I've acquired an armload of new cookbooks—despite a total lack of shelf space to house them in our tiny cottage. I just can't resist, especially after reading so many entertaining and informative reviews, especially those from Food52's Piglet competition. The newest tomes are piled up beside my bed, and any seasonal ones (grilling, popsicles, etc) are temporarily lodged in the attic. Cooking in the Moment has now migrated from the bedroom to the kitchen and, though I've only officially cooked one recipe from it so far, I have added several more to my always evolving mental list of "things to be eaten soon." After reading Nigella Lawson's Piglet review of North Carolina chef Andrea Reusing's enticingly photographed and thoughtfully composed book, I was seized with the urge to make her roasted spareribs. Whatever she means by "cooking in the moment"—eating seasonally, I assume—I take it as an excuse to immediately make whatever I most feel like eating right this minute. So ribs it is.
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Chaats are Indian snacks and appetizers, a sort of street food that is widely welcomed indoors as well. In India, there are restaurants that specialize entirely in chaat. When I told our driver in Jaipur that I wanted to eat chaat from a street stall, he raised his brows in horror and whisked G and me to an air-conditioned restaurant where we sat amongst Indian families and had delicious sweet-tart-spicy-crunchy treats accompanied by cooling lassi. Chaat is Hindi for “to taste,” and mostly consists of small dishes, often easy to eat by hand or off banana leaves on the street. As with Indian cuisine in general, chaats are quite diverse, with many regional specialties, but quite a few are fried, like pakoras and samosas, and some are stuffed breads. Dipping sauces and raita are key to the whole experience.Many of these dishes are flavored with chaat masala, a combination of spices that varies from person to person and place to place. I buy mine pre-made (Kalustyan’s yet again) and it contains salt, amchur (mango powder), musk melon, cumin, black pepper, pomegranate seed, coriander, mint, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, chile, caraway, ajowain (a relative of coriander), cloves, hing and bay leaf. Hing? you ask.
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