Experimenting with spice combinations is a sure fire to introduce new flavours to your menu.
Simply Spice by Raji Sharma is a cookbook filled with recipes for vegetarian Indian food. Raji helps you understand spice combinations and guides you through the recipes that make the most of these unique aromas.
We were lucky enough to get our hands on two recipes from the book to share with you. These recipes are suitable for beginner cooks and are so tasty we guarantee you will be going back for seconds. Simply Spice is published by New Holland and retails for, $45.
Grilled Paneer Skewers
Makes: 10–15 skewers
Cooking Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
2.5 cm (1 in) piece ginger
1 clove of garlic
1 green chilli (adjust to taste)
1⁄2 teaspoon cumin powder
1⁄4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons dried methi leaves (dried fenugreek leaves available at Indian stores)
400 g (14 oz) paneer
1 green bell pepper (capsicum), cut into chunks
2 red onions, cut into chunks
4–6 tablespoons ghee or canola oil, to cook
15 bamboo skewers, soaked for 30 minutes
Method
Step 1.
Step 2.
Step 3.
Step 4.
Cook these delicious paneer skewers and enjoy a light Indian meal
Sev Puri
Serves 6–8
Cooking Difficulty: Easy
This dish is definitely an example of the sum being greater than its parts, eating everything on its own just doesn’t have the same effect as the burst of flavor you get from eating it all together. If you can’t get the sev puri puffs we’ve found carefully piling everything on a plain rice cracker works just as well.
Ingredients
2 medium potatoes, boiled, peeled and cut into 1 cm (1⁄2 in) cubes
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
1⁄4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1⁄2 teaspoon cumin powder
120 g (4.5 oz) plain yogurt 1 packet sev puri puffs (bought from the Indian grocer) or 1 packet plain rice crackers
1 medium red onion, finely diced
1 small firm tomato, seeds removed and finely diced
4 tablespoons mint, cilantro and coconut chutney
4 tablespoons sweet date chutney
150 g (5 oz) sev (crispy besan noodles, available at Indian stores)
4 tablespoons cilantro (coriander), stalks and leaves finely chopped
Method
Step 1.
Step 2.
Step 3.
Step 4.
Eat immediately, popping the whole thing in your mouth at once.
These delicious puffs are meant to be eaten in one bite