Aromatic Garlic Peanuts

The football season is back. The American Football season, that is. Yes the one where the game is played less with feet and more with the body and yet called foot ball. Jokes apart, this is a season of high emotions, lots of friends, gallons of beer, and a whole range of finger foods.  Peanuts go well with most of the liquor or liquor based drinks and beer. And this spicy combination is finger licking good – The garlic is almost buttery, the nuts salty and fiery. Recipe adapted from: Big small Plates Serves 4 Plan: 1 cup plain raw …

Punjabi Chole

Chole – A classic dish from the Northern regions of India, especially Punjab, Delhi and Haryana, the taste of which lingers on

Shufta

So what’s for dessert? This is not something you will hear a true blood Kashmiri ask. And that’s not because we don’t like all things sweet, but because we just don’t have the tradition of serving sweets or desserts after a meal.  We eat the chocolates and the Mithai and we also do make a few sweet things like Kheer, Modur pulao ( rice cooked with nuts and sugar) and phirni. We serve the Modur pulao at the beginning of the meal ( beat that) and we make kheer on auspicious occasions as an offering to the deity. It did …

Gol Gappe/ Pani Puri/ gupchup/phuchka

Panipuri : The mouthwatering, spice water based street snack that the female species of India just can not live without. It would be safe to say that men like it too, but you won’t  find a group of men hanging out to have pani puri.  They do however join in if we, the women ask them to have a couple or two of these wonder globes of spice water.

Rava & Corn Upma

      M S Subbulakshmi’s soulful voice, the aroma of the brewing coffee, the sizzle of the curry leaves and the pitter patter of rain drops! This was the scene, a very long time ago when I had my first bite of Rava Upma. Some memories, like this one, are etched in your heart for ever. Being a Kashmiri, I had never had Upma before this day. We traditionally use Rava or Sooji to make a sweet dish called halva. And since we are not too much into sweets as well, we usually make halva as a prasad. This was …