When I lived in the US during the early 1990s, I spent a lot of time on the road, traveling thousands of miles by rented car or — when money was low — by Greyhound bus. I liked the feel of rolling along the flat prairie, under big Midwestern skies and countryside more open than I had ever experienced.

What I did not like was the gastronomic sameness from sea to shining sea. A big Mac or fajita in gray Gary (a depressed, depressing town of rusting factories), Indiana, was no different from one in posh, sunny Key Largo, Florida. That’s more than the distance from Guwahati to Wayanad. Who could imagine the same food in Assam and Kerala?

Indeed, India’s great explosion of economic activity has brought some dreaded standardisation to our lives but not so much as to scrub the here-we-come-new-country thrill of relocation across India. And so I am happy to report that I am presently reveling in introducing local flavours into my shiny, new kitchen in Bangalore.

This is the 28^th time I have moved home. Never before have I been as acutely conscious of the change as this time. While in Delhi, for example, I loved that great Punjabi staple, paneer (cottage cheese), and though I now find that southies love it as their own — the ultimate horror was to find it in the specials of the day in a cosy, family run neighbourhood restaurant called Mangalore Pearl — it feels alien in my kitchen. First, the paneer here is nothing like its soft version up north. Second, what’s the point of paneer when everyone including little old ladies seems to be eating paya?

I haven’t yet learned the art of making paya, those soupy trotters I loved as a boy. While more people here eat meat — a wide variety at that, including rabbit, quail, pork (ah, and a variety of rasam infused with crabmeat, another with bone marrow) — than in the north, I have been focusing on vegetarian food, so that the wife’s moving-induced stress levels can be brought down.

Though I love duck eggs (freely available at local stores), squid, clam and sardine pickles, I am also trying to befriend split black gram dal. In doing so, I am discovering that a lot of south Indian cooking is not as difficult as I once believed. Take, for instance, avial, a coconut-curd stew familiar to Tamil, Kerala and Udupi cuisines. It’s one of the few things vegetarian that I like. For years I assumed it was unsuited to my brand of go-with-what-you-have cooking.  It took the move to Bangalore to make me realise that avial is particularly suited to adaptation. It’s easy to make, and you can use whatever vegetables (also, I am thinking, prawn?) you like.

Some things are gloriously easy, thanks to the flood of condiments available at the flood of neighbourhood supermarkets that cater to citizens of the new Bangalore, those who directly or indirectly make their living off the economy of technology. This is how I found a 50 gm sachet of lemon-rice spices in at the local Reliance Fresh. A little guilty (I mean, really, slinking out with a tin-foil pouch from a Reliance store?) and not a little skeptical, I felt better when my lemon rice was ready within 10 minutes and tasted like the real deal.

And it is just so nice to use fresh, greenie things, such as curry leaves and dill. I did grow curry leaves in Delhi but used them only with chutney, occasionally for fish. As for dill, I had forgotten how the Tamilians use it with meat and potatoes. I have enlisted serious help for my southern explorations. From my collection, I have dug out two outstanding books. One is Aharam, a guide to various culinary traditions of Tamil Nadu, written by Sabita Radhakrishna, who, appropriately, was born and brought up in Bangalore, frequenting areas around my home. The other is a trim version of a 1951 three-volume classic called Samaithu Paar, written by the great S Meenakshi Ammal, a Tamil housewife who broke oral traditions by writing down her cooking methods.

These books serve as great guides, but as is my wont, I stray often from their strict methods and recommendations. Consequently, there were no yam, plantains or pumpkin — as many recommend — in my avial.  But it took kindly to drumstick, brinjal and turai (ridgegourd). As for good, old paneer, I haven’t eaten or even seen it since I moved to Bangalore last month. I am clearly not in Kansas, or Karol Bagh, any more.

Three-vegetable Avial

6 small brinjals, cut into ¼-inch pieces

1 drumstick, cut into ½-inch pieces

½-foot-long ridgegourd, cut into ¼-inch pieces

15-16 curry leaves

Salt to taste

For the paste:

½ coconut

2 green chillies

½ tsp cooked rice

½ tsp cumin seeds

½ cup yoghurt

Grind the ingredients, with a little water if needed, to a coarse paste. Set aside. In a flat-bottomed vessel, bring 4-5 glasses of water to a boil. The size of vegetables is only a guide; cut them roughly into same-size pieces. When water boils, add the vegetables. Add salt and cover until cooked. Discard excess water (I poured it into a storage container and mixed it with the baby’s khichdi later). Essentially, water level should be above the vegetables. Blend in the coconut-yoghurt paste. Bring to a boil and remove from the fire. Add the curry leaves and mix. I made the avial thin — the family liked it that way. You can thicken it by reducing the water. We ate it with lemon rice.

Serves 3

Boiled potatoes with dill

½ kg potatoes

1 cup dill, finely chopped

1 tsp split black gram dal

1 tsp mustard

1 onion chopped

1 tsp ginger-garlic paste

½ tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp chilli powder

2 tbsp oil

Salt to taste

Boil potatoes in their jackets. I used six medium sized. When cooked, remove skins and chop into eight to 12 pieces each. Heat 2 tbsp oil (canola or olive) and when hot add mustard and black gram. When they splutter, add the onion and fry till translucent. Add ginger-garlic paste and sauté for a minute. Add the turmeric, coriander and chilli powders and sauté for a minute, sprinkling water if needed to keep spices from sticking. Lower heat and add the dill. Blend well with spices. Add the potatoes and mix well. Add salt and toss.

Serves 3-4

For the idle few who read this column and for the brave ones who try to follow its recipes, I take pleasure in announcing that my food will, hopefully, become more inventive.

You see, I have moved south to Bangalore; where a daylong cooling wind (I call it the Bangalore breeze) blows through the remaining rain trees and gulmohars; where we wilt when the temperature breaches 30 deg C (yes, it’s still quite an airconditioned city); where the crumbling infrastructure and uncleared garbage are salvaged somewhat by a smiling civility absent up north; where there is so much more to life than the overwhelming northern staples of roti, dal, chicken and paneer.

You get the picture—I am happy to be home. Yet, I have struggled for familiar markers, as I do each time in Bangalore (no I will not write Bengaluru; I’ve always pronounce it that way when I speak Kannada but to say it in English sounds silly). The first time I lived in Bangalore was 1969. The last time was 1999. There is no Indian city that has changed so much so fast. In 1971, I remember my father taking me to the fine, bougainvillea-clad promenade of M.G. Road (commonly called South Parade by old-timers who grew up with its colonial name). Today as I watch the M.G. Road Metro station take form, I am struck by horror—the trees have been decimated, and the promenade is consigned to nostalgia.

The horror is short lived. After years of hand-wringing and despair, I have made by peace (or so I hope) with the newest version of Bangalore. Slowly, I find familiar anchors, none more important than food.

Within the first 10 days, I have pork curry at Koshy’s; biryani from the kindly Sait family on MM Road, Frazer Town; liver and kidney masala and brain curry at Bangalore club as the singer belts out “Stand by me”; Kane fry from Mangalore Pearl on Coles Road junction; Syrian Christian beef fry from a new Kerala restaurant, and mango curry supplied by an old family friend.

I’m clearly not in Delhi any more.

Driven to gastronomic distraction, I have found it hard to start cooking. Also, we have not found a home. Last week, with my mother’s cook out of commission, I had no choice but to restart, sharing kitchen duties with the wife. Trying to balance work in a new city (professionally, it’s like I am starting over), baby and kitchen usually calls for some ingenuity, which has come to us from the one-pot meal.

The wife has a traditional Sindhi favourite to fall back on—sai bhaji, a nutritious, versatile curry that is a mix of many vegetables and can be had with chapatis or rice. I am not so good with one-pot meals, so when it’s my turn to cook, I mix and match ingredients and spices, a trifle wildly sometimes.

It helps that Bangalore’s markets and stores have a diversity of offerings from across the south. I have fun trying them out. I am surprised and pleased to see so much culinary tradition modernised and repackaged for the time-starved techie, the consumer of choice in these parts.

My one-pot attempts presently centre on rice. Obviously, eating a whole lot of white rice is not something the doctor recommends. I’ve solved that by using a high-nutrition, high-fibre unpolished black rice called Navadarshanam, sold by a village self-help group from Gumalapuram, Tamil Nadu. If you’re wondering how I found it, just look closely on supermarket shelves. You can also get traditional rice varieties in Delhi, from either the Navdanya stores or even online at the Altitude stores. When in Mumbai, I love the red rice of the Konkan.

Cooking black, brown or red rice is trickier than white rice (follow instructions closely before you get a feel for it), but once you master it, your one-pot options widen greatly. As the recipe below indicates, nothing is hard and fast in a one-pot meal. Use your imagination and whatever local ingredients you can find. There is no better way to adapt to a new city.

Black rice and tandoori chicken (or chorizo, or cocktail sausages)
1 mug black rice
2 cups water
2 carrots, peeled, cut into thin, round slices
2 mug spinach, cleaned and chopped
1 large onion, sliced
½ star anise
2 green cardamoms
15 black peppercorns
1 tsp red-chilli powder
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
In a pressure cooker, heat oil. Add star anise, cardamom and peppercorns. When they start to pop, add onions and sauté till lightly browned. Add 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste. Then red-chilli powder. Saute, sprinking with soy sauce when paste starts to stick. Add carrots, spinach, rice and salt to taste. Close lid and pressure cook on high till first whistle. Lower flame to minimum and cook for 20 minutes. Let pressure subside after switching off.

Spread out in a dish and add non-vegetarian toppings if you wish. I certainly do. Leftover tandoori chicken worked like a charm, so did chorizo or leftover cocktail sausages.

Bear in mind that since spinach releases water of its own, it is prudent to reduce water. The instructions for black and brown rice usually call for three times as much water as rice. I use less, even without spinach. If your rice becomes a bit watery, never mind, just think of it like a stew.
Serves 3-4

sautee the black rice with ingredients before pressure cooking

The cooked rice, topped off with leftover tandoori chicken. At other times, I have also used chorizo or plain cocktail sausages

Sindhi Sai Bhaji
1 bunch spinach, roughly chopped
1 each: potato, onion, tomato, small brinjal, carrot—chopped fine or grated
2 tbsp channa dal, soaked in water for 30 minutes
1 tsp cumin seeds
½ tsp turmeric
2 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp cumin powder
¾ tsp red-chilli powder
2 sliced green chillies
2 green cardamoms
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
1 tbsp oil
½ cup dill (optional)
Heat oil in a pressure cooker. Splutter cumin seeds and cardamom. Add onion, sauté till light pink. Add red-chilli powder and drizzle with water if it starts to stick. Add channa dal and tomatoes. Saute for a minute. In a glass, mix the powdered spices with ginger-garlic paste and a large peg-measure of water. Pour into cooker. Keep covered for 2 minutes. Add the remaining vegetables, sauté for a minute. Then add spinach. Close cooker and allow one whistle on high flame. Cook for 10 minutes on low flame. Let pressure subside on its own. Open and add salt to taste. Roughly churn with a mandira, or wooden churner.

Bear in mind that the traditional Sindhi sai bhaji is finer; ours is rougher because the wife likes the vegetable pieces to show. Also, many families add chopped dill, which we do not.

Serves 4-5

Sautee all the saibhaji ingredients before pressure cooking.

remember to churn the finished sai bhaji. We prefer this to using a food processor because the vegetables chunks remain

Let me tell you the strange tale of Pangasius hypophthalmus -in a paragraph.

For centuries, this strange creature kept to itself in the riverine depths of south-western Vietnam. Then, the trade engine of the flattened world of the 21st century dragged it out of the Mekong river delta, plonked it in a fish farm and passed it off as something it is not. Via Kolkata, it finally wound up in my New Delhi kitchen, where, in a bamboo steamer imported from Chinatown in the North American city of Seattle, it became my lunch.

If this isn’t globalization, I don’t know what is.

My personal discovery of the Pangasiidae family began a few months ago in a restaurant where for the first time I ate lovely pepper-encrusted basa. For those of you who are as ignorant as I was then, the most well-known member of this family is the basa, a delicate, light fish with flaky, white flesh. In one remarkable decade, the basa has become-globally, and now in India as well-the fish of choice for fillets. Vietnam controls more than 99% of the basa trade, most of it farmed to keep pace with skyrocketing demand.

Now, if you have followed this column, you will know that I come from a family that abhors river fish and shuns fillets. But, alas, in these rushed times, balancing profession with parenting, I succumb frequently to the lure of a phone call to the fishmonger who does home delivery-and since this is Delhi, populated by Punjabis who don’t really know their fish, he offers only fillets.

One day, my mysterious fishmonger-he’s only a voice at the end of a phone line-offered me basa. The same, exotic basa that I ate at fancy restaurants? Well, at `350 per kg, it wasn’t very cheap, but these were fillets and my fish of choice, surmai (kingfish) and pomfret, with bones, often cost as much.

Since then, I confess, I have bought basa often-or at least what I thought was basa.

When I started work on this column, I took, for the first time, a closer look at the label on the sealed plastic packet that holds the basa. I realized I was being fooled, as perhaps were many Indian consumers.

My suspicions began with the brand name on the packet. It said, “IFB Basa”, with the “IFB” font hijacked from the distinctive “IFB” of the washing machine company. The “IFB” on my fish referred to IFB Agro Industries Ltd of the East Kolkata Township, the importers, who sourced the fish from Long Xuyen town in Vietnam’s An Giang Province. The label said: Best before November 4, 2012.

The long shelf life isn’t surprising: Basa stays well and when unfrozen feels very fresh indeed. But here was the rub. In grand fashion, the label said the basa’s name was Pangasius hypophthalmus. Well, well. A little research revealed that the fish I had was from the same family as the basa but wasn’t actually basa. The basa is Pangasius bocourti, an iridescent shark that isn’t a shark at all but a catfish. My fake basa is also a shark catfish, and since I am now not sure if I’ve been eating the right family member, I don’t really mind being fooled.

I turned my attention to cooking the fake basa. I don’t think dunking it in Goan curries or frying it, as I have done before, is a great idea. Long-lasting yet delicate, basa and its cousins appear to demand more creativity, a lighter touch, as it were.

So, I rummaged through my unused-kitchen-implements shelf and dragged out a magnificent bamboo steamer that I had pressured my in-laws to buy more than five years ago. What could impart a lighter touch to my Vietnamese friend than steaming?

My experiments with the fake basa are detailed below. I am happy to report they were successful. I think the key to cooking shark catfishes is to use the minimum possible spices and not smother them, as we tend to do. I am sure the real, river basa tastes even better, but to me, the fake worked well enough.

Common cooking note: The three recipes involve steaming. Steaming time depends on the thickness of the fish. A piece of fish weighing 100-150g about a half-inch thick should take no more than 15 minutes. I used a bamboo steamer (sitting atop a steel vessel of boiling water). You can steam in anything with perforations, like a sieve, or a rice cooker. Wrap individual steaks in banana leaves; you can also wrap in foil and bake. I steamed all three fish steaks together. They are very light and will barely serve two people.

Fake basa with soy and galangal
Serves 1-2

Ingredients
100-150g fish steak
K-inch piece of galangal (Thai ginger), fine juliennes
1 green chilli, slit in two and partially deseeded
K tsp coriander seeds, roughly pounded
1 tsp soy sauce
Salt (very little, since soy is also salty)

Method
Marinate the fish in soy and salt for 1 hour. Place one piece of chilli under and the other over the steak. So too with the galangal and pounded coriander seeds. Lay the steak on a piece of banana leaf, large enough to fold over into a parcel. Wrap the fish in the leaf and secure with a toothpick. Steam.

Fake basa with sesame and mustard tempering
Serves 1-2

Ingredients
100-150g fish steak
K clove of garlic, chopped fine
N tsp red chilli powder (or less, it should be just enough for flavour and bite)
4-5 curry leaves
N tsp sesame seeds
N tsp mustard seeds
Salt

Method
Rub chilli powder, salt and garlic on both sides of the steak. In a little oil, splutter the sesame and mustard seeds. When they pop, add the curry leaves, mix briefly, take off heat and pour atop the fish. Wrap in banana leaf. Steam.

Fake basa with coastal spice
Serves 1-2

Ingredients
100-150g fish steak
N tsp chilli powder
V tsp turmeric
Squeeze of lime
Salt

Method
Rub the steak with chilli, salt and turmeric powders. Squeeze lime. Marinate for 1 hour. Wrap in banana leaf. Steam.

This is a column on easy inventive cooking from a male perspective. Samar Halarnkar writes a blog, Our Daily Bread, at Htblogs.com. He is editor-at-large, Hindustan Times.

Write to Samar at ourdailybread@livemint.com

Wrap the marinated fish in bamboo parcels secured with toothpicks and arrange in banana leaves

The fish steams away in the steamer atop a pot of boiling water

fish with galangal and soy after steaming

seasame and mustard seed fish before steaming

seasame and mustard seed fish after steaming

fish with chilli and turmeric after steaming

Once upon a time, I liked pizzas.

My favoured toppings were jalapenos, sausages and pepperoni. I liked meatiness on my pizzas, and I liked the tang and bite of pickled chillies. To me, a pizza was comfort food. More than anything, it meant I did not have to cook. For someone who has spent a lifetime cooking for self, friends and family, an occasional meal out of a box was a big deal.

Sometime, maybe about 10 years ago, I stopped liking pizzas. I grew tired of the thick crusts, layers of cheese and the general feeling of eating flavoured cardboard. However, I will deign to eat a slice or two of the thin-crust pizzas now common in major cities. Most of these are delicate, smoky—thanks to the proliferation of wood-fired ovens—and often delicious, though I do think they need to slap more meat on them.

So, I was sceptical when the wife coerced our cousin and great impromptu cook, Gyan, to make pizzas during his Delhi visit. Pizzas? I frowned. In my kitchen?

Now, I do remember that making pizzas at home was fun. I often mass produced them—once making 20 to cater to a drunken evening—and enjoyed mixing and matching ingredients you wouldn’t find in a Pizza Hut or Domino’s. But given my recent antipathy towards pizzas, I had stopped all such experiments.

Pizzas? I could see my father perk up. For some reason, Halarnkar Senior is a fan of Pizza Hut. I have no idea why. At a recent dinner at an Italian restaurant, he wanted pizza. He stared suspiciously at the elegantly made thin crust before him and after wolfing it down declared that it was good but Pizza Hut is better. Sigh. Yes, apparently he did beget me.

As I watched, Gyan got to work. We had bought only two wholewheat pizza bases from the market the previous day, which clearly wasn’t enough for the hungry Halarnkars. But we did have packaged kulchas and naans—you know, the kind that are mass produced in Okhla Industrial Area (no, really, these packets were from south Delhi’s grimy industrial heartland) and packed in plastic.

I’ve always believed that the best home food is sometimes produced from leftovers, and Gyan soon confirmed this. Using bits and bobs lying around in my refrigerator, he produced vegetarian and non-vegetarian pizzas atop the naans, kulchas and pizza bases.

We all agreed that the wholewheat pizza bases were unnecessary (they are healthier though). The best pizzas that evening came from the industrial kulchas and naans. I am putting down what Gyan used for these pizzas, but you can use pretty much anything that’s lying around—of course, that doesn’t mean you should sprinkle olives on paneer… actually, why not?

That’s the wonder of leftovers.

Am I a reconvert to pizzas? No, not from the big chains or restaurants. But you can be sure I will make many more at home.

You don't need exotic ingredients for a top-notch pizza. Just leftovers and some imagination.

Gyan’s Kulcha-leftovers Pizza
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
4-6 kulchas and/or naans (ours were from the grocery store)
1-2 large onions, cut into rings
1 green pepper, deseeded and julienned
Dried or fresh herbs (we used dried rosemary/oregano and fresh basil)
Leftover meats—sausages (we had some leftover from breakfast), ham, fish(we had leftover canned tuna)
Splash of red wine
1/2 cup grated mozzarella
1/2 cup grated cheddar
For the sauce
K onion, minced
Leftover pasta sauce
1 can of tinned tomato purée (or 4-5 fresh tomatoes, blanched, skins removed and chopped)
1 tbsp olive oil
6-8 pods of garlic, chopped

Method

To make the sauce, heat the olive oil, sauté the garlic lightly. Add minced onion and fry till soft. Add the tomato purée and sauté for 3-4 minutes. Add leftover pasta sauce (if you don’t have any, add deskinned, deseeded fresh tomatoes and fry till they disintegrate) and keep blending till you get a smooth consistency. Add dried herbs and sauté. Add a dash of red wine (if you’re drinking any at the time). Remove when everything is well blended. Important: Let the sauce cool for about 30 minutes. Otherwise your pizza is likely to get soggy. In a non-stick pan, lightly sauté sausages, onion rings and green peppers. There’s no need for oil; the sausages release their own. Now, apply sauce on the pizza base. Spread the cheddar and then the sautéed vegetables. Scatter the meat (use tuna on one pizza, sausage on another) on top and grated mozzarella above that. Prepare a hot oven by preheating to gas mark 5. Put the pizza in for 12-15 minutes. When the cheese has melted and the pizza is ready, remove and sprinkle with fresh basil. Serve immediately.

So, the lazy, hazy days of summer will begin. The summer heat will ripple across the northern plains, and hold the peninsula in its thrall.

In Delhi, the flowers will die, people will wilt, and the great walks of winter will cease. In Mumbai, Marine Drive will lose its vitality, the trains will become communal saunas, and fish will become scarce. In Bangalore, they will complain how fans were never needed in what was once India’s garden city, water and electricity will lag far behind demand, but it won’t nearly be as trying as other metropolitan cities.

This is not a time one should be sweating it out in a kitchen, but invariably, that is what one does. Come summer, and I find myself stripped down to shorts and that inescapably Indian garment, the banian, toiling over breakfast and dinner (lunch? That’s too much—it’s in the refrigerator).

What is it about summer that drags me into the kitchen? Why am I more productive in the heat than I am in the cold? Why do I find a kitchen of heat and dust romantic?

Perhaps it is a sense of achievement that drives me, standing wild-eyed in the kitchen with those rivulets of sweat streaming down my face. Perhaps I revel in testing my limits, stretching my endurance—or perhaps I am just too much of a glutton. Hmm, it’s probably the last.

I know I am a glutton, and for some strange reason my appetite grows in the summer. Ergo, I have no choice but to put in extra kitchen time. But it’s true that despite the discomfort, I secretly enjoy it.

What I do avoid is spending long hours in the kitchen. My modus operandi is to blend some spices, do a quick marination and get it over with quickly. Over the years I have evolved some summer recipes that focus on drawing out flavours rather than sealing them in. A summer spice should waft out, float on the warm breeze and insinuate itself into your nose and your senses. I tend to use light, earthy spices, the kind of flavours that appear to blend with the loo, the hot, dusty winds that roll in from the deserts of Rajputana. Coriander seeds, cumin seeds, desiccated coconut, cardamom, cinnamon—to me all of these are the spices of summer.

When the product of my labours is ready, I find a singular pleasure in gulping down a cool glass of water and settling in for a good meal. Let the sweat flow, let your face glow.

There is indeed a romance to the Indian summer. Keep your senses tuned in, and you will find it.

Mushy chicken
Serves 3
Ingredients
1 kg chicken legs and thighs
1 packet mushroom, chopped
1 tomato, roughly chopped into large pieces
1 tsp ginger, chopped
3 big garlic pods
1 spring onion, stem and base, chopped
1 pack Thai red curry paste
A pinch of oregano
Salt to taste
2 tbsp olive oil
Method
Heat the olive oil. Fry the ginger and garlic till light brown. Add the Thai paste and fry on medium heat. To sauté, use water or white wine vinegar. After 2 minutes, add the chicken. Sear on high heat. Reduce to medium, add the mushrooms and base of spring onions. Sauté, add the chopped tomato, sprinkle a pinch of oregano (optional), add stalks of spring onions as garnish.

Wayanad chicken
Serves 3-4
Ingredients
750g chicken
1 cup red wine vinegar
3 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
2 black cardamoms
1 cup onions, chopped/grated
1 large tomato, grated
Salt to taste
2 tbsp olive oil
Roast the following, till flavours are released, then powder:
K desiccated coconut,
1 tbsp cumin seeds
2 tbsp coriander seeds
3 dried Kashmiri chillies (more if you want it spicier)
5 cloves
Method
Drop black cardamoms in hot but not smoking olive oil. Stir for a minute. Fry onions till brown. Before they brown, add ginger-garlic paste and sauté, using vinegar. Add roasted, powdered spices and continue sautéing. Add the grated tomato and fry till everything is blended. Add the chicken and mix well. Add salt and reduce heat till the chicken is done.
Option 1: Add 1 cup of whisked curd 5 minutes before taking off flame
Option 2: Add capers and sliced olives as garnish
Option 3: Brown chicken before adding to spices

Mullet masti
Serves 2-3
Ingredients
2 mullets, approx. 700g
2 tsp red chilli powder
A pinch of fenugreek seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
Scraping of nutmeg
Juice of 1 lemon
Method
Dry-roast all the spices except nutmeg, until the coriander seeds begin to pop. Grind into a coarse powder. Clean the mullet, make slashes, coat with masala, ensuring you rub into the slashes. Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon (or 2 limes) over fish, grate nutmeg. Add a dash of olive oil. Sear in heavy-bottomed pan, 3-4 minutes each side. Wrap in foil and cook in the oven at 175 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes or until done.

It was the winter of 1993, and I had an intense craving for bheja—brain.

The day was grey and bleak, the streets dirty with a snow-slush mixture, and the mid-morning temperature somewhere below zero. It was a pretty typical winter’s day in the American Midwest, where I spent two years acquiring a master’s degree.

The initial euphoria of eating supersized chicken legs had faded. I quickly realised they tasted like rubber-substantially worse than our broiler chickens, themselves an abomination of what meat should be. It was a freezing, 45-minute walk to the superstore on the edge of town. I remember feeling foolish walking the last mile (that’s 1.7 km) along slushy road shoulders. There were no pavements because this was America, and you were meant to drive, not walk.

In any event, I reached the superstore and stared in depression at the supersized packs of super-chicken. I couldn’t buy them, not today when it was so cold and felt colder because I was missing home food (not home) with intensity greater than the winter freeze. As I picked my way through cheap, tasteless catfish and cheap, tasteless sausages, I reached the end of the aisle. At the back of a shelf, I found salvation.

“Pork brain,” said the three plastic boxes of about 200 gm each. I grew up in the Deccan where we often had paya (trotter soup) for breakfast, and bheja was a weekend treat. I certainly didn’t expect to see bheja for sale in the US, especially not in this bleak Missouri store. Of course, it wasn’t a goat brain, as it was back home, but, really, how different can brains be?

I was right. I returned home, greatly buoyed by my purchase, and cooked the bheja in the two simple ways I knew, masala and fried. Now, I pride myself on adapting well to new places and cultures. The only caveat is that my stomach needs to feel good about it. After consuming vast quantities of bheja, it did.

I never saw pork brain in that superstore again.

When I returned to India, I found bheja a disappearing delicacy. It’s become harder to find, and most mainstream restaurants have taken it off the menu in these gloomy times of catering to the majority and gloomier attempts to push a monoculture of cricket and chicken onto all Indians. Once a proud culinary expression of diversity, bheja fry is more widely known as a movie of the same name. I last had bheja a year ago (somewhere in Mumbai, I think), but I haven’t made it for some time.

So, I was particularly happy last Sunday when I saw bheja (fry and masala) on offer at a couple of restaurants in Nizamuddin basti, the ghetto-like neighbourhood, perhaps about 700 years old, which surrounds the iconic Hazrat Nizamuddin shrine near my home in south Delhi. It is a syncretic place, a melange of nationalities, cultures and flavours as only an area steeped in the sufi tradition can be.
As a couple of Uzbeks (well, they may have been Kazakhs) and an Iraqi family walked gingerly into a restaurant called Al Quresh, I was delighted to see bheja fry and masala on offer. Al Queresh, like other little eating holes in Nizamuddin basti, offered a variety of offal, including that other fading old favourite, liver.

I have found bheja on offer at a handful of older Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore (quite a few on Mosque Road near my parents’ home in Richards town), but these are holdouts. In time, they too will lose their brains. In any case, they don’t make bheja quite like they used to. When I last had bheja, the masala was overpowering and smothered the squishy, almost silk-like texture of the cerebrum, cerebellum and other associated parts.

If you aren’t used to eating internal organs, the brain is actually not as offal (sorry!) as others, like the blood curry they have down south, reduced and sautéed with masalas and coconut.

I would love to swap recipes. Tell me what you think.

Bheja masala
400-500 gm goat brain
¼ tsp turmeric powder (or less)
1-2 tsp red-chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala
½ inch piece ginger, julliened (optional)
5-6 garlic pods, chopped fine
½ cup water
10 curry leaves
1 thinly sliced onion

First boil the brain with a pinch of turmeric and salt till it firms up. Drain, clean and de-vein (the last, if you want).

Heat a little oil or ghee and add the curry leaves. Add the onions and garlic. When onions start browning, add chilli powder. Saute for a minute or two and add the brain and salt. Saute. Add garam masala and toss just before removing. Garnish with ginger, if you wish.

Serves: 2-3 persons

Bheja fry
400-500 gm goat brain
2-3 tsp red-chilli powder
salt
dash of lime
1 eggs beaten (optional)
1 tbsp ghee or olive oil

Boil the brain and clean as above. Marinate with red-chilli powder and salt for 30 minutes. Gently heat olive oil or ghee. Fry the brain on medium heat until brown outside and cooked through. You can also dip it in egg and then fry. Serve hot with chapatti.

Serves: 2-3 persons

Brain curry in Nizamuddin basti, New Delhi