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Finding the fresh ingredients needed to create her favorite dishes was a challenge for Dr Niloufer Ichaporia King when she moved to the US in 1971. Having spent her formative years in Bombay, absorbing the traditional culture, she realized that Parsi cuisine is extremely open to innovation (using tilapia and cod instead of pomfret) and that taste is a matter of personal interpretation.

After doing her postgraduation in design and PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of California at Berkely Ichaporia King authored the James Beard award winning cookbook My Bombay Kitchen featuring traditional and modern Parsi recipes. While her personal favorite is the simple mori dar with chawal, on Parsiana’s request she has shared some recipes with our readers. We are grateful to the author and the University of California Press for permitting us to reprint some of her recipes. Those interested in the book can visit their website www.ucpress.edu

ITALIAN EGGS

This version of devilled eggs has a provocative sweet, sour and hot mayon­naisey mixture. My mother dates these back from her own childhood, absorbed into her family from a friend of theirs, one Tehmina Lalkaka. As a four-year-old, I can remember handing around a tray of Italian eggs to guests from Bombay and feeling faint with a desire to have one myself. My food writer friend Patty Unterman found these eggs ravishing and wrote about them, and later Fran McCullough picked them up from Unterman’s column for her best American recipes of 1999.

Eggs (6 — large)

Mayonnaise (2 tbsp) 

Butter (2 tbsp — soft) 

Green chillies (2 or more — finely chopped)

Limes (1 to 2) 

Coriander (½ cup — chopped)

Honey (1 tbsp) 

Salt

Hard boil the eggs. The yolks need to be cooked through. Plunge into cold water and peel. Halve the eggs. If you have any thin spots in the white, cut the egg so that the thin spot is on the bottom. You can reinforce it with a shaved patch from the thicker half.

Mash and cream the yolks with mayonnaise, soft butter, green chillies, juice of at least 1 lime, the chopped coriander and the surprise ingredient, honey, at least 1 tablespoon, but possibly more. Add salt. You want the mixture to be assertive, so don’t be timid with the sweet, the sour or the salt. 

Mound the mixture into the reserved halves. Leave the surface rough, gently cross-hatched with the tines of a fork. Chill until the filling firms up. Remove from the refrigerator about half an hour before serving. At serving time, garnish each half with a single perfect, coriander leaflet or a diagonally cut sliver of fresh green or red chilly. 

Note: About the quantities: they are a starting point. Please use your judgment when it comes to heat. If you don’t like the filling spicy hot, start with half a chilly and take the seeds out before you chop them. Do suspend any disbelief about the honey. Its presence is magical. You don’t want to use a dark, medicinal honey. Stick with one in the light-medium floral range.

If you can get tiny pullet eggs, use them and make a whole dozen at a time. 

For scaling up the recipe, if you’re not comfortable with a grab and fling approach to cooking, the easiest way is to measure the egg yolks. For each generous cup of yolks measured without packing, add 3 to 4 tablespoons each of butter and mayonnaise, 11/2 cups coriander, 3 to 4 hot green chillies, 2 tablespoons or more honey and salt to taste. You can put the ingredients in a food processor and blend them until the filling is creamy but still has texture from the coriander and chillies.

Variation: To make an Italian Egg Salad, chop the hard-boiled eggs. Toss with all the ingredients above except the butter. Compensate with a little extra mayonnaise. Serve on a bed of lettuce and cucumber or as a first-rate egg salad sandwich with lots of lettuce and cucumber on whole wheat bread. To make a sturdy filling for thin, crustless sandwiches, leave in the butter and refrigerate the mixture until it’s firm.

MA’S WOBBLY CAULIFLOWER CUSTARD             

Baked cauliflower is a standard in many Parsi households but nowhere does it have the trembling delicacy of my mother’s. The key to success with this recipe is to keep a light hand throughout.

Serves 4-6 

Cauliflower (1 — a 1 pounder, plus or minus, or part of a larger one)

Milk (3 cups)

Eggs (4)

Red chilies (snipped green or fresh to taste or none at all) 

Cheese (Processed Cheddar, Fontina, Parmesan or Asiago or a combination) (1 cup or more — grated) 

Salt 

Heat oven to 350°. Boil the cauliflower in lightly salted water and drain it or steam the cauliflower until thoroughly tender. Break into small florets, cutting up the stem into small bits, salt them lightly if necessary and crowd into a lightly buttered baking dish. Beat 4 eggs lightly with 3 cups warmed milk. Add about ¾ cup of the grated cheese and the chillies to taste. Check for salt. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the cauliflower. It should cover the cauliflower thoroughly without drowning it. Strew the rest of the grated cheese over the top. Put the baking dish in a pan of hot water and bake it at 350° for 30 minutes. Check. The custard should be very wobbly and the top set and golden but not at all brown. You may need an extra five minutes. 

Remove from the oven and let it stand at room temperature for 5-10 minutes before serving. 

Serve with something crisp and a little salad for a perfect light lunch. I’m always hoping for cold leftovers but it isn’t often that we get any.

Variation: This more robust version is still very good. Make 2-3 cups Béchamel sauce using part cauliflower cooking liquid and part milk. Let it cool slightly before adding the eggs, cheese, chopped chillies and salt. Pour over the cauliflower. Sprinkle with more grated cheese, dot with butter and fine bread crumbs and bake at 350° in a pan of hot water until the top is golden brown — about 35-40 minutes. Let it rest for a few minutes before serving. I love this cold for breakfast the next day.

 

IRENE’S FAMOUS  FISHCAKES

When I spent several months in Bombay a few years ago seeing to family business, my friend Mehlli Gobhai’s house was an oasis of calm, order and entertainment where I was welcome to eat and cook as one of the family. No one ever tires of his cook, Irene’s fish cakes.

For 8 patties to serve 4, or 16 to 20 little balls to serve 8 to 10

Mackerel (1 pound, snapper, or cod fillets — see Variation)

Potatoes (1 to 1½ cups — mashed)

Eggs (3)

Onion (1 medium — finely chopped)

Green chillies (3 to 4 — finely chopped)

Coriander leaves and stems (1 scant cup — finely chopped) 

Ginger-garlic paste (1 tbsp — optional)

Salt

Bread crumbs (fine — for coating)

Vegetable oil (for frying)

Poach the fish for a few minutes in lightly salted water. When it’s cool enough to handle, drain the fish well and flake it, being sure to remove any little bones. Mix together the fish, potatoes, 1 egg, onions, chillies, coriander, and seasonings.

Shape into patties 3” across and 1” thick if they will form part of a main course, smaller balls or patties if for hors d’oeuvres.

Beat the remaining 2 eggs. Dip the patties in beaten egg and coat with fine bread crumbs. Place on a wax paper or parchment-lined tray or cookie sheet and refrigerate until ready to fry.

Shallow fry until golden in hot vegetable oil for patties, in deeper oil if shaped into small one-bite balls. Drain on absorbent paper and serve hot or at room temperature.

Variation: I sometimes like to use  salt cod, soaked and then poached in milk.        

BHUJELO GOS

To serve 4 as a main course or more as a nibble

Lean meat (2 pounds — leg of kid or lamb, trimmed of all fat and sinew, cubed)

Ginger garlic paste (2 tsp)

Grind with enough oil to moisten 

Red chillies (6)

Cumin (½-1 tsp) 

Garlic (4 cloves)

Ginger (1” piece)

Put the meat into a pan with the ginger garlic paste and enough water to cover. Add 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and cook, covered, over low heat until meat is almost tender, around 40 minutes. The tip of a knife should go through the meat with no resistance. Drain meat thoroughly and let it air dry before proceeding.

Rub with ground spices and leave for at least 2 hours. Grill slowly over charcoal. In India, we use a bed of hay over the coals to lend an extra-smoky flavour to the grilled meat. The meat will have an appealing reddish black crust and be meltingly tender inside. Resist the temptation to skip the preliminary braising. Using this marinade on meat to be grilled rare doesn’t do justice to either and you’ll end up with something that tastes crude instead of succulent.

INDIO DATE SHAKES 

Date shakes are one of the glories of American street food. The street in this case is the highway running through Indio, the date capital of the United States. Unless you have a bottomless capacity for rich, thick, sweet milk-shakes, one of the enormous glasses you’re handed will serve four easily.

Serves 6-8

Dates (1½ cups — soft, pitted)

Milk (1 cup or more or half and half)

Icecream (1 pint, undersweet homemade the best)

Walnuts (handful of shelled — optional)

 If the dates have tough skin, peel it off, or put the dates through a strainer. Sometimes the skin never gets quite smooth enough and makes for an unpleasant texture. 

Put dates in a blender with milk and icecream. Blend till smooth. Add walnuts if you like at the last minute, pulsing once or twice, so they hold their shape.

Serve in a small 4 ounce glass as the ending to a meal or a mid-morning pick-me-up.