The Best of 2007

Food bloggers from around the world are sharing their best moments of the year 2007, and you are invited to take a look! 28 Cooks: Fiber rounds up the best snacks, bites and nibbles of each month in two awesome posts- a snack addict's idea of heaven, for sure! Read her post to get some great ideas for your own parties this year. Ahaar: Mandira ponders over the big changes in her life over the

And Time Goes By...

You've been a good year, 2007. A new city and a new kitchen yielded 120 posts on One Hot Stove during this year. It was *really* hard to choose my favorite 10 recipes of 2007. I rarely post a recipe here unless I've enjoyed it very much- so the "deliciousness" criterion really is of no use here. In the end, I have featured the recipes that have the highest "keeper recipe" score. After all, the

Two Tangy Milky Desserts

...one Maharashtrian favorite, and the other, an American favorite.The first is Shrikhand, a simple dessert of strained thick yogurt mixed with sugar and flavorings like saffron and cardamom. I must confess that of all the profusion of Indian desserts that I know and love, shrikhand would never make it to even the top 20. I usually find it too thick and rich and cloying after a few bites. But I

A first attempt at Peanut Chikki

Rich roasted peanuts trapped in a shell of complex (salty-sweet, caramel, smoky) notes- peanut brittle or peanut chikki is my all-time favorite candy. I first tried making chikki when I was still in middle school. I only remember that the episode was a messy one, and now, many many years later, it is time to give it another shot. Although chikki can be made with refined white sugar, it is more

Miso as Marinade

After enjoying miso in a steaming cup of soup, here is another great cold-weather way of enjoying it: as a phenomenally flavorful marinade for tofu and grilled vegetables. Anh's recipe caught my eye a few months ago. Two flavor powerhouses- tahini (sesame seed paste) and miso come together to make a rich marinade that is slathered on thick cuts of eggplant and tofu. Under the broiler, the tofu

A Snowy Weekend

It is a snowy weekend here in St. Louis, and in most of the US actually. It has liberated us from the usual weekend chores like food shopping and given us permission to huddle in and do nothing in particular. Dog-walking is the one chore that must go on regardless of the weather- in fact, the streets are quite deserted except for the parade of shivering humans trying to stay warm while their

Candy is Dandy...

...especially when you make it with your own two hands! And if you manage to find a good recipe, it can be quicker than liquor ;) Some of my cooking projects turn out to be like governmental panchavarshik yojana (5-year plans)- grand plans that may or may not ever materialize. This whole idea of learning to make candy at home has been only two years in the making. It all started when Cathy came

Me So Therapeutic!

One of my favorite things about living in the United States is the accessibility of ingredients from all corners of the globe. If the home cook so wishes, their pantry can be stocked with everything from chipotle to capers, tahini to tamari. I am taking my own sweet time getting to know and love some of these seasonings- and the joy that comes from hearing a distinctly foreign word, then taking

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Birthday cake was the very first thing I learnt to make, and the very first recipe I knew by heart. My parents were big on homemade birthday cakes for their kids. At least two times a year (on the birthdays of my sister and myself), the big oven would get pulled out from the little storage room beneath the stairs and dusted off. Equal weights of eggs, butter (usually home-churned), sugar (

Pumpkin Amti

This is my contribution to the Jihva for Ingredients event, originally started by Indira of Mahanandi and being hosted this month by one of my favorite bloggers- Linda of Out of the Garden. With her incredible posts about "chaar yaar" wali khichdi (khichdi and its "four friends"...can you guess who they are?) and her penchant for sambar, it is not too surprising that I think of Linda as simply