Although I grew up in Bangalore, the hometown of the renowned restaurant MTR, I was unfamiliar with MTR masalas, powders, and spices. The primary reason for this was my mom’s good culinary skills—she made all the powders for sambhar, rasam, vaangi bhaat, and pulliyogere from scratch at home. And we didn’t feel the need to buy the store-bought powders. Fast forward a few years, when I got married and moved to the United States, I found myself as a novice cook, suddenly responsible for preparing meals. I craved comfort foods like rasam and sambhar—the flavors I grew up with. That’s…
Show Me Your Breakfast: Berry Yogurt Parfait
Show Me your Breakfast, she says and this is what I have! Weekdays are pretty tight for us and it is difficult to sit down and have a decent breakfast. So we try to make up for that and have a good and healthy breakfast during the weekends. We try to start of the day with healthy breakfast and most of the days we have regular oatmeal with lots of dry fruits and a cup of orange juice. But on some other days especially when we have lots of berries at home we have this variation of Berry…
Low Fat Methi Pakodas (Appey/Paddu/Paniyaram Style)
My dear friend Upsi makes the best Methi (Fenugreek leaves) Pakodas. Whenever she makes them at home, she is sweet enough to bring some for us as well. Pakodas made with Fenugreek are new to us and we had not tasted it before. Of course, we have had onions pakodas and they are our all time indulging favorites. The Methi Pakodas that Upsi makes are crispy, spicy with strong flavors of fenugreek, fennel complementing the sweet taste of cooked onions. The bitter taste of fenugreek is no where to be found. All in all a deadly combination J.Suffice…