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…
Tomato Thokku (Chutney, Pachadi)
It was one of those rare days when Dear Husband volunteered to cook in the kitchen and whip out one of his specialty dish “Tomato Thokku”. Tomato Tokku is the equivalent of Tomato Chutney or Tomato Pachadi. He had tasted this Tokku in Bangalore at his friend’s place and apparently the friend’s mother was an expert in making this. He had learnt the recipe then but managed to remember it even after so many years. I seized this opportunity, silently thanked the heavens and mumbled something about having an important work and disappeared from the kitchen. I however conveniently managed to…
Crispy Urad Daal Vada Medu Vada(Uddina Vade)
Deep frying is becoming a rarity at our house now. Gone are those days when we would have deep fried stuff every week or so and yet managed to keep a tab on weight. OK, OK …..we were young then and we had our fair share of running and playing around and that helped to keep up balance. But then, I do make it on some special occasions. Dear Husband celebrated his birthday few weeks ago and I generously offered him the option of choosing his favorite deep fried food. He agonized as he had a tough job of choosing…