How To Cook Delicious Indian Meals

Resolved to get more creative in the kitchen this year?

Experimenting with spice combinations is a sure fire to introduce new flavours to your menu.

Simply Spice by Raji Sharma is a cookbook filled with recipes for vegetarian Indian food. Raji helps you understand spice combinations and guides you through the recipes that make the most of these unique aromas.

We were lucky enough to get our hands on two recipes from the book to share with you. These recipes are suitable for beginner cooks and are so tasty we guarantee you will be going back for seconds. Simply Spice is published by New Holland and retails for, $45.

This is a really nice way to eat paneer and is perfect if you’re a vegetarian bringing something to a barbeque, watch all the meat eaters flock to this skewer! If you want to eat it in a more traditional Indian setting the skewers work nicely as a side for Biryani or your favorite Pulao.

3 tablespoons thick greek yogurt

2.5 cm (1 in) piece ginger

1 clove of garlic

1 green chilli (adjust to taste)

1⁄2 teaspoon cumin powder

1⁄4 teaspoon turmeric powder

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons dried methi leaves (dried fenugreek leaves available at Indian stores)
400 g (14 oz) paneer
1 green bell pepper (capsicum), cut into chunks

2 red onions, cut into chunks

4–6 tablespoons ghee or canola oil, to cook
15 bamboo skewers, soaked for 30 minutes

Place yogurt, ginger, garlic, chilli, cumin, turmeric and salt in a spice grinder and process to a fine paste. Add methi leaves and mix.

Cut the paneer into 2.5 cm (1 in) cubes. Completely cover the paneer cubes in the yogurt marinade. Marinate for at least two hours in the fridge.

To make the skewers, alternate with paneer, bell pepper and onion.

To cook the skewers melt the ghee in a small bowl and coat paneer skewers before placing on a hot grill or barbeque. Cook the skewer until nicely charred on all sides, baste with marinade as it’s cooking.

If you can manage to get some sev puris (small puffs made from semolina) from the Indian store you’ll be able to sample this dish as it’s meant to be eaten. You crack the little puffs fill it with potatoes, chutney and eat it all in one mouthful.

This dish is definitely an example of the sum being greater than its parts, eating everything on its own just doesn’t have the same effect as the burst of flavor you get from eating it all together. If you can’t get the sev puri puffs we’ve found carefully piling everything on a plain rice cracker works just as well.

1 teaspoon cooking oil

2 medium potatoes, boiled, peeled and cut into 1 cm (1⁄2 in) cubes

1⁄4 teaspoon salt

1⁄4 teaspoon turmeric powder

1⁄2 teaspoon cumin powder

120 g (4.5 oz) plain yogurt
1 packet sev puri puffs (bought from the Indian grocer) or 1 packet plain rice crackers
1 medium red onion, finely diced

1 small firm tomato, seeds removed and finely diced

4 tablespoons mint, cilantro and coconut chutney
4 tablespoons sweet date chutney
150 g (5 oz) sev (crispy besan noodles, available at Indian stores)

4 tablespoons cilantro (coriander), stalks and leaves finely chopped

Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Add the boiled potatoes, half the amount of salt, turmeric powder, 1⁄4 teaspoon cumin powder and stir for few minutes until the potatoes start to turn brown. Remove from the heat and cool.

Mix the yogurt, the remaining 1⁄4 teaspoon cumin powder and the remaining salt together, whisk until you get a smooth creamy consistency.

To assemble, if you’re using sev puri’s arrange on a plate and gently crack the top open using the stem of a spoon. Or if you’re using rice crackers simply arrange them on a plate.

You can have a bit of an assembly line with all the ingredients in little bowls. Spoon 1 teaspoon of the potato mix on a cracker or in the puri then sprinkle over the onions and tomato. Pour 1⁄2 teaspoon each of each chutney and yogurt sauce. Finish by sprinkling with sev and fresh cilantro.

Eat immediately, popping the whole thing in your mouth at once.