Barbecued Achari Potatoes with Lemon

Finding something vegetarian to cook on the barbecue can be a challenge, but this delightfully easy recipe is guaranteed to be a hit for meat-eaters and vegos alike at your next BBQ.

The word achar means pickle in Hindi, and by combining the pickling spices and cooking them with potatoes and lemon in foil packages you can create a dish that is jam-packed with flavour. You can find the Achari dry spice mix at most Indian grocery stores (this is the brand I use), and it is generally made up of an abundance of spices including fennel seeds, coriander seeds, red chilli, turmeric, cloves, nutmeg, and cardamom.

The spice level in this dish is quite high, so I would recommend serving with a dollop of natural yoghurt if you want to cool things down a bit. 

Indian Spiced Potato Loaf

There’s nothing quite like the smell of bread baking fresh in the oven, the aroma wafting through the kitchen and overtaking the whole house. I found this recipe in the book Bread: Breads of the world and how to bake them at home and i’ve made it countless times and it has never failed to deliver a deliciously spicy loaf. Making bread from scratch requires a generous dose of patience, with all that kneading and waiting for the dough to rise, but the end result is all the more rewarding for it.

I used a mixture of plain white flour and ’00′ italian bread flour but feel free to use just the plain white flour.

As the bread is loaded with potatoes and spices I find it’s best served on its own – lightly toasted , with just a smear of butter.

Spinach and Potato Paratha

I promised in my first ever blog post that I would put up Indian recipes and I have failed to deliver on that promise.  I’m sorry. The only excuse I can offer is that my mum is an excellent Indian cook, and instead of trying to cook something that will inevitably pale in comparison I generally tend to stick to other cuisines that aren’t directly comparable. I’ve realised however that my most favourite, comforting and heartwarming foods are invariably home-cooked Indian dishes, and I’m going to eventually have to learn to cook these meals for myself.

Parathas are a flat-bread that are generally stuffed with potatoes, cauliflower or radish. I made these based on a recipe from Tava Cooking (tava = flat griddle), a cookbook by Tarla Dalal who is India’s answer to Martha Stewart. My mum swears by all of Tarla Dalal’s recipes and I have to say I completely agree with her.