Mamta, I love your site, and I've spent hours browsing and imagining the look and taste of all the dishes, but I've never got down to cooking indian food regularly. Lack of basic ingredients in madrid (green chillies, for instance!!) and a small kitchen and sheer laziness combine, and i end up making some grilled fish or pasta or vegetables.

How can I kick start the indian cook in me?

I really want to do it, especially now that my kid is a year old and can eat normal human food, I'd like to bring in variety whilst sticking to my roots.

(PS: I asked you last year if it made sense to buy a pressure cooker. I followed your advice and did, got a good deal of two for the price of one, and now we make all of the baby's purees in the pressure cooker in minutes!)

And out of curiosity, what are the kitchen tools you cannot do without? For me they are:

Basic stuff: sharp knives, potato peeler, microwave, hand blender and the flexible ikea chopping mats (i have a different color for fish, meat and veg)

Not so basic: garlic squeezer, a good strong metal brush to get the gunk off mussels, a mortar & pestle made of granite or marble

keep the great work going. your forums are good fun.

cheers

Sangeetha

Hello Sangeeta

Indian cooking can be done with very few ingredients, green chillies are not a must. You can get the heat from red chillies or use coarsely ground red chillies.

?that my kid is a year old and can eat normal human food?. LOL!!

To start Indian cooking, you have to have same basic utensils that you would use for any other cooking. You can adapt things to suit your needs. I have rolled out chapatties with an empty wine bottle on one visit to Sweden! So don?t buy things you may not use again. Your name suggests South Indian origin, am I right? You can make reasonable idlies using an egg poacher or steam it in a cake tin place on a trivet in a wok/pressure cooker, just like you would steam dhoklas. Then cut into square. Where does it say that they have to be round ;-)!

So, my suggestion will be not to buy special gadgets and make do with what you have. Basic spices would be chillies, turmeric, coriander powder (you can grind seeds yourself). Or you can replace these with a curry good powder.

Also look under ?Advice? section at the top of this page.

Best wishes

Mamta

Thanks Mamta

I used to cook a lot of indian food, mostly north indian because I like it more and i usually made what I call "single pot dishes", where I don't have to cook the dal, rice, veggies etc separately. A lot of south indian cooking does demand that. My mother is a wonderful cook, and I am sure she will disagree though :)

I tried idlies in the microwave and they turned out rock solid :p But i have to try your idea of making it in a cake tin in the pressure cooker. Square idlis, of course!! Its the taste that matters. And i have a sense Taney would love it (my kid)

I have most of the tools and ingredients i need... mum send them to me. My question about the tools was more out of curiosity. You see, my husband absolutely LOVES kitchen gadgets. He is a great believer in tools in general, but i can see my kitchen drawer filling up with strange things! I have an egg yolk separator, a hard boiled egg slicer, 3 sets of measuring spoons, several cheese graters etc etc etc.... all of which I have used once perhaps. A small knife usually does the same. hehe. But he loves the idea of having them.

well, thanks, lets see how i get along.

I'll check the advice section now

Sang

Hello Sangeeta

You are lucky to have a husband who is interested in kitchen tools. Many men (not all) do not see the need for them at all ;)!

I couldn't do without an egg slicer, measuring spoons and an assortment of graters, all very useful. What you have not used, you cvan used as gifts for family. My motto is to get rid of things (generally) that I have not used for a couple of years.

Have fun cooking :-)!

Mamta

Hello Sangeeta

I don't use anything more than what you have mentioned, but would emphasise the need for a variety of pans.