Panfusine

I have a dear friend from school who lives in the City of Kolhapur in Maharashtra. When I visited her  at the  gorgeous heritage resort  she owns there en route to a holiday in Goa, she gifted me with a spice blend that I treasured to the last speck. It sat  at the bottom of my freezer and was doled out for special dishes just like Saffron is rationed out in many Indian homes. Its a lip smacking flaming  hot blend of onions, garlic and the famed Kolhapuri Mirch (red chili). I marinaded cauliflower florets in a paste of this spice blend , salt and oil, and roasted it in a 450 F oven. Finished with a handful of green coriander berries, this was a fabulous treat paired with roomali roti.

Anyone from Mumbai (the city formerly known as Bombay), with a passion for its incomparable street food will relate to the following scenario. Standing in front of a vendors cart waiting for a fresh batch of Batata vadas (garlicky potatoes enrobed in a spiced chickpea flour batter) to be fished out of a huge wok of hot oil, there is an aroma that quietly stamps itself into your memory. Rustic, yeasty and downright comforting. The stacks of  country rolls piled up 2 feet high, in the corner. These are the native 'Ladi Pav', a Portuguese contribution to this vibrant culinary scenario. The Pav is everything that the snooty slice of white bread is not -  tough, chewy, with a tang that is halfway to sourdough. Its usually partially sliced,  soaked in melted butter when served up with Pav bhaji or Usal. Alternatively, dusted liberally with garlic chutney with a golden orb of batata vada stuffed in between. Lets not beat around the bush, the Pav has always been looke...

The New Year's here and that of course means that the festive finale of the previous year comes to a grinding halt. The Christmas tree is cleared of its ornaments, the ornaments are wrapped up, and stashed back into the big storage boxes, and said storage boxes are then dragged back down to the basement to hibernate until next December. In most households this definitely means a lull in the happy mood that prevails, the sinking feeling of nothing to celebrate until the weather warms up, and of course, the snowstorms and  bitter cold weather that inevitably marks February. And no, a corporate invented festival like Valentine's day does not count. In Indian homes, we just get ready to celebrate the next celestial event that makes its turn, In this case, the return of the sun to the northern Hemisphere, known as 'Uttarayan' in Sanskrit. every state and community has its own way of celebrating the impending arrival of spring / hot weather (for all practical purpo...

 So now, I'm down to the final five dishes for Dish a Day .. and strangely enough, I feel I'm in the culinary equivalent state of 'I have nothing to wear' . A part of me is scrambling to come up with some supercalifragilistic creation that I can post with a flourish, -- but then again, Dish a day was never meant to be about Alinea or French Laundry like creations (with due apologies to Grant Achatz & Thomas Keller respectively). Its all about what the average home cook (& I'm going with what I'm familiar with, i.e the Indian household) with an affinity for cooking does for her family. An array of different flavors  and tastes, some a rocking hit of a favorite for the whole family, some that evoke a 'Oh no!, not this..' and then the others that we don't even give  a second thought to before scarfing it down. It takes all kids of dishes to nourish a family! I have no clue what the next four (make that the last three) days will bring, b...