Fresh Indian Food Cooking (and Rooftop Neighbor Chat)

One of the things I am loving about India, (and this area in particular) is how fresh the food is. There is only one “grocery” store, no chains, and produce markets and stands everywhere, so all the cooking is organic and fresh without even trying. At the shop next door you order spices and they give you the amount you want wrapped in a piece of paper.

indian cooking
Mustard seeds (rai, mohori), and Cumin (jeera) on the pieces of paper.
indian cooking
Grinding peanuts by hand.

indian cooking  making chapatis indian food

We don’t speak the same language, so I just observe and learn. From what I observed, the dish above consists of: fresh peas from the pod, mustard seeds, cumin, chili powder, onions, tomatoes, turmeric, salt, cilantro, and ground peanuts for added protein.

Directions: Boil the peas, separately fry the spices with peanut oil, add onions and tomatoes, mix everything in one pot, add turmeric, cilantro and salt.

You get a beautiful, delicious, vegetarian dish. Serve with basmati rice and chapatis.

I can’t provide measurements because here in India, they don’t measure anything while cooking. They wing it, but have become masters of winging-it.

Our favorite thing about this cook, is her chapatis (roti), Indian flatbread.

making chapatischapatis rotis chapatis rotischapati roti chapati roti

How fresh, warm, and delicious does this whole-wheat flatbread look?

chapati roti chapati roti chapati roti

In the meantime, Josh was on the roof removing pipes that were stored in the roof and are damaging it, but he stops to say hi to the neighbor.

rooftalk2neighbortalkrooftalkroofjosh

That’s how you do it.

7 thoughts on “Fresh Indian Food Cooking (and Rooftop Neighbor Chat)

  1. Can you show us more pix of your house and area outside? Thanks!!!

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    1. I can’t add photos to a comment, and I like to keep my photos relevant to what I write. But I will eventually post more photos of our house. Currently it is a work in progress to fix it up. Thanks for the interest, and I hope I can show you some more soon. 🙂

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  2. Oh my gosh, I love this post of the process of cooking Indian food! I’ve never got for really capture these myself when we were living in India. Bring back so many memories of friends cooking in our kitchen in Siliguri, West Bengal. Now I can add peanuts to have more protein in this kind of dish. So reading more!

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  3. OOO Boy…I LOVE it !!!

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  4. Awesome set of pictures. Loved them all.

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  5. I am so jealous. It looks divine. Going out for Indian food tonight in Toronto, sadly not India. Have a great day, Cheryl

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