One of my readers asked for this popular recipe. Dal makhani must be one of those dishes which are always present in the Indian restaurant buffets here. I love it for the different beans and also texture of this dish. But had never prepared it at home before. When I wanted to prepare it at home, I was in no mood to buy the whole urad which is one of the ingredients for the makhani ....

Our food habits have changed so much after we had kids. V and I grew up eating rice for lunch and dinner. But when Ishaan turned one, he preferred chapatis over rice. So I started making chapatis regularly. But we still had rice every day. Now after Ayaan was born, I had to come up with dishes that did not take a lot of manual work. We have started eating more salads, burgers (homemade, healthy ones), pastas, grilled fish/chicken etc, anything that saves me time....

I have garnished this dish with some coriander leaves in above picture, but in the original dish, coriander is not used. Ingredients: Buttermilk 3 cups Garlic cloves 4-5 Green chillies 2-3 Turmeric Salt Oil Method: Heat oil and fry garlic cloves. Add green chillies, one cup of water and turmeric. Boil for 5 min. Remove from flame & add this to buttermilk. Add salt. Serves : 2 Preparation time : 5min...

Every Indian cuisine has a recipe for simple dal. The Konkani version is called Dalithoy. This must be the simplest possible recipe and the one learned by all newbie cooks. There are few versions of this comfort food, based on the region, people use different tampering/ingredients in dal and call it “authentic dalithoy”. At our place, the common dalithoy – which is also a part of almost all festivals and temple meals – is this one ....

Kababs are V’s favorite way of eating chicken. Â So I make these simple kababs very often. I bake them most of the times, but when there is shortage of time, I like to grill them. I made these for a office outing few days ago. Simple, easy and very tasty. Ingredients: 1 lb (0.4 kg) chicken 1 tea spn chilli powder 2 tbl spn thick yogurt 1/2 tea spn ginger paste 1/2 tea spn garlic paste Salt Spice powder(make a powder) – 3-4 cloves 1″ cinnamon 1/2 tea spn coriander seeds...

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous Diwali/Deepavali. As I had mentioned earlier many times, I like to discuss food with V’s grandmother. She is almost 85+ years old now, but has this great interest in food. What surprises me is, though she cannot cook now, she loves to learn new dishes. She also loves to give me her own recipes. This is one such recipe I got from her....

My experience with mangoes here in US has been a big disaster so far. At my native we had a lot of mango trees. So I have grown up eating one of the best mangoes. Few of them were the “ gavnti ” – country style mangoes, they were very tasty and full of pulp. Anyone who ate these mangoes could never ever forget them. I didn’t realize how much I loved them up until we started living in the US and I was searching in all possible places for any good edible mangoes....

Few days back my friend Mahi had invited us for dinner and she made a delicious mango dal. It reminded me of the big batch of frozen mangoes I had bought from Costco. It was another purchase on the whim. I never made anything with them. I usually make mango dal using this recipe . This time I wanted to try something different. When I started making it, I remembered a big batch of roasted fenugreek(methi) seeds powder that aayi made for me when she was here last year....

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous Deepavali and very happy new year. And let’s get to the recipe now…. Its been a kind of tradition at my home that whenever any deep fried item like chakli or shankarpali is prepared, these are preceded by few taLile (deep fried) shenga (peanuts). I think this was mainly because people wanted to make use of the little oil remaining after all the deep frying....

I am a big fan of masala puri. I posted a recipe for a version of masala puri some 3 years ago. Many of the readers said they want the one available in Bangalore. Of course every street vendor who serves masala puri has their own recipe for it. Every one has a unique taste. I am one of those people, who enjoy all the different varieties of chaats. I am sure most of you do too....

Sagu Most of the restaurants in Bangalore serve setdosa – mixed vegetable sagu or puri and sagu. This spicy, delicious, filled with vegetables sidedish makes a great side for so many dishes. My brother started making this and now my aayi makes this very often. When I tried this, it was a hit with my family. Set dosa recipe is here . Ingredients: 2 cups vegetables (carrots, potato, green peas, beans) 1/2 cup onion 1/2 cup tomato 5-6 curry leaves 1 tea spn mustard seeds Oil Salt For the masala – 1 tbl spn hurigadale (putani/dalia/roasted chana dal) (optional) 1 cup coconut 1/4 cup coriander leaves 1/4 cup onion A small piece ginger 3-4 garlic 3-4 green chillies 4 cloves 1/2″ cinnamon 2-3 cardamom 1 tea spn coriander seeds...

Update : Moved, you should now experience faster loading pages and a better overall feel. Please leave me a comment or email if you come across any issues. I appreciate your help. I am in the process of moving Aayi’s Recipes on to a new web hosting provider. You might experience issues with this site such as site unavailable, broken links/images or any other errors. Please bear with me for 3 days and we will be back up and better....

V’s grandmother mentioned about this dish during our last India trip, somehow it had slipped out of my mind. Cooked okra is mixed with raw onion, coconut and some other ingredients to make this delicious bharth . It makes a great combination with some spicy papad(happal) . This is a classic Konkani recipe. It can be made with roasted eggplant(brinjal), cooked okra or some other vegetables. I personally didn’t care much for it because of the raw onion....

I am thinking of posting as many requested recipes as possible. But sometimes I can’t find the recipe and sometimes even though I have the recipe, I might not be able to cook it. So it gets delayed. Paneer 65 is one such dish. Every time I went to Indian store, I avoided buying paneer thinking I can make it at home. By the time I reached home, I was overcome by my laziness....

One of the most popular chips available in market these days are these potato chips (or potato wafers as they are called here). We make chips from raw jackfruit , plantain/banana , breadfruit etc. Since these are readily available in market, I make these very rarely. Many of you requested for this recipe, so I thought of posting the recipe here. For these chips, you have to select big sized potatoes to get chips of larger diameter....

Sweet Corn Soup is one of my favourites. I tried many time to get the same taste as they served in restaurants. But could not. So last time when I had brought some corn, I thought of doing some trial and error. This turned out to be great. This had a slight taste like popcorn(I simply love popcorn!!!).The picture has not come well. But I did not wanted to wait till I prepare this next time....

I am a pickle lover, I cannot have my lunch/dinner without a pickle. While in India, I had a steady supply of awesome pickles from aayi. After coming here, for about 2 years, I relied on our occasional India trips for the supply. I even bought ready made ones couple of times, which were not even close to what aayi makes. Then I started making my own. I must have made my red and yellow lemon pickles atleast 5 times this year....

April is a month of birthdays in my home. Starts with V’s birthday, then Ishaan’s and then mine. I used to religiously bake a cake (or order one) for V’s birthday earlier. But last couple of years, I got so busy (or just lazy) to do anything. I am one of those, who really loves birthday parties. So I thought, I should start it again. V being a huge Apple (the company) fan, I decided to make the cake look like Apple logo....

Ishaan started going to Kindergarten few weeks ago. I was a bit stressed about him going to new school right after coming back from India. On the first day of school, I went to have lunch with him, totally prepared to bring him back home if he was too tired. He assured me he was fine and I can pick him up after school. I came home relieved, thinking he is grown so much that he can handle it....

I think I’ve said it before, Marathi food is very close to my heart. When I moved to Belgaum for my degree, it took a little while to get adjusted to the slightly different taste. But I became a fan pretty soon. Before I could make any Konkani dishes, I learned to make some simple Marathi dishes. I got this amti recipe from my aayi’s sister( pachi ). I have been making this whenever I invite guests or when I want some simple but different meal....