Love in the Time of Quarantine

A traditional Bengali meal, including anywhere between 6-12 courses, is a tour de force of the taste palate. A few courses in the meal appeal to a specific part of the taste palate, with most straddling the umami region between the sweet and salty. A multi-course Bengali meal begins with something bitter (bitter gourd, crushed neem leaves, bitter greens), then ventures into the sweet-salty region (with daals, vegetable stir fries, fish or meat stews), stopping briefly to sample the sour (chutneys), before ending with the sweet. The sequence of courses from bitter to sweet as well as the variety of options and cooking techniques used within each course is what makes Bengali cuisine unique from other regional Indian offerings. The bitter flavors in the beginning of the meal and the light, sweet-sour chutneys, usually had on their own or with a papad, also distinguishes Bengali cuisine from most international cuisines. Once I had asked a German friend if they had any bitter foods in ...

E ggplant in my native Bengali is called  begoon -- a word with a complex etymological origin.  Begoon could be the Bengali variation of brinjal (itself derived from the Portugese  beringela ), the common English term for the vegetable in the Indian subcontinent. Begoon  could also be a reference to the color of the vegetable as begooni in Bengali is the color purple. In a different etymological analysis, the word begoon could be seen as a combination of the Bengali prefix " be- " (without or devoid of) and the base word " goon " (positive trait or quality). If we went with the latter analysis, the term begoon describe s  something devoid of good qualities. And, for most of my childhood, that is how I felt about begoon -- a vegetable without any redeeming qualities. Generally mushy and sometimes irritating to the mouth and throat, begoon was only acceptable when dipped in batter and deep fried, a treatment that masked its distinctive taste and textur...

Do you ever get a tune stuck in your head? That happens to me with food -- instead of a tune, a new dish/preparation gets stuck in my head and till I actually cook whatever it is I am obsessing over, it stays with me. That was the case with this Khoba Roti that has been in the back of my mind for a long time -- ever since I saw the winning team of the Big Family Cooking Showdown make them in the finals. A regional variation of the basic Indian roti, this rustic, whole-wheat flatbread with handmade patterns, hails from the majestic state of Rajasthan. Before I saw Khoba Roti in the show, I did not know that any Indian flatbread had patterns on them. This, in itself, made it an enigma worth exploring. The technique for creating the patterns by pinching the dough was simple as well as fascinating. I could see that the ridges helped the dough cook evenly and formed nooks and crannies for the ghee to collect. In spite of my extensive musings on the Khoba Roti, I shied away from making...

Sometimes, certain foods become associated with a place. May be you taste something for the first time while on a trip or the ambience of a place lends a magical quality to the most common food items. For me, Saag Paneer (Paneer in Spinach Sauce) will always be associated with a trip to Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh, India. Situated at 13,000 ft and connecting two Himalayan valleys, Rohtang Pass makes for a rather unlikely location for any food memory. It is a rugged place, exposed to extreme weather conditions, reachable only via treacherous roads that hug the mountain wall and drop precipitously into steep cliffs. The bus ride to Rohtang Pass is a harrowing experience for anyone, but was especially so for me because of my car sickness. Even though I had fortified myself with my regular motion sickness medication before starting the journey, I had to fight back waves of nausea and panic every time the bus took one of the sharp hairpin turns in the road. The struggle was well...

W hen I first laid eyes on Yotam Ottolenghi's Jerusalem , I knew that the cookbook was different from others. I don't know if it was the soft cushioned cover, the straightforward recipes with simple ingredients, or the use of fresh, vibrant vegetables -- but, since then, recipes from the book have become part of our regular meal rotations. Inspired by Ottolenghi's recipes, I once embarked on a mission to find preserved lemons, an ingredient he uses frequently in his preparations, but I do not typically have in stock. My quest took me to the nearest Middle Eastern grocery store where the shopowner seemed to have never heard of a preserved lemon. "Have you tried the Indian stores?" he asked me. Not sure if his question implied a general ignorance of regional ingredients or a tendency to racially/culturally profile customers, I gave up hope of finding prepared preserved lemons. Instead, I followed a Mark Bittman recipe to make a "quick" version of pre...

In the US, baked potatoes typically play the role of the reliable side kick in a steak dinner. Served alongside your favorite ribeye, the potatoes are either simply topped with a dab of butter or smothered in melted cheese. They are definitely not the most exciting part of the meal. My introduction to baked potatoes was in the UK, where they are known, rather quaintly, as jacket potatoes. Serving as a meal in itself, the potato in this British version is the receptacle for toppings like ham, cheese, or robust chili con carne. It is one of the most common and cheap food options in the UK, served out of food stands during office lunch hours. To a poor student, a piping hot jacket potato topped with a generous helping of chili con carne was an affordable and comforting meal on cold and grey days. In our dorm kitchen, we would stick an indiscriminately pierced potato in the microwave and top the cooked spud with whatever we had on hand as well as liberal amounts of Tabasco. Scramblin...