Simmer

I first had this sauce, or one similar to it, in the late 1940s. India had just been partitioned, and a refugee family fleeing from what was to become Pakistan had just opened a small, simple restaurant in the center of Delhi called Moti Mahal. It basically served foods baked in the clay oven called a tandoor. There was one sauced dish, however, Chicken Makhani. A tandoor-roasted chicken was cut up with a cleaver and then heated up in this tomatoey, buttery, creamy sauce. I have always loved the sauce. Over the years, I have played around with it, using it with shrimp, and now with salmon. Serve with Swiss Chard with Ginger and Garlic and Rice Pilaf with Almonds and Raisins.

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.

Gujaratis in western India do not actually drink soups as such. They do have many soupy dishes, which are meant to be eaten with flatbreads, rice, or spongy, savory, steamed cakes known as dhoklas. Here is one such dish. It makes for a gorgeous soup. I serve it with a little dollop of cream and a light sprinkling of ground roasted cumin (page 284), though these are not at all essential. In the summer months, I make my own tomato puree and use that to make the soup. Store-bought puree is perfectly good too. In Gujarat a similar dish is served with homemade noodles in it. It is known as dal dhokli. I sometimes throw small quantities of cooked pasta bow ties or even macaroni into the soup.

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.

Here is a soup that I had in Pakistan’s most famous northwestern city, Peshawar. Many of the grander Muslim families, in both India and Pakistan, offer some form of aab gosht, or meat broth, at the start of a meal. Sometimes it comes in cups even before one is seated and requires just sipping. This is a variation of that and requires a spoon. What I was offered on a rather cold day was a steaming bowl of well-seasoned goat broth in which floated oyster mushrooms and slices of river fish. It was so delicious that I decided to come up with a version myself. I have used beef stock, though lamb stock would do as well. If you cannot get fresh oyster mushrooms, use the canned ones, sold by all Chinese grocers, or canned straw mushrooms. Just drain them and rinse them out.

Here is a soup of colonial, British-Indian origin, born in the early days of the Raj and a favorite among the dwindling mixed-race Anglo-Indian community of India. All the ingredients and seasonings are completely Indian. It is just the way it is served (in a soup plate) and eaten (with a soup spoon) that is British. This soup may be served at the start of a meal, but it may also be offered as the main course for a Sunday lunch, the way the Anglo-Indians do. At such times, plain rice is served on the side, with diners adding as much as is desired to their soup plates, a little at a time so as not to solidify the soup in one go. I like to give my guests individual bowls of rice so that a single large bowl of rice does not have to move around the table like a whirling dervish.

I love to make this soup in the summer, when my garden (or the local farmers market) is bursting with cucumbers and tomatoes and the weather is balmy. The first time I had this soup, or a version of it, was in the Maldives, at the Cocoa Island resort on the South Male Atoll, just southwest of India. For the soup, the chef, Stana Johnson, had combined South Indian seasonings and the notion of North India’s favorite cucumber raita, a yogurt relish, to fashion a light summery, cooling soup. I remember sitting in an airy pavilion, the calm blue sea on two sides of me, balmy breezes blowing past, sipping the soup a tablespoon at a time, and thinking, “This is what heaven must be like.” While the flavors were easy on the tongue, the soup was complicated to make. I have spent two years simplifying it, trying to retain its essence while cutting down on all the steps a large-staffed restaurant can do with ease. I like to serve the soup with a dollop of Yogurt Rice, page 26 or 217, right in its center. This is not essential. Just a light sprinkling of diced cucumbers and diced cherry tomatoes will do. But do try it once with the Yogurt Rice as well as the sprinkling of cucumbers and tomatoes. (You do not actually have to make the full Yogurt Rice recipe. A very quick version, made with leftover rice, follows.)

Although Indians do not eat appetizer courses as such, there are many Indian dishes that can be served as a first course. This eggplant dish is one of them. I often serve it that way, with a slice of French bread on the side and some Pinot Grigio to polish it off. You can, of course, also serve it as the vegetable dish with the main course. (I love it with the Tandoori-Style Duck Breasts, page 103.)

The rich gamoussa (buffalo’s) milk of the Middle East yields, when it is boiled, a cream which rises to the top and is so thick it can be cut with a knife. It is eishta in Arabic and kaymak in Turkish. Every family collects layers of this cream whenever the milk is boiled, to eat with bread and honey or jam for breakfast, or with a variety of pastries. A substitute, though not as splendid, can be made with a mix of heavy cream and milk.

This was a family favorite.

A delicious version, to be served hot with plain rice or with roz bil shaghria (rice with vermicelli, page 340).

A refreshing sweet-and-sour Persian syrup to be diluted in ice-cold water.

This fragrant drink was a favorite in my home. Commercial varieties of a concentrated version (a syrup) have an unpleasant synthetic taste.

A famous North African specialty with an exciting bittersweet flavor.

This wonderful, heartwarming winter drink is hot milk thickened with the starchy ground bulb of an orchid called Orchis mascula. This was sold by street vendors from the large copper urn in which it was made. The stone-colored powder called sahlab (salep in Turkish and Greek) is expensive and not easy to find. I have often bought it in Middle Eastern markets only to discover that it was a fake or adulterated mix. Cornstarch is an alternative which gives a creamy texture but not the same special flavor.