Herbs & Spices

At all of India’s roadside stalls, Masala Chai is served already sweetened. I have added about 1 teaspoon sugar per cup in this recipe, which makes the tea just mildly sweet. You may double that amount, if you prefer.

This is best made when good fresh mangoes are in season. When they are not, very good-quality canned pulp from India’s excellent Alphonso mangoes may be used instead. Most Indian grocers sell this.

Here is a condiment that I just cannot live without. You can add a dollop to curries or use it as you might any prepared mustard. It perks up hot dogs, my husband smears it on bacon and ham, it goes with roast beef, and it is a lovely, pungent addition to sandwiches. We always keep a jar in the refrigerator. Try smearing it on fresh pineapple slices to serve with a curry meal or a ham or pork roast (see next recipe), or use it to make Vegetable Pickle (see page 258).

Yogurt relishes are eaten with meals throughout India. They are nearly always savory, though in western states like Gujarat a little sugar is added as well as the salt to give a sweet-sour-salty flavor.

This delightful chutney is served with all manner of savory steamed rice cakes and pancakes. I love it with the Semolina Pilaf on page 222, but it may be served with most Indian meals. Store in the refrigerator 2–3 days or freeze leftovers.

This yogurt relish comes from the Tamil communities of Sri Lanka and is called Curd Sambol. It may be served with most South Asian meals. It may also be eaten at lunch as a salad.

This is Sri Lanka’s everyday coconut sambol. Known as pol sambol, it would be called a chutney in India. It may be served with any meal.

A fresh chutney to serve with all Indian meals, it has a shelf life of 2–3 days if stored in the refrigerator. What is not used up may be easily frozen for another day.

At Bengali banquets, this chutney, along with deep-fried, puffed white-flour breads (loochis) and pappadoms, is served as the penultimate course, just before the dessert. Here in the Western world, I tend to serve it with the main meal: I layer it thickly on hamburgers, serve dollops with fried chicken and roast lamb, use it as a spread for cheese sandwiches, and, at Indian meals, offer it as a relish with my kebabs and curries.

This hot, savory chutney is from what used to be India’s northwest frontier but now is on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. There it is made with fresh red chilies, which have beautiful color and medium heat. They are not always easy to find, so I use a mixture of red bell peppers and cayenne pepper. They are always combined with nuts, generally almonds but sometimes walnuts. This chutney may be frozen. It is like gold in the bank. Serve it with kebabs, fritters, and with a general meal.

his is a salad from India’s western state of Gujarat. Two tablespoons of crushed roasted peanuts could be added to it just before serving and stirred in. It may be served with most Indian meals and lasts several days in the refrigerator if kept covered.

This simple sauce is perfect for spooning over fried fish, fried chicken, grilled meats, and any kind of kebab.

In much of India, a fresh salad is present at every single meal. This kind of cucumber salad was something that my mother threw together moments before we sat down to eat. Cucumbers with tiny undeveloped seeds have the best texture, but when cucumbers are growing wildly in my garden and some that hid themselves too successfully among the leaves have grown beyond the best picking size, I pick them anyway, peel them, and scoop out their seeds. They still make good eating. (Whenever I pick a particularly large, overgrown cucumber, I can never throw it in the compost heap because I think of Inder Dutt. At the age of thirteen, he came down from a poor village in the Himalayan mountains to try to eke out a living in the plains. In Delhi, he somehow managed to get into a cousin’s household where they taught him how to do odd jobs and eventually even how to cook. He became so adept that my cousin brought him to New York as her cook. Every now and then he would come over to our apartment to help out. I could never get enough of the stories about his childhood. He had spent the snowy mountain winters without shoes, huddling in the floor above the animals to stay warm at night. In the summers, he had to go work in the fields. When he got very thirsty, he would just pick the largest cucumber he could find, snap it in two, and quench his thirst with its juicy flesh.)

This South Indian–style dish may also be made with shredded cabbage. Dried rice sticks are sold by East Asian grocers. You will notice that a little raw rice is used here as a seasoning. It provides a nutty texture. Serve with a lamb or beef curry or grilled meats.

Here is one of the great offerings from Kerala, a state on the southwest coast of India, where it is known as uppama. The semolina that is required here is a coarse-grained variety that is sold as sooji or rava in the Indian stores or as 10-minute Cream of Wheat in the supermarkets. (It is not the very fine version used to make pasta.) This pilaf-like dish may be eaten as a snack with tea, for breakfast with milky coffee and an accompanying coconut chutney (see Sri Lankan Cooked Coconut Chutney), or as part of a meal as the exquisite starch.

Here is a recipe I have devised for the brown rices (and mixtures that combine brown rice with wild rice) usually found in Western markets. Served with vegetables and a yogurt relish, it makes a fine vegetarian meal. You may also serve this with meat and fish curries.

There are hundreds of versions of this salad-like dish that are eaten throughout South India and parts of western India as well. At its base is rice, the local starch and staple. (Think of the bread soups of Italy and the bread salads of the Middle East.) The rice is cooked so it is quite soft. Then yogurt, and sometimes a little milk as well, is added as well as any fruit (apple, grapes, pomegranate), raw vegetables (diced tomatoes, cucumbers), or lightly blanched vegetables (green beans, zucchini, peas) that one likes. The final step is what makes the salad completely Indian. A tiny amount of oil is heated and spices such as mustard seeds, curry leaves, and red chilies are thrown into it. Then the seasoned oil is poured over the rice salad to give it its pungency and reason for being. This cooling, soothing dish, somewhat like a risotto, makes a wonderful lunch. It is best served at room temperature, without being refrigerated. Other salads may be added to the meal.

Not only does this rice look colorful and taste delicious but the turmeric acts like an antiseptic inside the body and the sesame seeds add a good deal of nutrition. You can almost eat this by itself. Add a dal, perhaps an eggplant dish, and a yogurt relish, and you have a fine vegetarian meal. Or serve with kebabs of any sort and a salad for a light, non-vegetarian meal.

Lemon grass is grown on the edges of the more precipitous slopes of Sri Lanka’s numerous tea gardens. Some of these plantations are visible from the front patio of Ena’s mountain bungalow. Lemon grass keeps insects away, and its long roots hold back the soil. I had this aromatic and festive dish in the museum-like home of Sri Lankan batik artist Ena de Silva, where it was served with dozens of curries and relishes. You may serve this at banquets and family meals alike. It goes well with coconut-milk-based curries, such as Kerala-Style Chicken Curry.

A delicious pilaf that may be served with most Indian meals.