Indian

This South Indian–style dish may also be made with shredded cabbage. Dried rice sticks are sold by East Asian grocers. You will notice that a little raw rice is used here as a seasoning. It provides a nutty texture. Serve with a lamb or beef curry or grilled meats.

Here is one of the great offerings from Kerala, a state on the southwest coast of India, where it is known as uppama. The semolina that is required here is a coarse-grained variety that is sold as sooji or rava in the Indian stores or as 10-minute Cream of Wheat in the supermarkets. (It is not the very fine version used to make pasta.) This pilaf-like dish may be eaten as a snack with tea, for breakfast with milky coffee and an accompanying coconut chutney (see Sri Lankan Cooked Coconut Chutney), or as part of a meal as the exquisite starch.

South Asians do not really eat brown rice, but many people in South India, western coastal India, and Sri Lanka enjoy a very nutritious red rice. The grains have a red hull that is only partially milled. This is eaten plain and also ground into flour to make pancakes and noodles. This recipe works for all the brown rices available in the West, and may be served with all South Asian meals.

Here is a recipe I have devised for the brown rices (and mixtures that combine brown rice with wild rice) usually found in Western markets. Served with vegetables and a yogurt relish, it makes a fine vegetarian meal. You may also serve this with meat and fish curries.

There are hundreds of versions of this salad-like dish that are eaten throughout South India and parts of western India as well. At its base is rice, the local starch and staple. (Think of the bread soups of Italy and the bread salads of the Middle East.) The rice is cooked so it is quite soft. Then yogurt, and sometimes a little milk as well, is added as well as any fruit (apple, grapes, pomegranate), raw vegetables (diced tomatoes, cucumbers), or lightly blanched vegetables (green beans, zucchini, peas) that one likes. The final step is what makes the salad completely Indian. A tiny amount of oil is heated and spices such as mustard seeds, curry leaves, and red chilies are thrown into it. Then the seasoned oil is poured over the rice salad to give it its pungency and reason for being. This cooling, soothing dish, somewhat like a risotto, makes a wonderful lunch. It is best served at room temperature, without being refrigerated. Other salads may be added to the meal.

Bulgar, a wheat that has been cooked, cracked, and dried, is used in parts of the Punjab (northwestern India) to make a variety of nutritious pilafs. The coarser-grained bulgar is ideal here. Serve as you would a rice pilaf.

This is such a soothing rice dish—slightly sweet and salty, with just a hint of black pepper. (Do not eat the peppercorns. Push them to the side of your plate. They are just for flavoring.) As the dish is South Indian, I have made it with jasmine rice, which is closer in texture to the shorter-grained rices commonly found in that region. I love to serve this with northern lamb and chicken curries, thus breaking tradition and combining north and south in an exciting new way.

A refreshing rice dish that may be served with vegetables, bean and split-pea dishes, and chutneys. Sometimes, I just eat it all by itself with a large green salad.

One of the oldest Indian dishes and continuously popular these thousands of years is khichri, a dish of rice and split peas. (Starting around the Raj period, the British began to serve a version of khichri in their country homes for breakast: they removed the dal, added fish, and called it kedgeree.) There are two general versions of it: one is dry, like well-cooked rice, where each grain is separate, and the other is wet, like a porridge. Both are delicious. The first is more elegant, the second more soothing. This is the first, the dry version. Serve it like rice, with all manner of curries.

Jasmine rice is very different in texture and taste from basmati rice. It is more clingy, more spongy, and more glutinous and, at its best, has a jasmine-like aroma. On some days it is exactly the soothing rice I yearn for. It is certainly closer to the daily rice eaten in South, East, and West India, where basmati rice is reserved for special occasions only. Look for good-quality jasmine rice, usually sold by Thai and other Oriental grocers. Sadly, price is often a good indication of quality. I usually do not bother to wash it, as I enjoy its slightly sticky quality.

A delicious pilaf that may be served with most Indian meals.

The Indian split peas, arhar dal and toovar (or toor) dal, are closely related. Both are the hulled and split descendants of the pigeon pea. Arhar, the North Indian version, is milder in flavor, whereas toovar, used in West and South India, tends to be darker and earthier. Use whichever you can find. If you cannot find either, use yellow split peas. Serve with rice or Indian flatbreads. Add a vegetable and relishes to complete the meal. Non-vegetarians may add meat or fish, if they like.

I have only eaten this slightly sweet and slightly sour dish in Gujarat, and how good it was, too. It isn’t just corn grains that are cooked in the dal but the cob itself, lopped off into reasonably sized rounds. The woody part of the cob flavors the dal in mysterious ways. You just cannot pick up these corn pieces with Western cutlery. Hands are required to eat the corn off the dal-and-spice-flavored cob sections. If you cannot find toor dal (also labeled toovar dal and arhar dal), use any other split peas that you can find easily, such as red lentils or yellow split peas. Just remember that red lentils cook faster than toor dal. This dal is put into individual serving bowls and served with rice or Indian flatbreads. A selection of other vegetables and relishes are also included in vegetarian meals. Non-vegetarians might add fish or chicken.

Basmati rice is easy to cook if you follow these simple directions: Buy good-quality rice with unbroken grains. The rice should have a pronounced basmati odor. Wash, soak, and drain the rice. Cook it with a light hand without heavy-handed stirring, as the grains can break easily. This could be an everyday rice when served with a simple dal, vegetable, and relish, or a party rice if served with a fish or meat curry.

Our family can eat this every single day of the week. It is my soul food. I love this with Plain Basmati Rice and any vegetable I feel like that day. I also love to add Lemony Ground Lamb with Mint and Cilantro.

This delicious dal curry may also be made with moong dal or an equal mixture of red lentils, masoor dal, and moong dal. Serve with rice and fish.

Red lentils, sold in Indian shops as skinless masoor dal and in some places as Egyptian red lentils, usually come in various shades of salmon pink. They originated in the Middle East but came into India quite early and are eaten throughout North India. This particular dish may be served with most Indian meals. It also happens to be particularly scrumptious over a pasta such as penne or fusilli.

For vegetarians, these refreshing lentils, accompanied perhaps by Yogurt Relish with Okra and a bread, Indian or crusty Western, could make an entire meal. For non-vegetarians, meats or fish curries may be added.

There was a time when the easy-to-use canned chickpeas came in such a tin-tasting liquid that they needed not only draining but rinsing as well. The liquid was unusable. Lately, I have found canned organic chickpeas that are in a lovely natural liquid, quite similar to what I get when I boil my own. This is a giant leap, indeed. Look for them. The chickpeas may be served with Indian flatbreads or rice. Eggplants, greens, and relishes would complete the meal. Meats may always be added.

Here is an everyday dish with a fair number of ingredients. Once you have them all prepared and assembled, the rest is fairly easy. Remember that you can chop the onions in a food processor. I have used two 15-ounce cans of organic chickpeas, draining them to separate the liquid so I can measure it. If you are not using organic canned chickpeas, use water instead of the can liquid. If the can liquid is not enough, add water to get the correct amount. Serve with Indian or Middle Eastern breads (you can even roll up the chickpeas inside them) with Yogurt Sambol with Tomato and Shallot, page 249, on the side. At a dinner, add meat and a vegetable.