I started a series on Instagram called #fingeasy, featuring easy-to-make dishes. All the posts are exactly what my wife Manasi and I are eating at home: simple things that anyone can make. They aren’t strict recipes; what I am posting are broad patterns, that people can play with.
I do intermittent fasting, so breakfast is not in the picture. Of the remaining two meals, we try to keep one Indian and one non-Indian. We have a lot of Asian and stir-fries; those are easy to make. We also have soups for dinner, and make things like pastas and sundaes.
One of our favourite pastas, for instance, is the Aglio e Olio. Recently, I found some pizza seasoning in the house, and decided to use it to make some mushroom Aglio e Olio pasta, along with crushed garlic, olive oil and peperoncino chillies. I used the pizza seasoning instead of the stock cubes that I usually put in my pastas, which I had run out of. It is the kind of ridiculous thing that I would never try in my restaurants, but it was satisfying and simple.
I also wanted to make something that gave me the satisfaction of eating biryani without the elaborate process or ingredients. I had some yellow Thai curry paste, so I decided to make a one pot dish with some of the vegetables I had at home at the time. I like my pulao a little soggy, but if you want it a little dry you can cut down the water a little bit. You can add chicken, seafood or meat to this as you like. The cooking time wouldn’t change too much if the meat is cut into small pieces.
- You can use a pressure cooker or instant pot to make this
- Ingredients: 1 large onion (sliced); 2 cups of rice (I prefer short grain or jasmine but literally anything you have in your larder is fine, washed and soaked for 20 mins and drained); 4 cups of water; 2 large potatoes peeled and cut into chunks; 10 whole long beans; 1 large carrot peeled and cut into chunks; 3 tbsp yellow curry paste (green or red is fine; too); 1 tbsp grated garlic;1 tbsp grated ginger; 2 tbsp vegetable oil; 1 cup coconut milk
- Method: Heat some oil in the cooker, add the onion, garlic and ginger and sweat them a little.s Add the curry paste and cook till the oil starts to separate. Add all the vegetables and saute for a few minutes. Add the rice, water and coconut milk to this mix. Add some salt at this stage. Pressure cook on medium heat for four-five whistles depending on your cooker, or cook for 20 minutes at normal heat and high pressure in the Instantpot. Garnish with scallions if you like.
A major shift in my eating habits during the lockdown is that I have been eating a lot of vegetarian food, which I usually don’t. The other day, I made a spinach and kale dal — we try to make dal at least twice a week. I also tried a South Indian take on the Sindhi dal, on my wife’s recipe. She is Sindhi.
We have also been drinking a lot of buttermilk at home. We go through at least a litre of it each day, between the two of us. We also make about 300ml to 400ml of barley water lemonade — with water from strained barley, lime juice and honey. This because we noticed that we have been drinking much less water lately. When I would be working, there would always be a glass of water next to me, now there isn’t. I have cut down on coffee as well, since I don’t need the caffeine to power through the day.
Sometimes, our meals are as simple as eggs, bacon and roti. At other times, we eat something like a Thai curry pulao. I am also working on a simple sourdough recipe that people can easily make in their own homes. At some point, Manasi and I want to release a set of easy-to-cook recipes; that is also why we are trying so many out these days.
In this series, India’s popular chefs and restauteurs share their lockdown cooking habits and recipes with us.
