red Pepper Chutney, page 243, or the Bengali-Style Tomato Chutney, page 244.