Recipes
Real recipes. With the memory behind them, the technique that matters, and the ratio worth memorising. Not food content — food that has actually been cooked.
Featured Recipe
Chef Senthil's ratio
A recipe I learned from Chef Senthil in my second year at IHM Chennai. Not the hotel version. Not the version where you blanch the spinach and add cream. The version where you wilt everything down together in the same pan and the spinach still has character when it hits the plate.
Read the full recipeThe correct quantity of ghee in sambar is always slightly more than you think it should be. Some recipes teach technique. Some teach patience. This one teaches both.
Only in Tamil Nadu. Only in summer. Only with raw mango so sour it makes your jaw work. This is the version that shows up once a year and disappears before you think to write it down.
The kind of cooking that takes most of the morning. Rice, three curries, papad, something pickled, something sweet. Not every Sunday — the Sundays that count.
A Bengali fish curry made serious. Bhetki — the river fish that holds its shape — in a thick, spiced gravy that does not apologise for itself. The version from a home kitchen in Kolkata, not a restaurant.
The one with the ratio. 4 parts spinach, 2 parts potato, 1 part onion, half-part spice base. A recipe that teaches you how to cook without a recipe.
Chef Senthil's version from Seoul Sandwich. Not egg-dipped bread — the one where the custard soaks all the way in and the crust caramelises properly on a flat-iron. The version worth learning.
Made watching India vs Pakistan, 1 March 2003. Spinach, peas, potato, green chilli — bound by the starch in the potato and nothing else. No cornflour, no bread. Just the ratio.
In Mumbai you make onion pakoras when the rain hits. In Chennai you make plantain bajji. Same instinct, different logic. Two recipes, two cities, one idea: when the weather changes, you fry something.
The batter has to be cold, lumpy, and slightly undermixed. The IHM practical that explained why the technique works — and why most restaurant versions don't get the crunch right.
The potato cooks in the oil first, slow and patient. It needs to absorb enough fat to hold the egg without fighting it. Made for my brother Rishi — the tortilla that became the one I always come back to.
The coal-smoking trick from Calypso Restaurant, Navi Mumbai. You don't need a tandoor — just a tawa, a piece of coal, and thirty seconds to finish the job the way it's meant to be done.
Ten rupees, outside school in Chennai. Yam and raw banana in a thick coconut-yogurt gravy. I spent twenty years trying to replicate that small cup. This is the version that finally got close.
Chef Senthil's wedding rice. Fragrant, mildly sweet, fruit and nuts in the pilaf — done in a way that doesn't tip into dessert. The balance is everything. A lesson in restraint as much as technique.
Mumbai floods, 2005. The power was out for two days. This is the khichdi made by candlelight with what was left in the house — and why that version tasted better than any carefully planned meal.
The man at the mandal made 25 in the time it took me to make one. Not because he was fast — because he had learned where not to waste energy. How repetition becomes technique.
Fennel, melon seeds, pepper and almonds, ground into the most sophisticated milk drink in the country. One jar, a week of 40-second glasses.
Raw mango boiled whole, jaggery, black salt, roasted cumin. The original heatstroke defence, bottled as a 2 week concentrate.
Spiced buttermilk at 1:3 dilution. The drink Tamil Nadu hands out free at peak summer, for about 25 rupees a litre at home.
Almond gum, reduced milk, nannari syrup, ice cream. Madurai's famous glass as a faithful 4-component home build.
Sarsaparilla roots, one overnight soak, 20 minutes at the stove. A month of old Madras in the fridge door.
Same fruit, two different jobs. The cold-everything milkshake and the curd-and-oats breakfast smoothie, with the ice rule explained.
40g palak, 200g frozen fruit, ginger, lime. Greens-first blending and a ratio that makes the colour invisible to the tongue.
One banana, two spoons of peanut, cold milk, a pinch of salt. 14g of protein in 60 honest seconds.
Strong chilled decoction, cold full-fat milk, a foam collar you could rest a spoon on. The pre-chain blueprint.
Real rose petal syrup in 15 minutes, sabja seeds in the glass. The pink drink of every Madras school summer, minus the synthetic dye.
Five pulses, lime, salt, and ice in the glass rather than the jug. Juice that stays whole for 2 hours instead of 10 minutes.
Whipped, never blended. The Punjab dessert glass and the all-India workhorse, with the curd-age rule that improves both.
The Konkan coast's garnet-red answer to humidity. Sweet, then sour, then saline, from a dried fruit that deserves a bigger map.
Roasted gram flour, cold water, salt, lime, optional green chilli and onion. 10g of protein for 15 rupees, paste-first method.
The grandmother prescription, made correctly: 35 minutes of simmering, honey and lime added at the right temperatures, zero waste.
Soft rice, warm milk, cool before curd, temper always. The four rules of temple-grade thayir sadam.
Soaked moong, cucumber, coconut, hot tempering over cold vegetables. The salad South India had all along.
Three textures, lime, black salt, roasted cumin, a 5 minute rest. The cart vendor's sequence, written down.
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About this collection
These recipes are not designed to be impressive. They are designed to be repeatable — the kind of food you make on a Tuesday and eat again on Thursday and don't get tired of. South Indian everyday cooking. A Bengali recipe from a home kitchen. A ratio from a line cook. A dish that only appears in summer.
The memory behind it, the technique that matters, and the ratio worth memorising. Free, forever.
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