Issue #139: Our Indian Journey Continues

Still on the Road, A Round-Up of Indian Recipes

Since I published Issue #138 last week from Delhi, we’ve been to Agra, Jaipur, Udaipur, and Goa. If it’s Tuesday, it must be Panjim. By the time I hit send on this current issue, we’ll be in Mumbai. This has been quite a journey through India. And we’ve hardly seen or eaten anything given the totality of what you can find here. Such a fascinating, large, complicated, and delicious country.

Just a few of the chili cheese toasts we have enjoyed so far. Nate is hoping I will experiment with this when I get home, too. He noted the crusts are always cut off the toast.

I guess it should be no surprise that we’ve eaten really, really well—breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and often in between. On the advice of our friend Judi, we’ve ordered an off-menu snack generally considered quite trashy, chili cheese toast, in every fancy hotel we’ve stayed in, and even that has been delicious. I love how Indian cooks just seem to want to put as much flavor as they can into every bite. Whether in our fancy hotels or at roadside stands, the food has been complex and exciting. Also in airports, on airplanes, and in local sweet shops.

My happy place. The shop in Jaipur’s Johari Bazar where I bought more stainless steel canisters than we can carry.

Although it’s like comparing apples to oranges, so far I think Nate and I would agree we’ve most enjoyed Jaipur. Our fondness may just be the result of the halo affect from the pride we feel for having learned to cross the impossibly busy Johari Bazar road that cuts through the bustling market. We were weaving back and forth like locals—dodging scooters, tuk tuks, cars, trucks, stray dogs—encumbered by 50 kilos of stainless steel canisters I purchased for the pantry in our new home.

It likely also helped that we were upgraded to a regal suite at the Taj Rambagh Palace Hotel, one of the most unique and beautiful hotels I’ve ever seen. Not even the cancellation of our dinner reservation in the hotel’s Suvarna Mahal restaurant because the day we arrived Indian Prime Minister Nerandra Modi decided to host a state dinner there with French President Emmanuel Macron for Indian Republic Day could dampen our enthusiasm. (We had a delicious meal in our suite instead.) In fact, it may have heightened it.

The woman in Goa’s Mapusa Municipal Market who had the teppal paper and local kokum we were looking for.

In Goa, with the help of the advice of our guide at a spice plantation, our hotel concierge, our driver, Facetime, and a woman named Party with a “stall of rubbage” in the Mapusa Municipal Market, we were able to locate several very local ingredients to bring back to our friend Reena, a colleague of Nate’s and a great cook. (Reena was on Facetime with us from New York judging the quality of the ingredients we found.)

Teppal peppercorns (center) with local Goan rice and grains for sale in Mapusa market.

From Reena we learned about teppal (aka kaatmurikku), a local variety of Sichuan peppercorn, with larger buds, a more pronounced citrus flavor, and none of the numbing mala quality of its cousin. Teppal is a secret weapon in Goan fish curries, as we were reassured by everyone we asked once they realized what we were looking for. We also bought beautiful, soft kokum, a dried fruit related to mangosteen that’s used to sour said curries. And then there was the local par-boiled red rice that cooks into large fluffy grains, perfect to accompany those curries. I can’t wait for Reena to show me what to do with all of it.

Party assumed because I was older, unhappier seeming, and fatter than Nate, I must be married. We love her anyway. Maybe more.

Shopping in Mapusa was a ton of fun, even if local stallkeep Party, who overheard our quest and volunteered to help, decided I must be married because I seemed older and unhappier than bachelor Nate. She also told me I had an “Indian belly.” Regardless, she was really helpful and charming and we didn’t mind when she made us buy two of her cashmere scarves and made us promise to bring my wife and some US chocolate next year when we come back.

This 220-pound carved stone Ganesha is on its way from Jaipur to New Hampshire, where we were assured it won’t mind the cold.

Those ingredients and the canisters are not the only things we’ve bought. I’m not sure our suitcases will close for the tablecloths, napkins, clothes, pottery, plates, spices, incense, icons, knickknacks, and other souvenirs we are bringing home. Months from now, shipments of furniture, rugs, and large marble gods will arrive at some port in New England. Just as you are not supposed to go grocery shopping when you are hungry, I think the dishers-out of advice would tell you not to go to India when you are about to purchase a large house for which you have very little furniture. We didn’t listen.

Just a few of our wonderful Indian breakfasts. Most important meal of the day.

Since the day we arrived Nate has been excited about “that thing I do” when I come home from a trip inspired to cook a new cuisine for weeks in the hopes of understanding it better. I was still making a lot of Korean food when we left for India. But he has always had a particular fondness for Indian food (part of the reason coming to India has been a dream of his for so long). I know when he has particularly liked a dish or a bread or a breakfast preparation of eggs we’re eating on this trip because he will taunt me. “I bet you can’t make a paratha this flaky.” “Too bad you can’t make akuri.” I find it all hilarious. And, of course, I’m sitting there Googling recipes so I can try when we return.

Because I’ve been out of the kitchen for weeks now, I don’t have any new recipes I’m working on to share. Instead, I thought I’d look back at the last couple of years of issues and index the Indian recipes I’ve published already. Here is an annotated list of my favorites.

Issue #57: Paneer

Stuffed paneer from the tandoor at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi.

We’ve eaten a lot of paneer on this trip, which, besides the wide variety of legumes in everything, seems to be the vegetarian protein of choice. I’m not complaining. In addition to paneer cooked in the tandoor, braised in curry, or battered for pakoras, we particularly loved the puff-pastry-enveloped paneer patty I purchased at a chaat shop in the Udaipur airport. In addition to perfecting my homemade paneer technique, I’m going to try to recreate this patty first thing when we get back. In the meantime, here’s a recipe for saag paneer from the summer of 2022.

Issue #78: Butter Chicken

Just as the authentic food police love to tell you that there is no such thing as spaghetti and meatballs in Italy or chop suey in China, they like to issue fines for anyone who thinks that “butter chicken” or “chicken tikka masala” are authentic Indian dishes. I get it. I’m a stickler, too. But we’ve had many different rich, creamy chicken curry dishes with tomato-tinged sauces flavored with fenugreek. Enough, really, to make me think this one is still a very good recipe, indeed.

Issue #84: Basmati Rice

Basmati rice biryani with Kashmiri morels at Dum Pukht in Delhi.

To my (ignorant) surprise, we’ve had a variety of different types of rice on this tour, from nutty unpolished rice, to sticky white rice, to fluffy red Goan rice, to long, fragrant strands of basmati, the last being all I thought we’d find. I still stand by my technique of cooking perfect basmati rice, which has only once failed me. (I blame my sister’s stove.)

Issue #87: Masala Omelet

So many yummy eggs have we eaten, most of them variations of akuri, the spiced parsi egg dish. From what I can tell, any flavorful, slightly spicy scrambled egg dish can be called akuri. The only common threads are seemingly onion and green chili, plus a gentle cooking to makes the finished dish deliciously creamy. I have permission from Nate to try all the variations when we return. Reena promised to share her Parsi family’s technique. In the meantime I offer you the recipe for these spicy eggs inspired by Raju Omelet in Dubai.

Issue #91: Dal

The royal thali at Neel Kamal at the Lake Palace hotel in Udaipur. The rich , black gram Rajasthani dal is at 1 o’clock.

We haven’t had many dals quite like this one I published last year, to be honest. But that doesn’t mean it is any less delicious or authentic, for that matter. We will just have to keep looking. Most of the dals we were served in Rajastan were made from black gram and were incredibly rich with ghee and maybe cream. All lip-smacking good. But so is this one.

Can’t wait to get home and start cooking. Look for more Indian recipes coming soon from the entire trip, including those specialties from Goa mentioned above.