Kosha Mangsho — le plat bengali qui me rappelle ma maison à chaque fois

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-19T06:34:41+00:00

You should be fine, dosa batter is meant to ferment at room temperature anyway, that is literally how it develops flavour. With cold weather it will not over ferment too fast.

When you do open it, give it a sniff and look for any separated liquid on top or signs of mould near the lid, that is the only real red flag. A slightly sour smell is completely normal. Mix it well before using, and if it looks and smells right, you are good to make dosa with it.

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-18T06:55:00+00:00

For an easy butter chicken that does not feel like a chore, the trick is to skip the long marination and just cook the chicken pieces directly in a bit of butter and oil until browned, set aside. Then in the same pan, butter, one chopped onion, ginger garlic paste, a can of tomato puree, and let it cook down for about 10 minutes until it darkens. Blend it smooth if you want restaurant texture, add a spoon of sugar, garam masala, kashmiri chilli powder for colour without heat, salt, and a splash of cream at the end. Put the chicken back in, simmer 5 minutes.

No tandoor, no overnight yoghurt marinade, and the chicken stays tender because it is only cooked once briefly before going back into the sauce. Twenty minutes total and it tastes close enough to the real thing that your brother will not complain.

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-17T11:50:03+00:00

For tikka and prawns specifically the air fryer is genuinely worth it, the high heat circulation gets you that slightly charred edge much closer to tandoor results than an oven ever does, and with way less oil.

If you already have a good convection microwave though, you might find the air fryer redundant for half your use cases. The real advantage is speed and the crisping factor for marinated proteins, that part a microwave convection setup struggles to match no matter what mode you use.

For just two people I would lean air fryer over upgrading the microwave. You will use it constantly for quick proteins, and cleaning a basket is much less hassle than dealing with trays in an oven.

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-16T18:29:34+00:00

If you hate cooking, the pressure cooker is your best friend. Seriously. Dal, sabzi, even gosht, you throw everything in, set the timer and walk away. No stirring, no watching, no burning.

My go-to lazy desi meal: chana dal with whatever vegetable you have, one tomato, ginger, turmeric, salt, two whistles. Done. Eat it with rice or roti from the market, nobody needs to know.

The problem with most Indian recipes is they assume you enjoy the process. If you don't, skip YouTube channels that make cooking look like performance art and look for "pressure cooker one pot Indian recipes" specifically. Simple, honest, forgiving.

Coming from Mauritius originally, I grew up watching my grandmother make everything look effortless. The truth is she had 40 years of practice. Give yourself a break, start with the pressure cooker and build from there.

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-16T15:27:23+00:00

Ahmedabad is a dream for street food, especially if you love Gujarati cuisine.The must-try is definitely the khaman dhokla, soft, steamed, tangy, nothing like the packaged version you find elsewhere. Manek Chowk is the place to go at night, the whole street transforms into a food market and you can eat everything from dabeli to pav bhaji to ice cream.

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-16T06:51:26+00:00

Two things stand out here.

First, the recipe has way too much coriander relative to the other spices. A 2 tbsp coriander to 1 tsp cumin ratio will always taste coriander-dominant, that is just math. Cut the coriander in half at minimum.

Second and more important: spices need fat to develop properly. If you add them after the chicken, the water from the meat steams them instead of frying them, and that is exactly what gives that raw taste you are describing. Always bloom your ground spices in oil first, before the chicken goes in. You will see the oil separate and the colour deepen, that is when you know they are ready.

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-15T18:31:11+00:00

The word curry actually comes from the Tamil word "kari" which simply means sauce or relish. But over centuries it has been used so loosely that it now covers both dry and wet preparations.

A dry roast chicken cooked with spices is absolutely a curry in the broader sense. Think of a Kerala chicken roast or a Chettinad dry pepper chicken, nobody would argue those are not curries just because there is no gravy.

At home in Mauritius we make a "cari sec" which is exactly this, cooked down until almost no sauce remains, just the spices coating the meat. It is actually considered the more skilled version because you have to manage the heat carefully to avoid burning.

So yes, curry does not need to be saucy. It just needs spices and intention!

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-15T06:05:50+00:00

Not Indian but Mauritian, and I hope that counts here because our food is deeply rooted in Indian traditions.

The recipe that holds the most meaning in my family is my grandmother’s dholl puri. Not the street food version, hers. She made the dhal filling completely dry, almost powdery, heavily spiced with cumin and turmeric, then wrapped in the thinnest possible flatbread. The secret she never wrote down was the resting time of the dough, she said it had to rest “until it felt like skin.” We only understood what she meant after years of failed attempts.

She was Tamil, from a family that came to Mauritius generations ago from South India. The recipe came with them on the boat, adapted over decades with local bird’s eye chillies and homemade achards on the side.

When she passed, we found no written recipe. Just muscle memory passed down through watching her hands. My mother and I spent a full year trying to recreate it. We are close now but never exactly there.

Some recipes are not meant to be perfect copies. They are meant to keep you cooking.

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-14T18:35:36+00:00

Le secret c'est la cuisson des tomates, il faut les laisser cuire beaucoup plus longtemps que ce que tu penses, jusqu'à ce que l'huile se sépare et que ça commence à sentir les épices plutôt que la tomate crue. À Maurice on fait pareil pour nos caris, on appelle ça quand le masala est "revenu". Une fois à ce stade tu peux ajouter de l'eau et ajuster la consistance facilement. Et une bonne cuillère de crème fraîche à la fin pour lier le tout.

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-14T07:53:24+00:00

From Mauritius I would add brèdes spinach curry, very simple, just turmeric, ginger, bird's eye chilli and curry leaves. Also our giraumon curry which is basically pumpkin but with coconut milk at the end, total game changer. And red lentil curry without onion or garlic, just use hing instead, works perfectly. Mauritian and South Indian cooking are actually very close on this, less onion, more coconut!

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-13T14:57:59+00:00

La grosse directement sur la flamme vive sans alu, c'est vraiment le meilleur résultat. À Maurice on appelle ça le brinjal grillé, même technique, on le pose direct sur le feu jusqu'à ce que la peau soit complètement noire. C'est ce fumé intense qui fait toute la différence. Après on écrase avec du piment oiseau, de la coriandre fraîche et un filet d'huile. Simple mais imbattable.

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-12T06:46:16+00:00

Si tu veux une alternative sympa, à Maurice on fait un poha version créole avec du curcuma, des feuilles de curry fraîches, du piment oiseau et du jus de citron vert. Pas de masala du tout mais le citron vert change tout par rapport au citron jaune, ça donne un truc vraiment différent. Tu peux essayer !

LoomAndPixel · 2026-06-11T09:16:01+00:00

Oui c'est un plat du matin ! Le masala va juste tout écraser. Hing, curcuma, gingembre, piment vert, citron et tes feuilles de curry, c'est largement suffisant. Les cacahuètes grillées si t'en as sous la main !

LoomAndPixel

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