13 things in the Pantry.

There is some version of a pantry in every Indian kitchen. You could be a Paying Guest, and your pantry would be a shelf in your closet that houses a half-eaten box of Chocos and a jar of Kissan Jam. You could be a finicky gourmet, whose refrigerator plays host to blue cheese salad dressing and Madagascar-not-Tahitian Vanilla. Or you could be my sensible mum, who makes sure we don't run low on Maggi 2-minute noodles and Marie biscuits.

What I'd wager was just enough to permit decent cooking would be the following. This list has been prepared in mind, assuming you'd already have vegetable oil, salt, pepper, sugar, rice and flour. Even TopChef never counts them as ingredients in their "Five-Ingredients-Only!" Challenges.

Note: The ones in Green have to be fresh. The ones in Purple keep well for a while.

1) Olive Oil. Preferably extra-virgin. You know what those words do to a person of Indian origin.

Buy in small quantities... you'll have to finish it up in 6-8 months for best flavour
 and health benefits!

2) Herbs. Dried herbs are a boon to those of us who nag the people at Pazhamudir Chozhai and the like in vain for fresh parsley and basil. And spices. Saffron, fresh black peppercorns, dried chilli, so on.

3) Dairy. Cheese, butter, milk, yogurt, cream cheese. Anything except Amul Processed cubes gets through. Mozzerella, Feta, Cheddar, even decent Paneer costs way less than those foil-wrapper plastic blocks. As for butter, any decent unsalted butter (Note to self: Uthukuli butter CANNOT be used in baking).

Any one of the following, at any given time, should suffice for a fantastic dessert!

4)Cocoa powder/Chocolate syrup/Bars of Chocolate. Enough said.

Baking and dessert supplies!

5)Condiments: Mustard/Mayo/Ketchup/Jalapenos/Capers/Olives/Green Chilli Sauce: You can stash them for a long time and dress up any recipe! Just remember to call it Aioli or Spiked Honey Mustard dressing or Thai-style Maggi or something.

A panini machine/hot plate and you'll be the celebrity of your dorm.

6)Bread. Atkins diet = Fatkins diet. The founder died of a heart attack; or so says my Spam. If I had to live without bread, pasta, potatoes and bananas... I'd choose being Vegan or Early-less-painful-Death.

Oatmeal = Awesomeness. Clubbed it with bread, because both are big breakfast items for me!

Textured bread like Rye, Multi-Grain for the posh recipes. Nilgris/French Loaf make the best bread. Never, ever store bread in the refrigerator unless it's for Microbio lab, it makes a good culture media for a plethora of fungi. Invest in a bread box, and keep it out of the refrigerator.

7)Pasta-good quality fettucine, spaghetti, penne for simple, classy recipes. If you're going to be making Mac-and-cheese or lasagne that gets hidden in an avalanche of cheese and bechamel (the classic French white sauce that goes in gratins), Bambino macaroni should do.

8)Fresh produce: Do not buy fancy ingredients such as zucchini (unless it was grown in a sustainable farm) or spinach or red cabbage or anything that looks like it spent its long afterlife in a plastic packet. Read tired, wilted, spoilt. You could do great things with local produce as long as its fresh. Buy only the amount you require, from a sustainable greengrocer.

If your veggies turn on you by wilting, turn them into delicious soup!

9) Measuring cups! Those red plastic cups/spoons are crucial to the novice cook.

10) Burnol: Unless you have your own X-Men Origins movie, Burnol is a must. And keep it somewhere close to your oven. I've burnt myself enough times. Also, a nicely padded (again, person of Indian Origin) glove is a big boon to the Clumsily-Abled.

11)Beans: You can make everything from hummus to chili to cookie dough to rajma-chawal. Yes, YOU CAN.

12)Protein: Since electricity isn't predictable in India, I'm wary of freezing meat. But if your electricity is your friend and not foe, or if you have a back-up power generator, you can make breaded chicken nuggets, chicken parmesan, fish fingers and stash for a while in the freezer. Buy flavoured sausages (N recommends Jalapeno and Cheese sausages) and eggs and you have fancy brunch.

13)Nutella. Duh. Although for me, it's Nutella, not Nutella.

This post has been in the works for six months. Kept postponing it due to the unavailability of the featured ingredients for the photography, and because it was near-impossible to narrow down to 13 categories. It might seem pricey, but investing in ingredients is better for your wallet and health/tastebuds in the long run.

Except for Nutella. Don't compromise on Nutella. It's the stuff of which dreams are made of.

When the Going Gets Tough, The Not-so-tough Eat Nutella.

On some days, you don't want to cook. Heck, you don't even want to eat. And definitely not go out for a bite. It's alright. From the minimal training in Psychiatry that I've had during the course of my MBBS education, and from Life and Judy Blume books, I know it's alright.

During the nights I was on duty in the Labour Ward and the days before I gave my General Medicine/General Surgery/OB-GYN/Paed exams, all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball with a jar of Nutella and a House Marathon (?ironic) on the TV. That would have been a luxury; it replaced my long-long desire to have the Frozen Hot Chocolate at Serenditipity III at NYC.

And Mum was initially happy we all loved Nutella. She used them as spice containers. So unintentionally kitschy.

But no addiction can truly be kept under control. All the surplus jars take up cupboard space and Mum is already irritated because Nutella is an expensive addition to the Indian grocery bill. It's difficult to deal with tight clothes and an irate mum simultaneously.

So. Treat it well. I'm going to once again acknowledge the number 13 in my blog address, and do 13 ways to have Nutella:

1) Add a tablespoonful to your regular oatmeal (which will have bananas and nuts and raisins, I'm guessing?)

2)Swirl it into cream cheese for an easy cupcake frosting.

3)Add a tablespoonful of Nutella and a tablespoonful of peanut butter to whitebread and grill until the insides are oozy and gooey. Recipe courtesy of my namesake and supremely talented chef-cousin, Rabia machi and Nihad.

4)A teaspoonful of Nutella sandwiched between 2 Marie biscuits and dropped into your kid sister's Scooby Doo Snacks Box will win you Sister of the Year.

5)Slices of banana and a dab of Nutella on top of your crepes/pancakes will make the best Sunday morning brunch of all time. Or a passably fancy dessert. You can serve it to me any time and I'll make you an award.

6)Nutella enveloped between two squares of Puff Pastry/Phyllo dough and baked until the inside is gooey, not scorched.

7)A couple of teaspoons of Nutella, a tea cup of milk, a stick of cinnamon  and a pinch of coffee powder warmed over a stove and whisked until frothy. Hot chocolate in an instant.

8)Instead of making French/Bombay Toast with a plain old piece of bread, try making it with a Nutella sandwich. But only if you can handle it.

9)Acidic fruit like strawberries pair fantastically with Nutella. Dip the strawberry into the Nutella, set it out on wax paper and refrigerate. You can use this to top your cakes or for the culinary-wise-challenged, this could be your go-to Valentine's Day dessert; easiest way to fool a man into thinking you can cook.

Ayire poi solli oru kalyanam etc and all that.

10)If you or your teenaged sister/daughter has a bunch of Mean Girls to impress during a sleepover, do this: Go to Subway, buy half a dozen Double-Chocolate chip cookies. Make pizzas with Nutella as the sauce, Cookies as the base and bits of nuts and strawberries can be the topping. Even if they have Eating Disorders or body issues or whatever, at least they can pose with them for photos to put up on Face book.

If you luck out and have fabulous friends or are metabolically gifted, make them any way.

11)On really, really fancy bread. Croissants, brioche, baguette slices all freshly bought from French Loaf or baked. If it's steaming hot/flaky, OMG.

12)Poke a skewer/knife into a marshmallow. Toast it over your slow fire on gas-ring until the outsides are golden brown (be very careful). Spread Nutella on Britannia's NutriGrain or similar cream crackers (graham crackers as the Americans call it) and place the oozy marshmallow on top for S'mores.

And sometimes, you don't feel like doing any of the above. Go on, drown your sorrows in the bottle. Get those endorphins and enkephalins releasing. My medical advice.

13) Help yourself to a heaping tablespoonful-neat, straight from the bottle. The true connoisseurs'/clinically depressed individuals way to eat Nutella. I've been doing a lot of this lately, but I'm not going to tell you under which category I fall into. 

12 ways to make a sandwich. And a tuna melt. 13.

Weekends have no rules. Sleep/don't sleep. Work/preferably don't. Eat like skinny jeans don't exist. And then comes Monday, like a strict school-teacher, all uppity and annoying. Meals have to be on the go. Or they have to be made and consumed within the span of minutes. Enter the panini press!

I've raved enough about mine, so I'll spare you this time. Except to say that you need to go buy one if you don't have it already. Stat.

Spy around the house for ingredients. Put them all in a bowl, season to taste. Place between two slices of bread. Toast it in the panini press. Finis. If you are running out of ideas, read on!

Since people keep asking me why I have 13 in the blog-address, I'd like to clarify: apart from it being a number I love, it's simply because I didn't get the original address I wanted. And to pay homage to the number, I'm going to give you thirteen simple ways you can make a sandwich.

1)Peanut butter+mashed banana in white bread-grilled-drizzled with honey.

2)Slices of boiled egg, sprinkled with pepper and salt in wholegrain bread. Grilled, drizzled with extravirgin olive oil.

3)Mediterranean sandwich.

4)Grate paneer. Grate equal amounts of cucumber (Drained completely). Add chopped garlic, pepper, salt. Serve on bread toasted with olive oil.

5)A plain omelette, mint chutney and a slice of Amul cheese between two pieces of Modern bread! If you're up to it, mash up some boiled potatoes with chilli powder and salt. Courtesy: Balaji Sandwich stall.
For more authenticity, put this in a triangle-sandwich machine, and eat some "timepass cucumber" while it cooks.

6)Bruschetta.

7)Sliced apples, raisins and crunchy peanut butter, a sprinkle of cinnamon in wholewheat bread. Grill it, or lunch-box it.

8)Mash a couple of garlic cloves into some mayo, spread it on a slice of bread and toast it with chilli flakes and oregano. Garlic bread!

9)Mint chutney, slices of tomato, onion, cucumber and boiled potato, with a tiny sprinkling of chaat masala. Wrap it in a piece of newspaper. Decorate with little blobs of ketchup.

10)Defrost a burger patty. Grill it/pan-fry it. Place between slices of thick white bread, spread with mayo, mustard and chopped jalapenos.

11)Pizza-sandwich: Pizza sauce, cheese, herbs and similar toppings spread on flatbread (pita/roti) and baked. If it's for a non-gourmet 6-year-old, you can just put ketchup and a slice of cheese on bread and bake it for 10 minutes.

12)Spread Nutella on white bread. Slice a banana and arrange it on the nutella'd bread. Cover it with another slice of white bread. Grill, and serve. You know what I'd do though? Screw the sandwich, and just eat plain Nutella by the spoonful. Mmmmmm!!!!

13)Tuna Melts (or not):
(Serves two. Or not).

Ingredients:

4 slices wholewheat bread
1/3 cup of flaked tuna (from a tin)
1 cup chopped cabbage (can be substituted with iceberg lettuce)
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp mustard
6 black olives, pitted and sliced
Pepper and salt, to taste.
1 slice of American/Amul Cheese (optional)

Method:

1)Preheat the panini press.

2)Chop up the cabbage into fine dice. If you're using lettuce, the pieces can be bigger.

3)I used tuna in sunflower oil. Yes, the image of the smiling fish is off-putting.

 Try to drain the oil off the tuna, especially if you're using mayonnaise and cheese. Tuna in brine, and tuna in olive oil are brilliant, as well.

4) In one bowl, mix the tuna, cabbage/lettuce, olives, mayonnaise and mustard. Add pepper and salt to taste.

5)Stuff the filling between two slices of bread. Add cheese, if using. Grill it on the panini press until golden brown.

I dipped mine in KFC's Hot 'N' Chilly Sauce. Pick up packets of mustard and ketchup at those chain-restaurants. Trust me, the amount you pay should override any guilt. It's also convenient; drop in a couple into your tiffin box.

And if there is anything you should be guilty about, it's eating at KFC. Perceive it anyway you want.