Cooking Tip number 1

Like most, I had never cooked in my life until I moved halfway across the world and decided that food from a box/can/tin was no longer acceptable. And what I craved the most was home cooked Indian food.

After cursing myself for never paying attention to what exactly my mother did in the kitchen, I set out to emulate her food hoping that what I made would be edible.

Here is my first tip on cooking basic Indian food at home:

The Base

All subji or dahl have the same base, it's what is added to the base that differs in each dish.

This is the most basic you can get, and trust me, it's all you need when you're starving.

1 onion diced for dahl, or cut long for subji

2 cloves garlic finely diced

a little bit of ginger finely diced

1 tomato diced

1 tablespoon of crushed tomato

1 teaspoon of salt (or to taste)

1 teaspoon of pepper

1 teaspoon of cumin seeds

1 teaspoon of tumeric powder (haldi)

2 teaspoons of crushed chilli flakes

1 teaspoon of ground cumin

fry the onions until golden brown

add the cumin seeds, garlic and ginger

fry until brown but not burnt

add the tomoto

add all the spices

if too dry, add some more oil or water

let it all come together... then add protein of choice

This works really well with vegetables or chicken

If adding chicken, add some more water to get some gravy too it and eat with rice

Honestly this should take about 12 minutes to do, and it will taste good because YOU made it!

Enjoy~