Last time, I shared with you the first part of this series with the making of tandoori roti or phulka (delicious Indian flatbread) made in the kitchen of my friend Srividya. Here’s more from our marathon morning of cooking (i.e. she cooked, and I peppered her with questions, tasted everything, took photos and generally got in her way). Today, I’ll share the details on the basmati rice as well as some of the interesting kitchen staples in Vidya’s kitchen.


One of my favorite conversations with Vidya as she prepared the meal was when she was telling me about locating good quality Indian kitchen staples in the U.S. and about the time her mother-in-law visited and was aghast at the caliber of ingredients stateside. “Your basmati doesn’t even smell!” commented the mother-in-law, appalled. Apparently, basmati has a rather telltale stench about it!

Basmati Rice
Basmati is a longer grain rice frequently found in Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine. Many people who make basmati use two cups of water to one cup of rice, but Vidya prefers to put the rice straight into the butter or ghee (clarified butter), giving it a couple of turns with a spoon before adding 2.5 to 3 cups of water. She says she always cooks rice with butter to make it extra special. She also adds a few strings of saffron smudged in her fingers to the rice for special occasion because, as she says, “we always eat white rice and it grows tiresome.”


She also says “When we have rice, we generally have something to go with it like a sauce, but some people may want to eat plain rice, so I add a little bit of salt or flavor.” Vidya cautioned to wait for the rice to cool a bit and not overhandle it so that it does not become smushed!


Vidya says that rice should be “finished,” and that there are a lot of ways to finish it and make it attractive such as the addition of saffron. On this particular occasion, she placed a tiny metal bowl directly on the gas flame of the stovetop and added a little butter (or ghee). Once it was warm, she added cumin seeds and sliced almonds stirred with a metal spoon and watched closely to avoid spattering. After just a handful of minutes, she added this on top of the rice for serving.

Mixture (or Bombay Mix)
At one point during our cooking adventure, I became immensely distracted when Vidya offered me some “mixture.” In fact, I’m pretty sure the rest of our conversation and my photographs suffered because I couldn’t stop thinking about and craving the delicious snack.

Vidya told me that “mixture” is a pretty broad term for a common savory snack made for diwali mela (or devali), essentially the Festival of Lights. Vidya said it is traditionally made in south India in Tamalan where she comes from in a large group in vast quantities (she offered it in a typical U.S. popcorn tin, and I could have eaten the whole thing). I’ve made her promise to let me participate the next time that a group gathers to make this delicious treat. It often contains Spanish peanuts (or other ground nuts), fennel seeds coated in sugar, rice crispies, corn flakes, puffed chana, medium dry noodles, ribbon pakoda, curry leaf, red chili powder, salt, asafoetida, boondi, maida flour chips and other delights.

It ends up being a crunchy, savory, slightly spicy and sweet snack that both my toddler and I inhaled. Frankly, I have to wonder if Chex Mix is just a glorified, mainstream version of the delightful “mixture!” I often found the equivalent online referred to as “Bombay Mix.” Here are a few resources online to learn more about ingredients and details:

Bombay Mix

Indian Mixture Recipe

Chivda Spicy Indian Snack Mix

Kitchen Tools & Dishes

I admit that I’m intrigued with all international and ethnic foods and love learning about the traditional dishes and customs of other cultures, so maybe I find all this more interesting than most, but I loved exploring all the tools in Vidya’s kitchen almost as much as our conversation (and the FOOD).

For example, she used several large metal bowls with her grandmother’s initials on them for everyday prep – they were probably 50 – 60 years old.

I actually use metal cups and dishes for my kids in place of plastics, but they haven’t been easy to find. I was smitten with all the very basic, durable metal bowls, edged plates and cups that Vidya used interchangeably for prep and serving. Now I know that my local Indian market is a great source for my efforts to avoid plastic storage containers and dishes in my own kitchen.

Indian Kitchen Staples

While making the malai kofta (which I’ll share next time), Vidya mentioned that she flavored the dish with fresh ginger root. She said “Some people add garlic, but I don’t like it – in my community, garlic and ginger are considered sensuous foods and were not allowed into the home along with onion and eggs.”

She told me that there was always a cow in the house, providing fresh milk daily as well as the makings for yogurt and butter. However, no meat or eggs (which might hatch) were ever consumed. Vidya says to this day her father will not eat eggs, and only very rarely might have a small bit of cake. She said her mother has eaten eggs, but she only recently started giving her own kids boiled eggs on occasion.

Vidya shared that in her grandmother’s kitchen, there were two gas cooktops and that rice was always prepared separately. She said there were two pantries – one for larger bulk items and one for daily use. She shared that most preparation was not at a table, counter or a large work surface, but rather seated on the floor in a circle with other women.

Another interesting comment Vidya made about the dishes we prepared was that most of the ingredients were kept on hand, and that she keeps her larder (or pantry) full. Of course, I had to ask permission to be nosy and get into her pantry. I, too, love a full pantry (as my friend nwaFoodie will attest and shared in her recent tour of my pantry and her own)! I love the idea that I can quickly prepare a meal for guests even if I didn’t anticipate their arrival.

However, my very favorite find in Vidya’s kitchen was the metal spice storage bowl kept handy in a drawer near the stovetop with the primary/most frequently used spices. Individual bowls and one lid plus handy spoons meant that the most often used items could be easily accessed without needing to open and close multiple spice jars and containers. You better believe this system is HIGH on my kitchen wish list!

Apologies for making you wait one more week for the details on the malai kofta, but I had too much fun in Vidya’s kitchen to confine it to just one post!

So, I’ve taunted you for a while with the claim that I was fortunate to spend a morning in the kitchen of my friend Srividya Venkatasubramanya. Finally, I’m sharing the details!


I was fortunate to meet Vidya when our two oldest children attended Evergreen Academy in downtown Rogers. She and her family had only recently moved to northwest Arkansas (from Minneapolis, as I recall?), and our daughters became friends at school. I loved that like me, Vidya was enthusiastic about languages (she had taught Spanish and had some French as well), and our exuberant personalities were a good match. Eventually, her daughter Matangi joined our Girl Scout troop as well. We don’t get to see each other as much any more despite living in neighboring communities, but she knows me well enough that she didn’t find it odd in the least when I begged for a crash course in Indian cooking! I’m becoming more and more willing to simply ask my friends to share their native foods with me – I find they are often happy to do it.

In case you missed it, last week I posted my friend Paula Jo (of Crepes Paulette) Chitty Henry’s recipe for typical French ratatouille, and I think I have a few more fun things to share with you soon!

For now, back to my adventure in Vidya’s kitchen…


She prepared several traditionally North Indian recipes, and told me that in India, everything is cooked on the fire or deep fried – there was not usually any concept of an oven until Muslims and Christians brought this idea to India. We prepared (well, Vidya prepared – I mostly just stood around in her way) Tandoori Roti and Malai Kofta. I’m including links to the recipes for these dishes by some renowned Indian chefs that Vidya recommended for their helpful videos and instructions, because I don’t think I can properly tell anyone how to make these two dishes correctly. I’m still experimenting myself! However, I’ll include some of the tips and quips Vidya shared with me for each recipe. Enjoy!

Tandoori Roti
Rotis are like naan, but naan is yeast-leavened (see Indian bread definitions below). Vidya uses about a cup of atta flour (atta is the whole wheat flour at the base of most Indian breads) to three cups of water, added a bit at a time. The dough should be soft, but not too soft. While she noted that you could add salt or butter, Vidya makes her rotis plain, and I care most about trying to make the dishes properly as they are intended to be prepared, so I didn’t want to know about some of the other ways they might have been adjusted or Americanized!

The dough should be formed into a ball and covered for 30 minutes to an hour – Vidya used a metal bowl on top of another metal prep bowl and then set the dough aside while preparing the malai kofta.

Ultimately, she rolled the dough out into a thick tube and started forming the rotis into flattish ovals about an inch thick by 2 – 3 inches in diameter. She dipped these briefly in atta and rolled them out on a special round, raised marble pedestal-type surface to about the size and thickness of a thick homestyle tortilla.

They are dropped for a few seconds onto dry heat – no oil – on a cast iron skillet on the stove top, and then flipped using tongs to cook the other side. Finally, she used tongs to hold them directly on the open gas flame for a few seconds on each side, causing the roti to brown and puff, and then placed directly into the roti dish (which looks like a tortilla holder or rice cooker). Vidya used a Mother’s Pride brand thin, flat cast iron skillet (such as those pictured here).

Ultimately, the end result looks a bit like a thick tortilla but the direct flame causes the roti to puff up and brown nicely. These were a bit bigger and ultimately made about 10 rotis – the size can be larger or smaller as desired. I don’t think I captured the puffed roti very well in photos, but here’s a good reference in an article on phulka.

One thing that confused me throughout the cooking of the rotis were all the interchangeable terms. To the best of my best of my understanding, here are some simplified definitions:

Roti is the basic word for most Indian breads.

Chapati is the term for rotis flattened between the palm of the hands (chappat in Hindi means flat). These are usually thicker or thinner than a more predictably-shaped roti made using a rolling pin, roti maker or press.

Phulka is a roti made without oil or grease, roasted a bit and then finished on an open flame and puffed. Honestly, this is closest to what we made.

Tandoori Roti simply means the roti is cooked in a clay oven or tandoor.

My impression after cooking with Vidya and then researching all that we discussed further is that all of these terms are very interchangeable! I bet she will correct me on anything I’ve misstated or incorrectly represented. A couple of additional tips: when making the atta for the rotis (dough), make it half an hour ahead and let it sit. Vidya recommends for cooking that you use direct heat or a pure charcoal flame, and cook the rotis like a tortilla – you don’t want them to puff up on the skillet, just on the direct heat very quickly and then into a tortilla holder for serving.

There was so much information that we covered in our session that I’ve broken it up into separate posts, so in the next one we’ll cover the basmati rice, malai kofta (like a vegetarian meatball) and sauce as well as all the interesting things found in Vidya’s kitchen and larder (or pantry).


Let me know what you think, questions for Vidya and other favorite Indian dishes you’ve tried!

Resources:

Sanjeev Kapoor Recipe for Tandoori Roti

Sanjeev Kapoor Video for Tandoor Roti (on tandoor oven)

Tarla Dalal’s Recipe for Tandoori Roti