The main culprit to a leaner-meaner-me is sugar.  I’m sure many of you already know about me.

Hubby, who is as thin as a rail, has been trying to help me change my thought process when it comes to sweet temptations. He told me,

“You shouldn’t even need think about it.  If a sweet is around, have one, enjoy it and then move on.”  Yes.  Very sage advice.

Another piece of advice came from my good friend, who tells me,

“why not just accept it! You love sweets, you love making sweets and you make great sweets!  Just embrace it”.

I particularly like this advice.  I wish I could live this way and not grow horizontally over the years.

So, until July, it’s sugar free for me.

To take my mind away from the last batch of cardamom cookies that are still in my freezer, I started to search for a healthy one-pot meal I could whip up for the weekends when we stay down at my Dad’s house.  My Dad’s house is a haven of temptation.  The atmosphere is just like it was when I was growing up.  There’s always ice cream in the freezer, apple pie on the counter and boxes of cereal in the pantry. Having grown up around all this, is it any wonder I have a hard time controlling myself as an adult?

I figure a vegetable fried rice is my best option for an all-in-one meal. Instead of using our typical white basmati rice, I went to the Indian store and picked up a bag of brown basmati rice. I’ll admit though, I’m not a fan of brown rice and never have been.  The flavor is just too…”earthy” for me.  However, this particular brown rice veggie dish is so good, I’ll willingly eat it every day of the week.  It’s PACKED with flavor, mainly because of dousing the whole dish with an intensely flavored sauce. I don’t even notice the brown rice.  I’ve also discovered that brown rice benefits from an overnight soak, a technique I recently discovered, which results in a much lighter flavor and fluffier rice.

This vegetable fried rice is inspired by a recipe I found on America’s Test Kitchen, a site which I adore and am particularly addicted to.  The original dish calls for shrimp and fish sauce, neither of which I eat, so I adapted it with loads of vegetables and a vegetarian version of fish sauce called mushroom sauce.  Mushroom sauce is every bit as flavorful as fish sauce and is a great alternative for us vegetarians.  I located it at our local Vietnamese market.

It’s this sauce that really makes this dish stand out and I take no credit for it.  It’s straight from the original recipe at America’s Test Kitchen. I simply adapted it for vegetarians.  If you are inclined to make a cleaner and leaner version of the sauce – which I’ll be doing until July – you can omit the brown sugar and add an extra half spoon of molasses.

VEGETABLE FRIED RICE RECIPE

adapted from America’s Test Kitchen recipe for Nasi Goreng

Feel free to use regular white rice in place of brown rice if you like.  You can also use whatever vegetables you enjoy. I’ve found a new appreciation for bok choy and celery with this recipe.  The celery gives a great crunch.  I’ve also used bean sprouts and bell peppers.  It’s a great dish for using up leftovers at the end of the week.  I wonder how it would taste with kale…

This dish takes some time, mainly due to the amount of prep work. I average about an hour and a half. Because it is so time consuming, I like to make a large batch of this when I make it. The recipe below is a regular sized batch, enough to serve between 4-6 people. I typically double this recipe and cook two batches of the recipe at the same time, using two different pots.

A note on ingredients:  when I go shopping, I can only buy large bundles of celery and bok choy.  So rather than using only a fraction of the veggies and then having leftovers to deal with, I just use it all up in my big batch.  Use the ingredient amounts as a template, but no need to be too specific.  It’s better to use up what you’ve bought.

SERVES: 4-6

TIME: Prep time: 1 hour    Cooking Time: 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS

Veggies & Rice

For the Sauce

PREP THE RICE

1. Wash the rice three times to get rid of any extra starch (it helps make the rice less sticky).  Then cover it in fresh water and set it aside to let it soak. For fluffy rice with a lighter flavor, do this the night before for an overnight soak, otherwise just let it soak while you prep the veggies.

PREP THE VEGGIES

2. Fill up your sink with cold water and wash all the veggies. Just submerge them in the water and shake ‘em around.  Dirt can be wedged into the heart of the vegetable, so with the celery and bok choy I peel each stem off and give it a good wash.  You can see why I like to make a big batch of this dish, as it takes some time to prep.

3. Chop the celery.  I wasn’t sure at first if I should use the heart of the celery, but I discovered it is very sweet, so I love to use it.

4. All of the bok choy is also used in cooking. Chop it just as you would a head of lettuce. Take a stack of two or three stems, cut the leaf down the middle, then do a quick chop, leaves and stems are all used.

5. Dice the carrots the same size as the celery and bok choy.  I’m way too slow at dicing carrots, so I turn to my handy food processor and use the slicer attachment.  Two seconds and it’s all done.

6. Chop the broccoli. I buy a bag of pre-cut broccoli to help quicken things up.  If you are using regular broccoli, cut them into bite size florets.  Then put them in a bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and with a knife, poke three holes in it.  Microwave it for 5 minutes on high to steam the broccoli.  This is great shortcut and helps speed up the cooking a bit.

COOK THE RICE

7.  Vegetable fried rice was traditionally a way of using up day old rice. If you don’t have any leftover rice in the fridge, then you are basically going to create it now.  Freshly cooked rice ends up sticking together a lot once added to the veggies.

This is the method I use for fool-proof rice.  It’s much easier than the traditional method of making rice. Check out the full recipe for rice here.

• Fill up a large pot with water, it doesn’t matter how much water, just make sure it’s enough water to completely cover the rice while it’s boiling.  Bring it to a boil.  Once it’s boiling add enough salt to flavor your rice.  I usually use 1 teaspoon of salt per cup of rice, so this recipe uses 1 tablespoon (1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons).   Then add the rice.
• If you are using white rice, it should be cooked after about 7 minutes. If you are using brown rice, let it boil for about 15 minutes.
• While the rice is boiling, check it from time to time by eating a few grains and seeing how chewy they are.  I usually start checking white rice after five minutes and brown rice after ten or twelve minutes.

 After the rice is cooked, strain it and spread it on a baking sheet, casserole dish or plate and place it in the fridge for it to cool while you cook the vegetables.

MAKE THE FLAVOR BASE

8. In the bowl of a food processor or blender, add 1 onion, 4 garlic cloves and 4 thai chilies (substitute: 2 jalapeños or serrano chilies). Blend into a smooth paste.

Food Processor Tip: Pulse fourteen times to form a thick paste.  Don’t just let the food processor run, it creates an uneven and watery paste.

MAKE THE AMAZING SAUCE

9. In a bowl, mix 3 tablespoons each of brown sugar, molasses, soy sauce and mushroom sauce. Stir till all the sugar is dissolved.

START COOKING

10.  Over medium heat, heat 3 tablespoons of oil till the surface of the oil starts to simmer, a few minutes. Then add the onion, chili and garlic mixture.  Cook for 3-5 minutes, until light golden brown.

11. Add the peas.  I just add some frozen peas, cover the pan and cook for 5-7 minutes. Fresh peas are a great choice if you can find them. Fresh peas should only be cooked a minute or two.

12.  Add the celery and carrots.  Cover and cook for 5 minutes.

13. Add the bok choy, don’t cover.  Cook for three minutes.

14. Add the broccoli, cook for two minutes.

15.  Now, fluff the rice with a fork or your fingers, breaking up any clumps. Add the rice and the bowl of sauce. Give the whole thing a good stir until completely coated in the sauce.

Now the last, most important step…eat.

We love to mix scrambled eggs into each serving for a complete meal.  I recommend only adding freshly scrambled eggs to your plate when you’re read to eat.   The eggs won’t taste very good if you add them to the whole pot and keep them in the fridge.  Fresh eggs are much better.

But what do you do when you have a group coming over for dinner and your wonderfully planned dinner has just turned into a disaster?  I’ve been asked this question in a couple of reader emails and I always assure them that I’ve had my fair share of entertaining disasters.  In fact, this just happened to me last weekend.

I am sure I am not the only one here with a dinner disaster story. Since the fear of a burnt main dish or a baking disaster can often hold people back from throwing a great party, I thought it would be great for us all to share and laugh at our own disaster stories and realize that it happens to all of us and can often be the dinner party you remember most.

So, tell us; do you have a dinner party disaster story to share?

How did you handled it? Were you able to save the meal or did you order take out?  

MY STORY

Just this last Friday we had our neighbors over for a pizza night.  When I went to make the pizzas, I realized I was a little short on flour but decided to make them anyway.  The dough ended up being too wet and I attempted to rescue it by baking the pizza on some parchment paper so it didn’t stick to the pan.  In the end, the pizza completely adhered to the paper and we spent the majority of our dinner prying slices of pizza of the parchment.  That’s not all though!  I had a second pizza and let it warm and rise in the oven a bit.  When I went to preheat the oven to 500-degrees, I forgot the pizza was already in there!  What was supposed to be my second-chance option ended up burning to a crisp.

In the end, we made a game out of helping each other peel pizza slices off the parchment paper…and ended up eating a lot of salad and fruit.  We certainly had a good laugh at the whole thing and wound up having a good time anyway.

My fixation for the perfect chai cookie started on my first visit to India.  We had been married in the US and flew to India for a wedding reception.  Our month-long trip turned into my new family taking their son and his new bride to visit every person they knew. I kid you not, one day we must have visited five different homes.

At the time, I didn’t know a word of Hindi…who am I kidding, I still hardly know any Hindi…so these “house visits” consisted of my sitting in a strangers house, trying desperately to look like I actually understood the unrecognizable conversation that was happening around me.  After ten minutes, when my attention would start to drift and I was in danger of appearing bored, our hostess would walk out with a tray of cups brimming with chai and a plate lined with little cookies.  This was always the part of the trip I looked forward to the most. It was the only aspect of the visit I could fully appreciate without a translator.  Needless to say, after I came back home from that first trip, it was hard to kick the cookie habit.

Indian cookies have such unusual flavors.  I’m used to vanilla and chocolate cookies.  With Indian cookies you get flavors like orange, pistachio and almond.  I’ve even seen rose flavored cookies. My favorite flavor when it comes to “dipping” cookies…or biscuits as they are called in India…is cardamom.

So what makes a great “dunking” cookie? A great tea cookie should be subtle in flavor so it doesn’t compete with the chai, yet easily enjoyed on it’s own.  It also can’t crumble away or become soggy when dunked, but it should also be soft and flaky.   Want to find out how good it is?  Let’s get baking…

Cardamom Cookie Recipe

adapted from: Cook’s Country “Melting Moments” cookies

This is an easy “dump and stir” cookie recipe, which means all you need are some mixing bowls and a spoon.

These cookies have a very tender texture, similar to short bread.  So they crumble easily.  I discovered that when I stored them in a plastic bag they turned into powder within a few days.   I now store them in plastic food containers.

The original recipe had a wonderful texture that I was after and to adapt it into a chai cookie, I added a tablespoon of ground cardamom.  I also used all cake flour rather than mixing in rice flour as the original recipe suggests.  Using cake flour in place of all purpose flour creates a much softer cookie.

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a large bowl, mix together the heavy cream and vanilla and melted butter.  Let the melted butter cool off for a minute before adding it.

2. In a separate bowl combine all the dry ingredients: cake flour, corn starch, ground cardamom and salt.

3. Add the confectioners sugar to the butter and cream mixture, stir until completely combined.

4. Add the softened butter in small batches. (Sorry, I forgot to take a photo.)

If you’re like me and you forgot to take the butter out of the fridge, here is a tip for softening butter in 30 seconds.

5.  Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture.  To make it easier to mix, add the flour mixture in smaller batches, incorporating each batch before adding the next.  Pouring it all in at once gives you a cloud of flour that can be hard to stir.

6. Shape the cookies and then refrigerate for 30 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and place the baking rack in the center.

TO SHAPE THE COOKIES

I got these two great tricks from the original recipe at Cook’s Country.

EASY LOG COOKIES

1. Plop the dough into the middle of a piece of parchment paper

2. Fold the parchment in half, keeping the loose edges toward you. Using a ruler or in my case a long rolling pin, press against the dough until it spreads towards the side and takes the shape of an evenly sized cylinder to form a cookie “log”.

3. Place it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to harden.  Then unwrap it, slice it into cookies sizes and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.

FANCY STARS

1. If you have a pastry bag and a star tip, fill the bag halfway with cookie dough. Pipe the cookies onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Space the cookies about 1-inch apart. Place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before baking to keep their shape.

I bought my disposable pastry bags and plastic star tip from Michaels in the cake decorating section.

BAKE

Bake at 300-degrees for 20 minutes.  Start checking them at 15 minutes. If you can smell the cardamom and the bottoms of the cookies are starting to look a light golden brown, they are done.  Place the cookie sheets onto a cooling rack for 10 minutes, then you can remove the cookies from the cookie sheet (moving them using the parchment paper makes it much easier)and let them cool completely.

Before last year’s trip, I had never seen real peas in a pod.  The only peas I’ve had exposure to is the kind you buy in the frozen section.  Growing up, I was never a big fan of peas.  As I was the only vegetarian in the family, my grandmother would simply leave out the meat for me, so I ate a lot of dinners consisting of steamed peas and carrots with mashed potatoes.   But peeling these fresh peas and sneaking a few into my mouth was a whole different experience. It made me wonder what kinds of flavors I was missing out out by relying only on my local grocery store.  I’d experienced first hand the difference between fresh and frozen.  I already had heard about how they pick tomatoes small and green and ripen them with chemicals.  I began to ask myself “what am I missing out on?”.

Feeling inspired, I decided to go home and try growing my own peas.  Easier said than done when you live in a condo in the middle of downtown.  I sought out my nearest community garden and after a few months of waiting, I got my own plot where I could experience fresh home grown food for the first time.

I planted some peas, a tomato plant and some lettuce, just to keep things small and simple.  After about three weeks now, everything has practically died.  I’m not sure if I have under watered or over watered, but it seems this isn’t going to be as simple as I thought.   Feeling heavily discouraged and completely willing to throw in my gardening gloves, I got a boost of encouragement from my mother and aunt, both very good gardeners, not to give up and that gardening has a learning curve.  Armed with their confidence, and the memory of great tasting fresh food, I’ll have to give it another go and be patient.  In the meantime, I’ll be making mattar paneer with frozen peas.

Mattar Paneer is a Punjabi curry dish with peas and Indian cheese called paneer.  In India the peas are bought within hours of being picked from their stems and the paneer has been made early that morning by the downstairs bakery.  For me however, I buy a block of paneer and a package of frozen peas.  However, I have found ways of freshening these up a bit.  Frozen peas are very dry and chewy, so the watery curry helps put a little life back into them.  Store bought paneer is dense, so a reader provided a great tip for softening up paneer by letting it sit in a simmering mixture of milk and water.  If I plan ahead, I’ll make my own paneer, which always tastes the best.

MATTAR PANEER RECIPE

A Punjabi favorite.  You can find this dish in almost any Indian restaurant you visit.

This dish is made with the same technique as Mummy-ji’s chole recipe.  It’s the quickest way to make the basic foundation known as tarka.

Serves: 6

Time: 1 hour

Spice Level: low

1. MAKE THE TARKA

Blend the onions, garlic, ginger and chilies.  Add as little water as needed in order to blend because you’ll be cooking the mixture until the water evaporates (the more you add the longer the cooking will take).

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat, then add the blended tarka.  Let it cook while you blend the tomatoes.

Add the blended tomatoes

along with the 1  1/2 tsp.  salt,

2 tsp. garam masala

and 1 tsp. turmeric.

Give it a stir.

Let it cook for about 10-15 minutes.  You’re looking for all the liquid to evaporate.

You should end up with a thick paste.  Once the paste starts to stick to the bottom of the pan a bit, you know it’s getting dry enough.

2.  ADD THE PEAS & PANEER

Add the peas to the tarka

and 2 cups of water.

Cover and let it cook for 5 minutes while you chop the paneer into bite-size cubes.

After the peas have cooked for 5 minutes, add the paneer.

Cover and let cook for 10 more minutes.

You know the paneer is done when you can easily cut through it.

3. RELATED RECIPES

Enjoy your Mattar Paneer with a couple of homemade chapatis or a side of rice.

For some easy sides, you can serve it with a cucumber salad or a small bowl of raita.

For a great dinner party menu, make this along with some daal as well.

Try making your own Homemade Paneer for an extra special meal.

This year however, he arrived home from his India trip with a full video of his sister making this recipe. That’s when I realized it was time to give it a go. 

To be honest, I have always been intimidated to try this dish.  It has complex flavor and uses a variety of vegetables, so I figured it would be difficult and time consuming.  But I am amazed at how easy this dish is. You roughly chop everything, throw it in a pot, make the basic Indian flavor base known as tarka, which is in every Indian dish, and mix it together.  It’s even easier when I use my food processor to quicken up the prep work.

The recipe is called Pav Bhaji.  Pav means bread and Bhaji means vegetables.  So it’s vegetables, served with bread (rather than chapatis). It’s a Bombay street food favorite.  It’s full of an array of vegetables, this version uses five, but I’ve seen others which use up to nine.  It’s a great dish for making use of leftovers.  This version of the recipe doesn’t skimp on the ghee and oil.  For a healthier day to day version, I like to minimize the oil and ghee.

I tried this recipe for the first time on Hubby’s birthday. It was a little tricky trying to keep Hubby from noticing what I was making.  The times when I make the real “top shelf” recipes are usually special occasions,  so I go to great lengths to keep it under wraps and await the look of glee on his face.  But as he was home on his birthday…which I should have thought of before…it was a little hard to disguise.

Hubby seemed pretty oblivious though, and I was able to have my sister-in-law’s video playing by my side as I chopped and mashed and fried and stirred right along with her.

Cut to dinner time an hour and a half later and Hubby just about exploded with giggles. I was rewarded with a showering of hugs and kisses, and that even before he tasted it.   As I am sure you could imagine, as soon as the eating began, there wasn’t much room for conversation.  He enjoyed every mouthful.

VIDEO

What I love the most about cucumber side dishes is they replace my craving for dessert.  After a spicy meal, which in my house is every meal except breakfast, I always crave something sweet to clear away the heat.  Once I discovered cucumbers mixed with lemon and salt, I had a favorite new snack and a way to cut my craving for more cake.

This video has two versions of cucumber salad.  The first version is more of a daily salad which only takes seconds to prepare.  It’s some sliced cucumber with a sprinkle of lemon juice and salt.  It’s the version we have on a daily basis in India because it’s so quick.

The second version is a fuller, more fancy version and what my Hubby calls an “Indian salad”, which adds onion and tomato slices along with the cucumber.

Sarah S.  ”I love curry and naan.”

Congratulations Sarah, you’ll be receiving an email from us today. Thank you to everyone who entered.  Your wonderful comments have inspired us to create a whole list of new videos.

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We have received so many emails from readers trying out our recipes and sharing their successes.  We love reading your stories and it’s a treat seeing all your great photos!  One of the themes we have noticed is that many first time Indian cooks have to go pretty far to find Indian spices.  To show our excitement for your enthusiasm, we thought, “let’s send the Indian store to them!”

If you are in search of the Essential Indian Spices, and you don’t seem to have an Indian store nearby, this is the giveaway for you! We are sending out a set of basic spices: Garam Masala and Turmeric…plus one secret masala mix that will come in handy for a video tutorial coming up in a couple weeks…

The giveaway includes:

One box of Garam Masala

…one bag of turmeric…

…and one secret spice, you’ll be needing for a recipe in a couple weeks.

I should preface our recipe by telling you that there are gazillions of raita recipes.  This recipe is Hubby’s favorite. It’s a little on the spicy side, with the use of raw onions and a dash of red chili pepper, but you could leave those out if you wish for something spice-free.

I first made this cake for my step-father’s birthday party in January, and I’ve made it again for Valentine’s Day.  When I was thinking of what to make for the January birthday party, I had asked myself, what kind of cake do you make for a man who loves strong, dark and bitter chocolate?

That’s when I decided a dense, flourless chocolate cake, enriched with espresso and topped with a glossy, midnight-black glaze was going to be the perfect cake to top off our celebration.  Now I’m a milk chocolate fan myself, so I figured this cake would be a bit too dense and dark for me, but I loved the taste and it became a huge hit at the party.  So when I was thinking of what to make for a great Valentine’s day dinner, I turned right back to this cake.

This is the first time I have hosted a large party and not been an exhausted ball of stress by the end of the evening. The secret seemed to be delegating. The only thing I made was the cake and I made it two days before the party even started.   My family is huge on potlucks and I can’t help but wonder what took me so long to catch on.  Maybe my parents have had enough experience to realize that hosting a potluck is the way to go.  What’s not to love? It get’s everyone involved and leaves the host with enough energy to enjoy the evening as most as anyone else.  My family even goes the extra step of helping cleanup afterwards, so all I really had to worry about was the cake.

DARK CHOCOLATE MIRROR CAKE

This recipe is adapted from two great resources, The cake is inspired from America’s Test Kitchen.  I’ve adapted the size of the cake pan I use to be a smaller 8-inch springform pan instead of a 9-inch, so the cake comes out a bit thicker.  I also added some instant espresso powder to bump up the intensity and baked the cake at a slightly lower temperature for a longer period of time so the cake comes out softer.  I happened upon the glaze recipe by a renowned pastry chief, Michael Laiskonis. I found it on a blog of his, but unfortunately the link is no longer active, but he is an award-winning pastry chief so do a google search on him.  It’s the smoothest glaze I have ever come across, and he gets all the credit.

This cake is rich and dense.  I noticed at the birthday party that most people only finished half of their cake,and seeing ten half-eaten pieces of delicious chocolate cake was a sad sight.  So thin pieces are good to start with…you can always go back for more.

EXTRA TIPS

To melt chocolate mixture using micowave:

melt the chocolate mixture in the microwave for about 2 minutes, taking it out every 15 seconds to stir.  Only microwave until the mixture is smooth and melted (1 or 2 minutes, depending on your microwave).

What Are Soft Peaks?

Short Answer: When you lift up your whisk, the egg whites will curve over the side of the whisk.  If the peak is standing standing straight up, you’ve over whipped it.

Long Answer: The longer you whip egg whites the more fluffy and firm they become. If you gather some egg whites on your whisk and lift it up, it should be firm enough to stay on the whisk and not fall off.  When you lift up the whisk a peak will form and depending on how much you have whipped your eggs, the peak will bend off to the side (a soft peak) or stand straight up (a firm peak).  A firm peak will be too structured for this cake and actually cause it to over rise when baking, so a soft peak is important.

Troubleshooting

My cake puffed up a lot when baking: you probably over whipped your egg whites

My glaze is not smooth: It really helps to have way too much glaze when you are pouring the cake.  It allows to you generously pour and cover the cake.  You will feel like you are left with a pan filled with delicious chocolate, but just pour it into a container to use another time…or to eat spoonfulls at a time…not that I ever do that…

Can I make the cake sweeter?  Yes, just use less espresso powder or swap the bittersweet chocolate for semisweet chocolate or even milk chocolate.

I love the idea of a quick-start guide to Indian cooking.  I have had many people tell me they haven’t tried Indian cooking because the list of spices is too intimidating, and it can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be.

To show you how easy it really is, I would like to share with you a picture of my mother-in-law’s spice box.  This box contains only three spices:  1. Salt   2. Turmeric  3. Garam masala

Salt, turmeric and garam masala are the only spices my Mummy-ji uses on a day to day basis. Occasionally she uses red chili powder for color (such as in her chole recipe).  These same three spices make a wonderful array of dishes, all with their own unique flavors.

Of these three spices, salt and turmeric are the most available.  It should be easy to find turmeric in the spice isle of most mainstream grocery stores (much cheaper at the Indian store though).

If you are just starting out with Indian cooking, you are probably less familiar with garam masala.

I‘m including garam masala as one spice on my essentials list, when in actuality garam masala is a blend of spices (about seven spices, depending on the recipe).

The easiest way to get garam masala is at an Indian grocery store but if you don’t have one of those around, try looking for it at a natural foods store (I’ve seen it at Whole Foods).

You may want to try your local neighborhood stores, as Indian spices are becoming more and more widely available.

If you don’t have an Indian grocery store and you cannot find it at any of your local stores, you can make your own garam masala at home using commonly available spices.

Many of the recipes on this site use an array of spices. However, if you want to keep things real simple, you could cut out all the other spices and just stick to these three.  I personally love my spice cabinet, which is stocked full of colorful and great smelling spices, but I only use turmeric and garam masala for day to day cooking. For anyone who like it short and simple, just keep the “essential three” on hand.

How To Simplify Any Recipe On This Site:

To simplify any recipe on this site, you can replace the spices in any recipe with a ratio of:

• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric.

Taste and adjust before serving.  These are the amounts I’ve observed Mummy-ji using in the recipes we’ve made together.

To start cooking right away, take a look at the cooking videos Mummy-ji and I have made together, all of which use only the “essential three” spices (except the chole, which includes some red chili powder for color).

Easy Indian Recipes

• Aloo Gobi
• Shahi Paneer (recipe by Madhu)
• Palak Paneer
• Chole