We love eating out. But after days of eating out you do want to come back to your mom’s simple, home-style cooking. Ask the ones who have been living alone in a different city, far away from the comfort of home-cooked food so lovingly put together by Mommy dearest. While restaurant food is extremely tempting, nothing warms us up from within and actually fills up our belly just the way home prepared food does.
But every mommy has her staples, a handful of dishes, which she can simply patent, for no one makes it better than her. The recipe could well be simple, but it takes one sleight of hand, and the dish shines with a magical ingredient that only she knows about.
Here’s celebrating the dishes your mom makes better than anyone else’s, any given day.
1. Rajma chawal
Rajma chawal is common to most North-Indian households, but still you feel the rajma chawal your colleague bought for lunch the other day was nowhere as good as your mom’s. You wonder how she gets such a silken texture to the gravy. Every mother invariably has a special rajma chawal recipe, and each tastier than the other.
2. Baingan ka bharta
Despite being one of the easiest dishes to put together, we hold our mother’s recipe of the good old ‘Baingan ka bharta’ the closest to our hearts. She obviously makes it better than your friend’s mom.
3. Curry chawal
These besan dumplings in a tangy and pungent yoghurt-based gravy are wonderful with fresh, steamed rice. But that smoothness to the gravy and the soft and juicy pakoras is a feat that can be achieved by your mom alone. Even a restaurant’s ‘Curry Chawal’ lacks the same warm flavours and mom’s home-cooked fuzziness.
Sahilosophy
4. Aloo Parantha
The comfort of eating aloo ka parantha handmade by your mom on a chilly winter morning is next to none. The stuffing of her aloo ka parantha is the best you have had in the world, regardless the number of times you have been treated to it by your friends or at the friendly neighbourhood dhaba.
Ravindrra Shetty
Would you?
5. Gajar ka halwa
Don’t you absolutely love this dessert? The moment carrots are in season, your mom stocks them up to make this delicious winter sweet, and serve every night at the dinner table. The sweet, creamy texture of the halwa with a gentle sprinkling of dry fruits, and the slightly over-tanned edges where the halwa was in most contact with the pan, makes your mom’s, and only her’s the yummiest in the world.
Kunal Kapur
6. Chicken curry
The pungent chicken curry with the bright flame-coloured gravy and the aroma of the spices is something only your mom can manage, and so successfully. You always get her to make her trademark chicken dish every time friends come over for lunch. It doesn’t hurt after all to show them off your mom’s special cooking.
7. Pindi Chana
Is it a squeeze of lemon or aam choor? What is that special ingredient your mom adds to this popular street favourite to make it so divine. You await the times the kitchen fills up with the aroma of her pindi chana and all the exotic spices she infuses into it. Surely, not a soul will deny that your mom makes it better than any reasonable restaurant in the vicinity.
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