polibhaji.com

Roopali's Indian Recipes

welcome
spices and ingredients
procuring ingredients
breakfast items
rice
salads
vegetarian entrees
non-veg. entrees
legume
Indian bread
curry
fritters/bhaji
starters
chutney
sweet dishes
drinks
speciality
Diwali Faral
ladoo
queries/comments
     .          Welcome to Roopali's kitchen!                             

                                                               

Lizzie Collingham tells us in "Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors" that curry has become one of the most internationalized foods on the planet, right up there with pizza. And if you Google 'Indian cuisine', you will come across numerous reports and surveys indicating that Indian cuisine is one of the most popular cuisine in the world.

Indian cuisine is characterized by wide assortment of dishes and cooking techniques, varying from region to region, influenced by locally available ingredients. Ample use of coconut in coastal cuisine (Goan fish curry and solkadhi) are two examples.

I do not wish to portray myself as an authority on Indian cooking: the obvious question then is why this site? What is special about these recipes?

The answer, I believe, is that these recipes have a regional-middle class touch(Maharashtrian, quintessentially Puneri http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pune). Moreover they are relatively simple, straight-forward and therefore different from  cook-books.
Most of these are  traditionally cooked in Brahmin households and methods/ ingredients have not changed much over the years. This cuisine is essentially moderate-neither spicy, nor oily, and further can be adapted to one's liking without affecting the essence.

This cuisine is very much a part of our life: this is what we cook everyday, even in US of A. So do many other Maharashtrians, wherever they are. But the appreciation of these simple dishes by my American friends in Columbia, and their enthusiasm in learning these recipes, has inspired me to come up with this website.

I hope you find this website useful. Do email your comments and suggestions.

Bon appetit!
 
Roopali Belsare
roobels@polibhaji.com