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Due to innovations in the way we grow, transport and store food, we can now get most things the whole year round, which has obvious benefits. But this can also take away the enormous pleasure of eating something when nature says it is in its prime. And every now and then, when you buy out of season, you can end up with something rather tasteless that you wish you’d never bought in the first place.

Eating seasonally often feels exactly right. Broad beans, peas and asparagus taste perfect in spring when the promise of summer and sunshine is just round the corner. Big brutish roots, at their best after the first frosts, are great in curries or mashed up with spices, and feel comforting in the winter. With that in mind, here are some dishes to eat with the seasons.

EVERY RECIPE TELLS A STORY

At the heart of every one of my recipes is a place called Gujarat. It’s where, as long as anyone can remember, our family came from. And although my family has now settled in England, we are still Gujarati, and day in day out we talk, think and eat like Gujaratis.

Gujarat, a small state on the western coast of India, has had a very big impact on Indian food culture. It all started in 269BC when Emperor Ashoka banned the slaughter of any living animal in the name of peace. Since that time, the majority of the millions of Hindus in the state have been vegetarian. Over thousands of years, a rich and resourceful vegetable-first way of cooking has evolved. Home cooks, restaurant chefs and street-food stallholders alike have all been creating simple but extraordinary dishes, using just what grows on the land and is in season.

Walk the streets of Ahmedabad or Rajkot and you’ll come across simple but heavenly potato curries cooked with garlic, mustard seeds and tomatoes. Or sweetcorn cooked in a deeply savoury sauce of ground peanuts and yoghurt and aubergines that have been smoked over red coals until they become deeply mysterious and creamy.

I’ve long been fascinated by how this limitation of not cooking with meat has been the catalyst for new ways of thinking about and cooking with often familiar ingredients. Take the humble chickpea, for example. In Gujarati hands it has been transformed into a variety of dishes of different textures and forms – from the gossamer-like chickpea bread dhokla, studded with sesame and mustard seeds, to a silken handkerchief-like pasta called khandvi and even a meltingly soft fudge.

Although Gujarat in particular is famous for this, a similar story exists all across India. For hundreds of millions of people in India, vegetarianism is not a choice but a way of life.

I grew up here in England in a small farming village in Lincolnshire. Behind our house were fields bursting with potatoes, leeks, corn and chard, and down the road, rapeseed, mustard, cauliflower and all sorts of greens. Mum adopted and adapted, spicing all this produce to make our very own special dishes, from courgette kofta to runner bean bhajis, rhubarb chutney and even rainbow chard saag. With every dish, you could see the Gujarati resourcefulness and creativity at work.

When I moved from our little village to London twelve years ago, I continued to cook in much the same way as my mum had. As the years passed, I began to notice how my family’s approach to cooking was so at odds with how most people thought about and experienced Indian food. While my family gravitated towards the fresh, the vibrant and the seasonal, Indian food in the UK was often heavy, swimming in brown sauce and lacking in variety.

I’ve written Fresh India to follow Made in India because I want to show you another type of Indian food, one that is vegetable led and packed with bold flavours. This is the food I love, which is influenced by how Gujaratis think about food but also by each and every state of India and occasionally Sri Lanka too.

Some of the dishes in Fresh India have been passed down the generations in my family and haven’t seen the light of day outside our home until now. Many have come from my travels all over India and the people I have met along the way, from home cooks to street stall vendors, temple cooks to chefs in top restaurants.

Others have come from my experiments in the kitchen, taking classic Indian techniques and flavours and imagining something new. After all, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has wondered what an Indian salad could look and taste like.

This is a book all about vegetables, but whether you call it a vegetarian cookbook is up to you. I’m aware I’ve written it at a time when a change is taking place in our attitudes towards both meat and vegetables. More of us are questioning how we farm, how we treat animals and whether how we eat is sustainable, good for the environment and also for our health.

But my aim with this book is not to preach or to write only for vegetarians: it is to inspire you to cook a different, fresher, vegetable-led type of Indian food. To honour the seasons and what grows in our fields, and also to celebrate the way that hundreds of millions of Indians eat, and the Gujarati way of thinking.

HELPFUL WEIGHTS + MEASURES

Ingredients vary in size and potency, but this is a good rough guide if you’re substituting whole spices for ground, scaling up recipes or don’t have a pair of scales to hand.

GENERAL

RICE + PULSES

Appetites will vary (so plan accordingly), but as a general rule allocate 65g of dry rice per person. As for pulses, allow 100g of the dried variety per person, or 200g of cooked.

SPICES

BLACK PEPPER

CARDAMOM

CORIANDER

CUMIN

FENNEL

MUSTARD SEEDS

NUTMEG

CITRUS FRUIT

GARLIC

ONIONS

Traditionally, Indians eat a couple of different dishes for lunch or dinner. Dotted around the table you might find one or two curries, a dal, some rice and maybe a pile of chapattis. If you’re lucky, you’ll also get a tray of chutneys and a side of raita too. We tend to focus the meal not on one central ‘hero’ dish, but around a few smaller ones, so you get a lot more flavour and texture.

This wonderfully varied way of eating has evolved over many centuries, and has in part been made possible by the amount of time Indian women have spent in the kitchen. But given our busy lifestyles, we all like a bit of simplicity when it comes to cooking during the week, which might mean a one-pot dish cooked in half an hour or making something in the same time it would take to order a takeaway. So I’ve written this book in a way that will satisfy different levels of time and enthusiasm. You can either combine a few different dishes or just cook one thing for dinner.

There are no rules, but I’ve made some suggestions in the introductions to each chapter, or under the recipes themselves, for what will go with what. Where you see ‘Serves 4 as a main course’ you shouldn’t need anything else alongside except some rice or bread, but where you see ‘Serves 4 as part of a main course’ you might want another dish to go with it.

When I’m cooking during the week, I’ll often cook a standalone dish, like a rice packed with vegetables, or a curry, soaking the rice before I start cooking. In the fridge I’ll always have a few different pickles and some yoghurt to make raita with. But when the weekend hits, I love to take my time and make a couple of things, or cook a big batch of dal to last a few days.

With any cuisine, the big question is always how to hang it all together so it makes sense. For that reason I’ve included a few menu suggestions, which you’ll find here.

I’ve also included symbols for all gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan recipes, which are marked on each page with the abbreviations shown here.

01

TASTE AS YOU GO

Taste as you go, from beginning to middle to end. This is the simplest but best piece of advice my mother ever gave me. That way you’ll learn what you like and what you don’t. It will also give you a better understanding of the personalities of the ingredients you’re dealing with and how they change with time, heat and when mixed with other things. Soon you’ll be able to create great food without a recipe.

02

GET SOME BALANCE

Most Indian home cooking is balanced. One ingredient shouldn’t be vying for your attention more than any other. Often people think chilli should be the hero, but that’s rarely true, and especially not when it comes to fresh vegetables. Let them take centre stage and allow the other ingredients to act as backing vocals.

03

NOT ALL CHILLIES ARE CREATED EQUAL

Chillies and chilli powders vary hugely in potency. I (almost) always use the same slim green finger chillies bought from Ali the Bengali on Chapel Market, and buy the same brand of chilli powder too. I’ve got to know my chillies and spices intimately so there are never any nasty surprises and I can judge how much to use.

04

ALWAYS WASH YOUR RICE

Washing rice helps to remove a lot of the starch that can make rice sticky and, at worst, gloopy. The best way to wash your rice is to put it in a bowl and pour water over it. Swirl it around and tip out the starchy water, repeat until the water runs clear, then pour in fresh water to soak – 30 minutes in cold water is perfect, but 10 minutes in warm water is fine if you don’t have that long. If you wash your rice through a sieve it’s not as easy to tell how ‘clean’ it is. Washing and soaking rice is the first thing I do in the kitchen before cooking, so I can have dinner and rice ready at the same time.

05

COOK YOUR ONIONS FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE

Make sure you cook your onions for long enough. Try taking things a little further next time you cook them (without burning them) and you’ll see what I mean. They are in so many recipes, and it makes all the difference.

06

EMBRACE FAILURE

With Indian food, if you go too far with one ingredient or another, you can usually recover. Too much chilli or salt? Add tomatoes or coconut or double the recipe to dilute it. Or embrace messing up: chefs say this a lot, but it is true – don’t worry if you mess up, as you’ll learn from it.

07

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

These days we expect to dip into any cookery book, from Korean food to Georgian, and be able to cook something perfectly first time around. The truth is that sometimes it takes a while to build up proper skills. I’ve now been making chapattis for years, but initially they were wonky. Over time my hands found a rhythm with the rolling pin and I got a feel for the dough, and now my chapattis are both round and pillow soft, like my mum’s. If at first things aren’t perfect, keep going.

08

GROUND SPICES ARE FINE

Ground spices are fine but only if they’re fairly fresh. If you’re planning to use some dusty old spice that has been festering at the back of the cupboard, don’t expect it to taste of anything. If you’re buying freshly ground spices, buy the best you can afford and change them regularly. Whole spices last longer because their oils are kept intact, but you’ll need to invest in some time in the form of a pestle and mortar, or money in the form of an electric spice grinder.

09

EAT WITH YOUR HANDS

Everything tastes better when eaten with your hands (with the exception of soup). ‘Why would you want to taste the metal of a fork first?’ my mum asked me. Good question, Mum.

10

SHARE YOUR FOOD

There’s no greater joy than to eat around a crowded table with friends and family at home.

STARTERS + SNACKS

In India, snacking is not a dirty word. This probably has something to do with the fact that snacks are predominantly freshly made by real people right in front of you. In England, most snacks tend to be processed. Packets of things made by machines, with ingredients called E107 rather than ‘chickpeas’.

That’s not to say the other sort of snacks aren’t available in India. Big companies and high street chains selling processed and fast food have moved into Indian cities, trying to tempt Indians away from the streets and into shopping malls. However, by and large, Indians from bankers to street kids are wobbling their heads at this sort of stuff, and the man on the street still reigns supreme, with his upturned fuel can, selling his freshly made snacks with his dubious health-and-safety credentials.

He is often just one man, with one pan and one dish. His stall won’t have a name or be listed; he will be known by a name such as ‘the pav bhaji wallah at Tolly roundabout’ or ‘the egg bhurji man on Churchgate opposite the school’. But he may have had his patch for the last thirty years, serving the same thing, like his father before him and possibly even his father before him. And you can taste every single day of those thirty years that have made the dish you order a thing of utter perfection.

My favourite snacks are the ones that pack an almighty punch and leave you feeling like you need to sit down. They are the ones I love to make for myself, my family and hard-core Indian-snack enthusiasts. They will take you on a roller coaster of flavours, tastes and textures from first bite to last; majestic snacks like blackened sweetcorn chaat (see here) or new potato and chickpea chaat (here). Then there are those snacks which everyone loves and are irritatingly addictive: beetroot shami kebabs (here) and Darjeeling momos (here). There is the cheela (here), the ultimate fallback, the gold champion of a snack, a pancake into which you can throw anything, made with every Indian’s favourite store-cupboard ingredient, chickpea flour. And finally, there are those snacks that I would eat a lot more of, if only they weren’t deep-fried. I can’t contemplate a life without poppadoms, samosas or onion bhajis, so I have created some recipes (here, here and here) where you don’t have to deep-fry.

You might be wondering why I’ve been talking about snacks all this time and haven’t once mentioned starters. This is because starters don’t exist in Indian home cooking. You can, however, use every one of the recipes in this chapter as a starter.

HOME-MADE POPPADOMS WITH TOMATO MASALA

(masala papad)

I love a tower of restaurant poppadoms and a parade of chutneys as much as the next woman, but they can be overly greasy and salty. These poppadoms are neither, and you can make them at home in huge, family-sized rounds. Or, if you’re not into sharing, you can make lots of small, canapé-sized rounds using a cookie cutter. These are made with chickpea flour because I prefer the flavour, so don’t be surprised if these end up a little thicker than the ones you’re used to.

Chop the tomatoes very finely, then do the same with the red onion, green chillies and coriander. Place in a serving bowl with the salt and lime juice, stir to mix, and refrigerate until needed. (The longer it sits, the tastier it will be.)

To make the poppadoms, preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F/gas 3 and line a couple of baking trays with lightly oiled foil. Place the chickpea flour in a large mixing bowl, and add the nigella seeds, black pepper, salt, cumin and chilli powder. Mix thoroughly, then add the oil and work through with your fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Make a well in the middle of the mix. Little by little, add 100ml of water, mixing as you go – you may not need it all. Knead the dough until it comes together into a ball; it will be slightly tacky to the touch. Remove the dough from the bowl, wrap tightly in cling film and leave to rest for 30 minutes.

Lightly flour a clean surface and split the dough into 4 balls (about 100g each). Take the first ball, flatten between your palms and coat both sides in flour. Roll it into as big a round as you can, 25cm in diameter if possible, adding a little more flour if it starts to stick. It’s not easy to get poppadoms round, but if you don’t manage it, they will look rustic (to use estate agent terms).

When rolled, place on the oiled tray and repeat. You may need to cook them in a couple of batches, in which case cover the dough and roll it out just before baking, so it doesn’t dry out. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until they are golden brown and hard when you tap them.

To serve, place the poppadoms on large plates and use a slotted spoon to spoon over the tomato masala, leaving the liquid behind. Or serve the masala in a bowl next to the poppadoms.

BEETROOT SHAMI KEBABS

(chukandar ke kebab)

Deep in the midst of Lucknow Chowk, beyond the donkey carts and men with their piles of saffron naans, is Tunday Kebabs. It serves one of India’s most prized kebabs, the stuff of legend. The story goes that it was created by a one-armed man, Haj Murad Ali, for a toothless Mughal ruler over 100 years ago to melt in the mouth and relieve the king of any awkward public dining situations. Although this isn’t a recipe for that actual kebab, it is my recipe for the closest vegetarian version.

These kebabs are delicate, with a crisp charcoal exterior and a marshmallow-soft centre, so be gentle while you’re making them. Lovely with hot naan bread (see here), a salad like my leaves, herbs and curds (here), and cucumber and mint raita (here).

Top and tail the beetroot, place in a pan of cold water on a medium heat, bring to the boil and cook until tender and a knife slides easily through them. Depending on their size, this could take from 40 minutes to 1 hour. Drain and leave to cool, then slip the skins off using your fingers or the back of a knife (wear rubber gloves if you don’t fancy having pink hands for the rest of the day). Mash the beets as finely as you can.

Pop the beetroot mash into a frying pan over a medium heat and stir-fry for around 5 minutes. Crumble the paneer into the beetroot, add the lemon juice, ginger, garlic, green chillies, garam masala and salt, and stir for another couple of minutes. Take the pan off the heat, add the chickpea flour and coriander, and mix really well. Leave the mixture to cool down, then add the egg and mix thoroughly.

Lay a sheet of greaseproof paper or foil on a flat surface. Take an egg-sized bit of mixture, roll into a ball, then flatten it into a patty around 6cm in diameter. Place on the foil and repeat with the rest of the mixture to make 18 kebabs in total.

Put a teaspoon of oil into a non-stick frying pan on a high heat. When hot, add 4 kebabs and fry for around 1½ minutes on one side. Turn and fry for another 1½ minutes, or until crispy. Repeat with the rest, then transfer to a serving plate with some cucumber and mint raita and hot naan bread.

BLACKENED SWEETCORN CHAAT

(makai ki chaat)

This is just the sort of thing I love to eat when I’m at a low ebb mid-afternoon, as its lip-smacking flavours jolt the senses, seduce the taste buds and make you want to punch your fist in the air for being alive. The key here is getting the right levels of chilli, lemon and salt – I like mine on the upper edge of what’s acceptable. Start slow and keep on adding, tasting and adjusting each ingredient until it’s perfect for you. This is good by itself, but you can also serve it with hot chapattis (see here).

If you’re using fresh corn, pull off the husks and any loose silky threads. Bring a pan of water to the boil and carefully lower in the cobs. Boil for around 8 minutes, until tender. Drain, then wash under cold water. To slice off the kernels, make sure the cob sits flat (slice off the stem on the bottom of the cob if not) and place in a shallow dish. Hold the pointy end firmly with one hand and, with the other, slice close to the core, letting the blade move down the cob.

Set a large frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, put the cumin into it. Stir-fry for a minute, until you can smell it, then add the butter and let it melt. Turn the heat up and, when the pan starts to smoke, add the corn. Cook for 6 to 8 minutes – don’t stir too frequently, so it has a chance to blacken and caramelize, but watch out as the odd kernel may pop. When the corn has a good amount of colour, add the black pepper, chilli powder, salt and lemon juice and let it sizzle off.

Divide the corn between four plates and scatter over the red onion, coriander and sev. Sprinkle a little chilli powder over the top and place a wedge of lemon on the side.

BAKED ONION BHAJIS

(pyaz ke pakore)

These are a step forward from the deep-fried favourites: they are healthier, more pleasant to cook, and just as tasty. I like to serve these with a fresh coriander or mango chutney, or beetroot raita (see here).

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and line two baking trays with lightly oiled foil. Put the ginger, green chilli and cumin seeds into a pestle and mortar along with a small pinch of salt, bash to a coarse paste and leave to one side.

Peel and halve the onions, then slice them into 0.5cm half-moon shapes. Put the oil into a large frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add the onions. Fry for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they’re translucent and just soft enough to cut with a wooden spoon.

Put the onions into a bowl and add the ginger, green chilli and cumin paste, along with the chickpea flour, fresh coriander, chilli powder, ground coriander, turmeric, lemon juice and 1½ teaspoons of salt. Mix thoroughly and, little by little, add up to 30ml of water, until you have a very thick batter.

Take a tablespoon of the mixture and drop it on to a tray. Repeat with the rest of the mix, leaving a couple of centimetres between each bhaji.

Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until the bhajis start to crisp up and brown on top. Remove from the oven – you may need to gently lever them off the foil using a palette knife – and place on a plate alongside some chutney before devouring.

CHESTNUT MUSHROOM + WALNUT SAMOSAS

(masaruma akharōta samose)

I have given recipes for these well-loved triangles of joy in Made in India, but here are a couple of new variations. These can be made in advance, frozen and then baked at the last minute, making them perfect for parties. Follow the instructions here on how to fill, fold and bake your samosas.

As combinations go, mushrooms and walnuts are a mighty pair: smoky, earthy and addictive. The key to making these is to ensure the seasoning is strong (as the taste will be muted slightly by the samosa pastry) and the mixture is dry (a wet mixture will make for a soggy samosa).

NOTE: A food processor will make light work of chopping your mushrooms and grinding your walnuts.

Throw the walnuts into a food processor and grind very finely, then remove and set to one side. Put the mushrooms into the food processor, chop until pea-sized and set these to one side too.

Warm the oil in your largest frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add the mustard, cumin and nigella seeds. When the seeds start to wriggle, add the onion and cook for around 10 minutes, until soft and starting to brown. Add the green chillies, ginger and garlic and cook for a further 5 minutes, or until the onion looks like dark jewels, then add the mushrooms. Don’t worry if they come up to the brim of your pan, as they’ll soon reduce.

Gently fold the ingredients together, add the salt and black pepper and cook for around 15 minutes, until the water evaporates – there should only be the tiniest trace of water in the bottom of the pan, or else you’ll have soggy samosas. Add the walnuts, cook for another 3 minutes, then take off the heat and leave to cool before you make the samosas.

LEEK, PEA + MINT SAMOSAS

(hara pyaz, matar, pudina ke samose)

These hot and sweet tangled leeks work really well with peas and mint to make an elegant and light samosa. Best served in the summer with a glass of crisp white wine. Follow the instructions here on how to fill, fold and bake your samosas.

HOW TO MAKE SAMOSAS

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6 and line two baking trays with baking paper.

Delicately unroll one sheet of pastry and place on a large chopping board. Brush it lightly with melted butter and layer with another sheet of pastry. Cut the sheets into three horizontal strips (around 10 x 25cm), using a sharp knife.

Make a cone shape at one side of the strip, place 1 heaped tablespoon of the filling inside the cone, then fold the open side of the cone into the rest of the filo strip to cover and seal it. Keep folding over the rest of the pastry around the shape of the cone until you come to the end of the strip. Cut off any excess pastry and stick the strip down with a brush of melted butter. Pop the samosa on a tray and repeat.

To bake your samosas, brush them on both sides with butter, sprinkle with the nigella or cumin seeds if using, and bake for 15 minutes, or until golden and crispy. Serve with cucumber and mint raita (see here) or some mango chutney.

NOTE: If you don’t want to bake your samosas straight away, put them in a single layer on a non-stick tray without brushing with butter, then place in the freezer. (You can put them into bags when they’re properly frozen.) To cook from frozen, place in a single layer on a lined baking tray and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden, brushing with melted butter halfway through.

NEW POTATO + CHICKPEA CHAAT

(aloo chana chaat)

The flavours in this incredibly popular Indian street-side snack will dance in your mouth. Buttery potatoes wrap around the chickpeas in an open embrace. They’re followed by a flourish of shallots, a smouldering slick of date and tamarind chutney and the crunch of sev. Beats a packet of crisps any day. Although tamarind and sev (chickpea noodles) might seem hard to find, they are nearly always available in the Asian section of big supermarkets. Look for thin or ‘nylon’ sev – but if you can’t find any, a little Bombay mix works a treat.

NOTE: As tamarind paste varies from brand to brand, add it gradually until it tastes good to you.

CONTENTS

ALTERNATIVE CONTENTS

SEASONAL CONTENTS

EVERY RECIPE TELLS A STORY