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.
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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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