Nut

This hot, savory chutney is from what used to be India’s northwest frontier but now is on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. There it is made with fresh red chilies, which have beautiful color and medium heat. They are not always easy to find, so I use a mixture of red bell peppers and cayenne pepper. They are always combined with nuts, generally almonds but sometimes walnuts. This chutney may be frozen. It is like gold in the bank. Serve it with kebabs, fritters, and with a general meal.

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.

This recipe may be easily doubled. I just love it with Tomato Pullao.

Dumpukht is a style of cooking that was made very popular in India in the Moghul courts starting around the sixteenth century. Meat or rice dishes were semiprepared or, in the case of meats, they were thoroughly marinated, and then put in a pot with a lid that was sealed shut with dough. The pot was placed on lightly smoldering embers. Some embers were also placed on the top of the lid, thus forming a kind of slow-cooking oven. When the dough seal was cracked and the lid removed, the aroma of the spices left the guests oohing and aahing. This cooking style is still very popular in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. This is a royal-style dish, rich with almonds and saffron, which are native to Kashmir, and yet it is quite light. The recipe may easily be doubled. For a festive meal, also serve Eggplants in a North-South Sesame/Peanut Sauce, and a rice dish.

This is an oven-cooked version of the Indian classic Murgh Mussallam—a whole chicken cooked in a rich spicy sauce. Although Indians like their chicken skinned, partly to let the spices penetrate better, I have not bothered too much with that in this book, just to make life easier. But it would be good to do it for this recipe, as this is a dish for special occasions. You can ask your butcher to skin the chicken, but it is really not difficult to yank most of it off yourself. The wings are a bit troublesome, so I just leave them alone. I might go to town here and serve Black Beans, Yellow Basmati Rice with Sesame Seeds, and Sweet-and-Sour Eggplant. On the other hand, you could treat this as a spicy roast and just have parsley potatoes and fresh summer peas!

Almonds are considered brain food in India. They were always given to us in the morning, especially before exams, after they had been soaked overnight and then peeled. Each one of us got seven almonds—don’t ask me why. So here is a delicious, lightly perfumed morning dose for two people. The soaking makes them taste a bit like green almonds. The perfume is an added bonus. You may serve them with drinks. I often offer dinner guests a few of these almonds just before I serve dessert and coffee.

When I was growing up in Delhi, my mother regularly deep-fried cashews for us in a karhai (wok). She would scoop the nuts up from the hot oil with a slotted spoon and leave them to drain on a crisp sheet of brown paper—the same kind she used to cover our schoolbooks. My father ate them with his evening whisky-and-soda and the rest of us nibbled on them with our soft drinks. I have now taken to roasting the cashews instead. Nothing could be easier.

Black pepper is native to India. Long before India had red chilies to make foods hot, it relied on black pepper. This recipe harks back to a period that is still part of India’s present.

This is an elegant and decorative way of serving rice at a party.

A great variety of vegetable fillings exist. Vegetables with a meat filling are meant to be eaten hot, those with a meatless filling are usually cooked in oil and eaten cold. In Turkey these are called yalangi dolma or “false dolma,” because of the lack of meat. The following are the fillings most widely used. Quantities are enough to stuff about 2 pounds of vegetables, but this varies according to the size of the vegetables and the amount of pulp scooped out.

This fragrant drink was a favorite in my home. Commercial varieties of a concentrated version (a syrup) have an unpleasant synthetic taste.

This wonderful, heartwarming winter drink is hot milk thickened with the starchy ground bulb of an orchid called Orchis mascula. This was sold by street vendors from the large copper urn in which it was made. The stone-colored powder called sahlab (salep in Turkish and Greek) is expensive and not easy to find. I have often bought it in Middle Eastern markets only to discover that it was a fake or adulterated mix. Cornstarch is an alternative which gives a creamy texture but not the same special flavor.

The flavors here are rich and exciting.

This exquisite delicacy makes a ready dessert. Accompany if you like with vanilla ice cream or mascarpone. It is made with fresh dates—the yellow or red varieties, which are hard and sour and totally different from the dried dates with which people in America are familiar. (They are called zaghlouli in Egypt.) It is usual to peel them, but that is an arduous task and, in my view, not all that much worth the effort. They are stuffed with blanched almonds, with which they make a lovely combination.