Simmer

Sometimes when I am in a rush and still longing for an Indian dal, I take the simple way out and use canned beans—black, great northern, cannellini, or any other beans I like. Today we can get organic canned beans of excellent quality, and it barely takes 15 minutes to cook them. Even the liquid in the can tastes good, so I do not have to throw it away. Serve these with rice or Indian flatbreads.

Known as a vegetable kurma in the Tamil Nadu region, there are hundreds of versions of this dish throughout southeastern India. Its basic premise is very simple: you parboil diced vegetables—two vegetables or ten, whatever is in season—drain them, and then dress them with a coconut-yogurt mixture seasoned with spices such as mustard seeds and whole dried chilies. All vegetables are fair game—eggplants, zucchini, squashes, peas, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, pumpkins.… The motto of this dish seems to be “What have you got? I can use it.” It is also quite delicious. Grated fresh coconut is now sold in a frozen form at most South and Southeast Asian stores. If you wish to use unsweetened, desiccated coconut instead, soak 2 1/2 tablespoons in warm water to barely cover, let that sit for an hour, and then proceed with the recipe. In the South it is generally eaten at room temperature—balmy—with rice and legumes, but I often serve it in the summer, when my garden is at its most productive, as a salad/ vegetable dish that accompanies Indian or Western meats.

Here is a dish that takes about 10 minutes to prepare. It is ideally made when tomatoes are in season, but even second-rate, out-of-season tomatoes are given a new life by this very Gujarati mixture of seasonings. It may be served at a meal with rice, a bean or split-pea dish, vegetables, and relishes. I also love a meal of this curry, Shrimp Biryani, and Spinach with Garlic and Cumin. If you are cooking Western-style grilled pork chops or chicken pieces, just slather this over the top. The combination is marvelous.

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.

Here is how my family in India prepared our everyday summer squash. It was utterly simple and utterly good. The squash itself was different, shaped liked a bowling pin and slightly curled up, but the taste and texture were similar. I like to use yellow squash and zucchini together, but you could use just one or the other. This dish may be served hot at most Indian meals, and cold as a salad.

A southern potato curry from the Chennai region. In Chennai, this would be served with rice, and in the north, with a flatbread. Dal and vegetables should be added to the meal.

An everyday vegetable dish, this time in the Gujarati style of western India, made without onions. Because of its viscosity, okra is never washed. Instead, it is wiped with a damp cloth and left for a while to air-dry before it is cut. This dish is generally eaten with legume dishes, other vegetables, yogurt relishes, pickles, and Indian breads.

I like to use cremini mushrooms, as they have a firmer texture, but if you cannot get them, ordinary, medium-sized white mushrooms will do. Remember that a relatively firm tomato can be peeled with a paring knife like an apple. A great curry for vegetarians and meat eaters alike. Serve with rice or Indian bread and some relishes.

One of my cousins was married to a Kashmiri gentleman, and for the period when he was working at the United Nations in New York he had brought along a manservant. My cousin let me have him once a week to cook and clean. His repertoire was limited—he could only cook dishes he had learned from my cousin, such as this simple Kashmiri staple, which we loved. Soon he was making it week after week, and it remains one of our favorites. In Kashmir, collard-type greens and rice are eaten as commonly as beans and rice in Central America, the season for them lasting from spring (when the greens are tender) until the snows start to fall in early winter (when the greens get coarser). Note: Young greens will cook faster. So if you are using them, start with half the stock and add more if needed. Serve with rice and either a dal or a meat curry.

Eggplants come in so many sizes and shapes. You may use 4 of the purple “baby” Italian eggplants (aim for 1 1/4 pounds), 4 Japanese eggplants, or 8 of the very small Indian ones. All are quartered partially—the top, sepal end always stays attached so the eggplants retain their shape—and then stuffed with a spice mixture before being cooked. For the mixture to hold, a little starch needs to be added. In India, this is the very nutritious chickpea flour. You may use cornmeal or masa harina instead if you have them at hand. All will need to be slightly roasted first. This is easily done in a small cast-iron frying pan. This very gratifying dish may be served as a main course, along with a green vegetable, some dal (such as Black Beans), rice, and a yogurt relish. It would also go well with hearty chicken and lamb curries.

In North India, greens are often cooked simply, with ginger, garlic, and chili powder or green chilies. Indians love eating greens at all meals. They go well with meats. If you are having a simple Indian meal of dal and rice, all you need to add is a green and a relish, perhaps with yogurt in it.

This is an easy, perfumed, stir-fried corn dish that can be made with fresh or frozen corn. This may be served with most Indian meals but also goes well with Western-style roasted or grilled pork, duck, and chicken.

You need the patties from the preceding recipe and the same pan used for browning them with its leftover oil. This is in fact a continuation of the last recipe and makes for a quick curry, good with rice, bread, and also with fried eggs and toast! So, make the preceding recipe, remove the patties from the frying pan with a slotted spatula, put them on a plate, and proceed immediately to make the curry sauce. For a simple meal, serve with a rice dish and Corn with Aromatic Seasonings.

Indians love dried beans and split peas, eating them in some form at every single meal. They are sometimes cooked on their own, but they can also be combined with vegetables, fish, or meat. This recipe is for pork and lentils, but you could use lamb, if you prefer it. Ideally, make this dish ahead of time, as the lentils absorb a lot of liquid after the cooking is done. Served with a salad and relishes, this becomes a meal in itself.

Goat is now increasingly available: it is sold at halal butchers, at West Indian butchers, and at specialty butchers. What you need are some pieces of meat with bone and some without bone. Ideally, the pieces should come from different parts of the animal—some from the shoulder, some from the upper leg, some from the shank, and a few from the neck—and should be cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes. Bone pieces could be larger. I always like to include at least one marrowbone. You can make the same dish with lamb from the shoulder with some bone. Good lamb generally takes about 50–80 minutes to cook, less time than goat. At home, we always ate this everyday dish with chapatis. There was always a dal, such as My Everyday Moong Dal, a couple of vegetables, and some relishes and chutneys. You may, of course, serve a simple rice dish instead of the bread.

This recipe may be easily doubled. I just love it with Tomato Pullao.

Pronounced “eshtew” by the locals, this aromatic, soul-satisfying stew is a much-loved dish, often eaten by the Syrian Christians of the southwestern state of Kerala at Easter. It has all the spices that grow in the backyards of Kerala homes—cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and peppercorns. It also has the Kerala staple, coconut milk. While it is generally served with the rice pancakes known as appams (“appam and stew” being somewhat akin to “meatloaf and mashed potatoes” or “rice and beans” or “ham and eggs”), plain jasmine rice is just as good.

When this dish is served in the Rajasthan desert region of India, its color, coming mainly from ground hot chilies, is a fiery red. I have moderated the heat by mixing cayenne pepper with more calming paprika. Use a fresh red paprika if you want the proper color. This is generally served with Indian flatbreads, but rice would be fine too. A calming green, such as spinach or Swiss chard, could be served on the side. For more robust flavors, have one of the eggplant dishes with it.

You need a fair amount of the fresh mint and cilantro here so the meat really tastes both lemony and herbal. The ginger adds to the fresh, cleansing feeling. Serve with flatbreads or rice. For a snack, this ground meat, or keema, may be rolled up in flatbreads along with finely sliced shallots, chopped tomatoes, and, if you like, chopped fresh hot green chilies. Today, in the Western world, this would be called a “wrap.” As children we wrapped this keema in a chapati (a whole-wheat flatbread) and my mother called it a batta.

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.