From a recent trip to Bali, I brought back a few Indonesian spice blends and several recipe ideas. I have been putting them to good use in my kitchen since, and one of my favorites is nasi goreng, Indonesia’s much-loved fried rice.

This is my vegetarian take on the dish, adapted for an Indian kitchen with accessible ingredients and some practical substitutions.

Ingredients

[Serves 3]

• White rice (raw) ¹– 1 cup
• Water- 2 cups² (for boiling the rice)

Vegetables:

• Carrots – 2 medium
• Bell pepper (yellow³) – 1 large or 2 small
• Spring onions – 50 grams
• Red onion – 1 large or 2 small
• Garlic – 2 fat cloves (~2 tsp, finely chopped)

Flavorings:

• Soy sauce⁴ – 2 tablespoons
• Mix paprica⁵ – 1 tablespoon

For frying:

• Oil⁶ – 2 tablespoons

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Ingredient Notes

1. White rice: Use rice that has a firm, non-sticky cooked texture and is non-aromatic. Avoid glutinous / sticky rice, or fragrant varieties such as jasmine / basmati. I used Singaraja Classic Highland Rice, a pack of which I had picked up during my Bali travels. A close substitute in India could be white sona masoori rice. If you can get hold of Indonesian-style rice, that’s best – look for beras pera (this holds its shape when stir-fried).
2. Water: The quantity is based on what’s needed for stovetop cooking of the rice I use – this is higher than the usual ~1:1.5 that goes into cooking basmati. Adjust the quantity of water according to the instructions for your rice.
3. Bell pepper: I use yellow for the color contrast it lends to the red-and-green of the dish. Substitute with green or red bell pepper if yellow is not available.
4. Soy sauce: Nasi goreng traditionally uses kecap manis, a thick sweet soy sauce (see ABC Indonesian soy sauce on Amazon.com). I don’t find this easily accessible in India. I have used a regular light soy sauce in this recipe (see Lee Kum Kee premium soy sauce on Amazon.com) – while this does not replicate the traditional nasi goreng flavors, I find that this substitution makes the dish more palatable for those who like Indo-Chinese food but are unaccustomed to Indonesian flavors.
5. Mix paprica: This is a hand-crafted spice blend from Budi Spices, Candikuning in Bali. It contains a mix of dehydrated mild chili peppers with other dried local aromatics, and is sold specifically as a nasi goreng powder. I highly recommend Budi Spices, by the way – this was among the few market stalls in Candikuning that quoted a fair first-price, and the lady at the stall helpfully wrote out a nasi goreng recipe for me on the hand-packed spice bag. If you don’t have this spice blend on hand, I suggest this alternative: 1.5 teaspoons of sweet paprika (or 3/4 teaspoon of Kashmiri red chili powder) and an extra teaspoon of chopped garlic.
6. Oil: The recipe provided with the mix paprica recommended sesame oil. I used peanut oil as that’s what I had on hand – it’s a workable replacement, I think. Don’t use olive oil or ghee – their distinctive flavors can clash with the seasoning of this dish.

How To Make Vegetarian Nasi Goreng

1. Cook and cool the rice

Wash the rice in several changes of water till the water runs clear. Soak the rice in double the quantity of water for 20 minutes. Drain.

Transfer the soaked and drained rice to a thick-bottomed pan. Add water in a 1 cup rice to 2 cups water ratio. [This works for Indonesian-style white rice I use – adapt according to the rice you have.] Bring the pan to a boil, then simmer covered for 15 minutes or till all the water has been absorbed. Switch off the heat and let the rice rest covered for another 8-10 minutes.

Uncover and, very lightly, fluff up the rice with a fork. Let the rice cool to room temperature. Then transfer it to a covered container and refrigerate it promptly. Let it chill in the refrigerator till you are ready to make the nasi goreng the next day.

No time to refrigerate overnight?

Let’s say you have freshly boiled rice, and must cook nasi goreng in the next hour without the luxury of overnight chilling. I’ll spare you the admonishment for lack of fore-planning and give you a quick fix instead: spread the rice thinly on a large shallow plate. Put the plate under a fan for bringing it quickly to room temperature, then put it in the freezer. You can prepare and cook the vegetables while the freezer cools the rice down rapidly and dries out its surface – this should take 20-25 minutes.

Caveats:

• Use the freezer just long enough to chill the rice, not so long that the rice turns ice-hard. Freezing and thawing will spoil the texture of the dish. If the rice has cooled sufficiently but there’s still time to go for making nasi goreng, transfer the cold rice from the freezer to the regular refrigerator compartment.
• If you don’t have the time to cool the rice down, defer your plan of making nasi goreng – you cannot skip the cooling!

2. Prepare the vegetables

Peel the onions and slice them thinly to ~1-inch length.

Scrape and slice the carrots diagonally into thin disks. If the carrots are thick, halve them vertically before you slice them.

Peel and chop garlic.

Core and deseed the bell pepper, then cut it into 1-inch long strips.

Cut the roots and any wilted parts of the spring onions. Chop the spring onion whites and greens separately (the whites will go in while cooking, the greens will be used for garnishing).

3. Fry!

Heat two tablespoons of oil in a thick-bottomed pan. When the oil is hot, slide in garlic and sliced onions. Fry for half a minute. Then add to the pan the chopped spring onion whites, carrots and bell peppers.

Continue to cook on high heat, stirring regularly, for five minutes or till the vegetables have glazed slightly but retain their crunch. Add the mix paprica powder and give a quick mix to coat the vegetables evenly.

Tip in the cold rice. Pour in the soy sauce.

Stir-fry to mix everything till hot and evenly coated with the seasonings.

Garnish with spring onion greens.

Nasi goreng is ready.

Serving Suggestions

Serve nasi goreng hot with a side of Balinese cucumber acar (fresh pickle) and tofu / tempeh in sweet soy sauce.

For a basic Balinese cucumber acar: mix a tablespoon of vinegar with a pinch of salt and a half-teaspoon of sugar. Pour this dressing over cold cucumber slices.

Nasi goreng works wonderfully in the lunchbox – no spill, and satiating on its own without needing elaborate accompaniments.

Storage and Reheating

Leftover nasi goreng keeps well in the fridge for up to 2 days. Let it cool to room temperature, pack it into a covered container and refrigerate it immediately.

For the best texture, reheat it in an open pan rather than in the microwave. Tip the rice into a hot pan with a splash of water and stir-fry on medium-high heat till it is hot and the grains have loosened up. If using a microwave, sprinkle a little water over the rice, cover loosely and heat in a couple of bursts, stirring in between for even heating.

Reheat only the portion you plan to eat – repeated reheating dulls both the flavor and the texture.

Quick-reference recipe card:

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Vegetarian Nasi Goreng

Nasi goreng (Indonesian fried rice), adapted for a vegetarian meal with accessible ingredients and some practical seasoning substitutions.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Indonesian

Diet Vegan, Vegetarian

Keyword mixed vegetables, rice

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Cooling and Refrigeration Time 8 hours hours

Total Time 8 hours hours 40 minutes minutes

Servings 3

Author The Steaming Pot

Equipment

• Kadhai or wok

Ingredients

• 1 cup White rice raw, non-sticky, non-aromatic
• 2 cups Water for boiling the rice

Vegetables

• 2 medium Carrots
• 1 large Bell pepper, yellow (or 2 small)
• 50 g Spring onions
• 1 large Red onion (or 2 small)
• 2 fat cloves Garlic (~2 tsp, finely chopped)

Flavorings

• 2 tbsp Soy sauce (see Notes)
• 1 tbsp Nasi goreng spice blend (mix paprica) (see Notes)

For Frying

• 2 tbsp Oil

Instructions

Cook and cool the rice

• [For best results, cook and cool the rice a day before you plan to make nasi goreng. Cold pre-cooked rice holds its separate, fluffy texture much better than moist freshly cooked rice.] Wash the rice in several changes of water till the water runs clear. Soak the rice in double the quantity of water for 20 minutes. Drain.
• Transfer the soaked and drained rice to a thick-bottomed pan. Add water in a 1 cup rice to 2 cups water ratio. (adjust the water:rice ratio according to the rice you have). Bring the pan to a boil, then simmer covered for 15 minutes or till all the water has been absorbed. Switch off the heat and let the rice rest covered for another 8-10 minutes.
• Uncover and, very lightly, fluff up the rice with a fork. Let the rice cool to room temperature. Then transfer it to a covered container and refrigerate it promptly. Let it chill in the refrigerator till ready to make the nasi goreng.

Prepare the vegetables

• Peel the onions and slice them thinly to ~1-inch length. Peel and chop garlic.
• Scrape and slice the carrots diagonally into thin disks. If the carrots are thick, halve them vertically before you slice them.
• Core and deseed the bell pepper, then cut it into 1-inch long strips.
• Cut the roots and any wilted parts of the spring onions. Chop the spring onion whites and greens separately (the whites will go in while cooking, the greens will be used for garnishing).

Fry!

• Heat two tablespoons of oil in a thick-bottomed pan. When the oil is hot, slide in garlic and sliced onions. Fry for half a minute. Then add to the pan the chopped spring onion whites, carrots and bell peppers.
• Continue to cook on high heat, stirring regularly, for five minutes or till the vegetables have glazed slightly but retain their crunch. Add the mix paprica powder and give a quick mix to coat the vegetables evenly.
• Tip in the cold rice. Pour in the soy sauce. Stir-fry to mix everything till hot and evenly coated with the seasonings. Garnish with spring onion greens.

Serving Suggestions

• Serve nasi goreng hot with a side of Balinese cucumber acar (fresh pickle) and tofu / tempeh in sweet soy sauce.

Notes

Soy sauce: Nasi goreng traditionally uses kecap manis, a thick sweet soy sauce. A Chinese-style soy sauce, while not a direct replacement, works well, too. 

Nasi goreng spice blend (mix paprica): This recipe uses a custom spice blend from Bali. For a substitution, I suggest 1.5 teaspoons of sweet paprika (or 3/4 teaspoon of Kashmiri red chili powder), and an extra teaspoon of chopped garlic.

Related Recipes

Want to explore other Asian or Asian-inspired recipes for an Indian kitchen? Try:

• cabbage and peas stir-fry with honey soy dressing
• Korean-inspired vegetable pancakes
• goji berry tea with Chinese dates
• tapioca coconut milk pudding with mangoes

Want to explore some creative rice preparations? Check out:

• grape and walnut fried rice
• brown rice with basil walnut pesto
• fresh fenugreek and peanut rice
• pineapple sweet corn rice

The post Vegetarian Nasi Goreng (in an Indian Kitchen) appeared first on The Steaming Pot.

Bites, sips and everyday food discoveries from an October trip to Bali: local stores, expat supermarket aisles, a cooking class, family-run warungs and fine-dining bistros. From kelapa (coconut) to kacang (peanut), here are 12 memorable little vegetarian tastes from our time there.

1. Flavored coconut water at Warung Gauri

Meet the Gauri coconut – a signature beverage at Warung Gauri, a charming Balinese restaurant at Jalan Bisma in Ubud. This was an enormous kelapa (coconut), its water sweetened with honey, a cluster of lemongrass and slivers of ginger nestling inside.

2. Tempeh in Bali’s local stores

Tempeh (tempe in Indonesian) was a delight to spot in ordinary shopping marts, accustomed as we are to treating it as exotic pricey food in India.

What struck me more than the ubiquity was the variety. There’s plain or seed-studded, wrapped individually in banana leaf or rolled into cylinders, craft creations or mass-produced blocks.

3. Black rice pudding at a Balinese cooking class

While our student group prepared soup, salad and mains for an Indonesian meal spread at the Ubad Ubud Bali cooking class, our instructor worked on bubuh injin (black rice pudding) on the side. She explained that making this dessert was “out of scope” for our hands-on lesson as its prep and cooking time ran beyond the half-day schedule.

And so she put the pre-soaked black rice to cook in a pot with pandan leaf, palm sugar and a pinch of salt. The pot simmered discreetly in the background as we went about chopping, pounding and sautéing for the other dishes.

After the class, as we sat down to eat what we had cooked together, the mysterious dessert course arrived. The pudding had been ladled into individual bowls and topped with coconut milk – and it looked divine.

4. Jamu kunyit at Plant Bistro

When I ordered jamu kunyit at Plant Bistro, the server cautioned me smilingly – “this is a herbal drink”. I waved away the warning equally smilingly – and am glad I did.

This turmeric tonic, with tamarind and palm sugar, had a savory-sweet-sour taste and made a welcome pairing with our indulgent dinner.

Plant Bistro had other creative vegan interpretations of traditionally non-vegan dishes – nasi campur (a mixed rice plate) with jackfruit rendang, for one. Worth a visit even if you are not vegan. The scenic location in Sayan and the “sophisticated treehouse” atmosphere are lovely, too.

5. Pumpkin soup at The Cafe Lotus

“With coconut cream, sweet potato chips and toasted pumpkin seeds”, the menu beckoned. We ordered.

The pumpkin soup lived up to its delicious promise.

This was our very first meal in Bali, a nice prelude to the gastronomic pleasures that were to follow.

A bonus during our meal was watching dusk settle over the ornate Ubud Water Palace (Taman Saraswati Temple). Located right within the temple’s outer grounds, The Cafe Lotus gives diners a front-row seat to the landmark and its lotus pond.

6. Red dragon fruit smoothies

Dragon fruit is widely available in Bali, and the red-fleshed variety features prominently in breakfast bowls, drinks and desserts on restaurant menus.

A couple of smoothies that I tried, both excellent:

• Tropical Dragon at Dharma Kula – a rich blend of dragon fruit with banana, mango and coconut milk
• Deantioxsidation (double-negation and spelling notwithstanding!) at Warung Gauri – a lighter combination with carrot, apple, ginger and lime

7. Gado-gado

An Indonesian mixed vegetable salad in peanut sauce – gado-gado (literally, mix-mix!) – combines several textures and tastes. Its style of preparation varies by establishment too: no two versions I ate were the same.

Tebasari Resto‘s gado-gado had the veggies rolled up in cabbage leaves, with fried tofu and the sauce on the side.

8. Kind Koko coconut ice cream

Kind Koko makes coconut-based ice cream – no dairy, soy, gluten or artificial additives, it says. We tried the cookie dough and coffee flavors: I haven’t had such tasty ice cream in a long time.

I wish they would introduce a classic coconut flavor too – it shouldn’t be hard, considering coconut is the key ingredient?

9. Teh and kopi

A few standout teh (tea) and kopi (coffee) outings:

• flat white at ino.oz, a cozy coffee shop at the junction of Jalan Bisma and Gg Sunset Lane
• tea and coffee samplers at Lumbung Sari House of Coffee – I wanted to pick one to take back home and it was a tough choice: each sample tasted better (or more interesting) than the one before. The flavors ranged from vanilla, durian, avocado to ginseng! Finally steeled my resolve and settled on a bright purple mangosteen peel tea.
• iced tea at Naughty Nuri’s – on the list not so much for the tea as for the moment: after an enthralling tour of Neka Art Museum* on a hot day, the chilled drink and the fresh sautéed vegetables along with it felt like a spot of bliss.
• Indian dip chai at Daily Baguette. When the staff informed me that their Indian chai wasn’t “boiled milk tea”, I was briefly disappointed – but decided to give it a shot in any case. Their steep-style tea from the Tekoteas collection was a pleasant surprise.

10. Charred bell pepper at NARI

Right across from Plant Bistro in Sayan is NARI, a “wood-fire bistro” – and how they live up to that tagline! They’re doing some wizardry with wood fire here – this charred bell pepper with smoked cashew creme was singular proof. The photo doesn’t do it justice – sharing it anyway as it was the best dish I ate in Bali.

11. Bedugul mocktail at Stuja di Danau

We made a pit stop at Stuja di Danau, a trendy cafe overlooking Lake Beratan, before visiting the Ulun Danu Beratan temple. This cafe serves a drink called Bedugul mocktail: a base layer of mango pulp, muddled jalapeño and fresh mint leaves, topped with soda water and ice.

This drink wasn’t quite for me – I had expected fresh mango pulp instead of the densely sweet Mango Bite toffee-like base – but with the breathtaking backdrop of the lake, the cool misty afternoon for mood, and the pretty layers in the glass, I was not complaining.

12. Street-side snacking: boiled turmeric peanuts

Kacang rebus (boiled peanuts) are a familiar sight at street-food stalls and traditional markets across Bali. They are much like the salted, in-shell boiled peanuts popular in South India, except that our Balinese find was boiled with turmeric: this gave the peanuts an extra “earthy” flavor and a distinct haldi-yellow hue.

We picked up a pack from a street vendor at Bedugul market (locally Pasar Candikuning) and snacked on them through the day. Irresistible!

Epilogue

English-Hindi bilinguals, wrap your heads around these triangulated term twists: in Indonesian, eat is makan (Hindi मकान: house) and water is air (English: air). And – for what it’s worth – love is cinta (चिंता, Hindi for worry).

Related Posts

To continue exploring more food and travel adventures, hop over to London food snapshots or catch our debut visit to VV Puram food street in Bangalore.

New here and want to dive into Indian vegetarian cooking? Browse our recipe gallery.

The post From Kelapa to Kacang: Little Tastes of Bali appeared first on The Steaming Pot.

While littis have caught on outside of Bihar, the savory pitha remains an obscurity. And one can understand why. Litti, with its char-roasting and ghee-dunking, is easily seen as “rustic gourmet”. Pitha, in contrast, with its rice-and-dal base and no-frills steaming, is hard to dress up as anything but “homely”.

There is a time and place for homely – and this post roots for it. Here’s a step-by-step recipe for making Bihar’s pithas in your home kitchen.

If the term pitha is new to you: let’s clear up the terminology first.

What is pitha?

In Bihar, pitha (also spelled pittha – पीठा / पिट्ठा) is a steamed rice flour dumpling, typically half-moon shaped, stuffed with a spicy chana dal filling. It is eaten as a savory snack or as a main meal, with pungent dips such as aloo chutney / ole chutney and green chutney on the side.

Mention pitha in food conversations and you may get knowing nods, only to learn later that everyone meant something different.

So let me also set out what Bihari pitha is not.

• pitha is not the translucent sweet made from ash gourd (that is petha)
• pitha is not filled with jaggery and coconut (that is a neighboring state’s variant, such as Orissa’s manda pitha)
• pitha is not one of the Ayurvedic energy categories (that is pitta – पित्त)

With that sorted, let’s move on to the recipe for Bihari pitha.

You Need

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[To make ~12 pithas]

For the filling:

• Chana dal – 270 grams*
• Green chilies – 1** (more if you want it hotter)
• Ginger – 1.5 inch stick
• Garlic – 6 fat cloves
• Asafoetida powder (hing) – 1/4 teaspoon
• Salt – 1 teaspoon (adjust to taste)
• Fresh coriander leaves, chopped

For the wrapper dough:

• Rice flour – 350 grams*
• Salt – 1/4 teaspoon
• Hot water – 1 cup (250 ml) + more as needed
• Ghee – 1 teaspoon

Equipment: mixer-grinder, steamer

How To Make Pitha

1. Prepare the chana dal filling

Soak chana dal in 4 cups of water for 4 hours. The dal will swell up and soften on soaking.

Drain the water out and transfer the soaked dal to a grinder.

Grind the soaked chana dal coarsely along with a green chili, chopped ginger, peeled garlic cloves, salt and asafoetida powder.

To the ground filling, mix in chopped fresh coriander leaves. Set aside till ready to start filling into the pitha dumplings.

2. Knead the wrapper dough

Measure out the rice flour into a wide kneading bowl.

Pour into it a cup of hot water, gently mix with a spoon, cover and rest for 20 minutes.

After the rice flour + hot water have rested, knead them together to make a pliant dough, similar to how you would chapati dough.

Make equal-sized balls of the dough, roughly 2 inches in diameter.

This volume of rice flour dough should give you around 12 balls.

3. Stuff and shape the dumplings

For each dough ball: flatten the ball between your palms to get a flat circle that’s 3 to 4 inches in diameter. Use the ghee to moisten your palms while shaping the dough ball. Place 1.5 tablespoons of chana dal filling in its center. Fold the circle over such that the semi-circle edges align, and press the edges close.

4. Steam the dumplings

Steam the filled pithas till they are done.

The duration needed for steaming depends on various factors: the method of steaming, how far the pithas are positioned from the source of heat, the size of the pithas.

The recipe used the steamer basket of a rice cooker – it needed 25 minutes of steaming.

Rice cooker method: Bring the water to a boil, place the pithas in the steamer basket in a single layer, cover and steam them.

This basket could accommodate 6 pithas at a time; the whole set of 12 was done in two batches.

Once steamed, pithas are ready to eat.

To Serve

Serve dal pithas hot with tangy and spicy accompaniments: aloo chutney / ole chutney, dhania chutney. Have them as a main meal or a hearty snack.

Quick-reference recipe card:

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Pitha: Steamed Dumplings from Bihar

Dal pithas – steamed rice flour dumplings stuffed with a spicy chana dal filling.

Course Main Course, Snack

Cuisine Bihari, Indian

Diet Vegetarian

Keyword channa, dumplings, steaming

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes minutes

Soak Time 4 hours hours

Total Time 5 hours hours 20 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author The Steaming Pot

Equipment

• mixer-grinder
• steamer

Ingredients

For the filling:

• 270 g Chana dal [see Notes #1]
• 1 Green chilies add more if you want it hotter
• 1.5 inch Ginger stick
• 6 Garlic cloves
• 1/4 tsp Asafoetida powder (hing)
• 1 tsp Salt adjust to taste
• Fresh coriander leaves chopped

For the wrapper dough:

• 350 g Rice flour [see Notes #1]
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 1 cup Hot water ~250 ml + more as needed during kneading
• 1 tsp Ghee

Instructions

Prepare the chana dal filling

• Soak chana dal in 4 cups of water for 4 hours. The dal will swell up and soften on soaking. Drain the water out and transfer the soaked dal to a grinder.
• Grind the soaked chana dal coarsely along with a green chili, chopped ginger, peeled garlic cloves, salt and asafoetida powder.
• To the ground filling, mix in chopped fresh coriander leaves. Set aside till ready to start filling into the pitha dumplings.

Knead the wrapper dough

• Measure out the rice flour into a wide kneading bowl. Pour into it a cup of hot water, gently mix with a spoon, cover and rest for 20 minutes.
• After the rice flour + hot water have rested, knead them together to make a pliant dough, similar to how you would chapati dough. Be prepared to add more water – a little at a time – during kneading. [See Notes #2]
• Make equal-sized balls of the dough, roughly 2 inches in diameter. This volume should give you about 12 pithas.

Stuff and shape the dumplings

• For each dough ball: flatten the ball between your palms to get a flat circle that's 3 to 4 inches in diameter. Use the ghee to moisten your palms while shaping the dough ball. Place 1.5 tablespoons of chana dal filling in its center. Fold the circle over such that the semi-circle edges align, and press the edges close. [See Notes #3]

Steam the dumplings

• Steam the filled pithas till they are done – that is, their surface looks matte / translucent and a toothpick can pierce through them and come out clean. In the steamer basket of a rice cooker, these pithas need 25 minutes of steaming. Adjust the duration depending on the method of steaming, how far the pithas are positioned from the source of heat, the size of the pithas.
• Once steamed, pithas are ready to eat.

To Serve

• Serve dal pithas hot with tangy and spicy accompaniments: aloo chutney / ole chutney, dhania chutney. Have them as a main meal or a hearty snack.

Notes

1. The wrapper and filling quantities appropriate for this recipe can vary by the thickness of the wrapper and the size of each pitha. Don’t sweat over getting the measurements exactly right: a little left over of either rice flour dough or chana dal filling can be mixed into paratha dough for your next meal.
2. The quantity of hot water mixed into the flour is meant to be a little less than what you need eventually for making a pliant dough. This is so that you don’t accidentally make the dough too wet during resting; instead you are able to get the desired consistency in a controlled way during kneading.
3. If you aren’t used to dumpling-shaping, go for a size you’re comfortable with: small-sized pithas with modest dal filling may be easier to handle – feel free to reduce the wrapper size and quantity of filling per pitha.

Variations

In the wrapper dough, you can substitute rice flour with wheat flour (the regular chapati atta) for a simpler cooking experience. Wheat flour wrappers are easier to stretch, less prone to tearing. Knead the dough exactly as you would for chapatis (no hot water etc. required), and reduce the steaming time. All else being equal, wheat flour dumplings take less time to steam than rice flour dumplings. Start checking for doneness after 10 minutes.

Storage Tips

To store pithas for serving later, let them cool to room temperature, refrigerate them in an airtight container (ensure they aren’t packed so tight that they break). When ready to serve, steam the pithas for 4-5 minutes or till warm.

Related Recipes

If you like this dal pitha recipe, you might also enjoy these posts:

• dal parathas, in which chana dal stuffing is filled into pan-fried flatbread
• vegetable momos with a different approach for steaming (idli stand in pressure cooker)
• parval ka chokha, another modest Bihari home-style recipe

Browse through our full gallery of vegetarian recipes from Bihar.

The post Pitha: Steamed Dumplings from Bihar appeared first on The Steaming Pot.

This cherry tomato potato stir-fry is great as a side when you’re cooking for a party. It lets you focus your effort on cooking your elaborate mains, as this dish needs no heavy labor at all.

The prep steps are delightfully simple: cherry tomatoes go into the pan whole; potatoes are parboiled with skin on. And the cooking process is super quick to boot.

You Need

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• Cherry tomatoes – 200 grams
• Potatoes – 3 medium (~300 grams)
• Salt to taste (I use Maldon sea salt)
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Garlic powder – 1/4 teaspoon (I use McCormick’s)
• Fresh Italian basil leaves
• Olive oil – 1 tablespoon

Equipment: pressure cooker (optional)

How To Make Cherry Tomato Potato Stir-Fry

1. Parboil, cool and cube the potatoes

Parboil the potatoes so that the skin comes off easily but the potatoes do not fall apart. This is how to do it in an Indian-style pressure cooker: place the potatoes in enough water to submerge them, heat on high until the cooker whistles, then lower the heat and cook for another three minutes.

Then take the pressure cooker off the heat. Let the pressure release naturally until the lid can come off.

Take the potatoes out of the pressure cooker, let them cool completely and only then attempt peeling and chopping. Cooling helps the potatoes retain their shape and keeps them from falling apart when peeled or cut.

2. Stir fry

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan. When the oil is hot, add the garlic powder and parboiled potato cubes. Note: potatoes should be cold or, at least, at room temperature when they go into the oil. If you add the potatoes while they’re hot, they will turn to mush.

Cook on medium-high heat until potatoes start taking on a golden crust.

At this stage, add in the cherry tomatoes and continue to cook on medium-high heat. When the cherry tomatoes just begin to burst, switch off the heat and add the seasonings: salt, pepper, and torn basil leaves. Mix everything well.

Serve cherry tomato potato stir-fry hot as a side dish with any meal.

FAQ

Q1. Can I substitute cherry tomatoes with regular tomatoes?

Avoid that substitution. While you can use different varieties of cherry tomatoes (red, yellow, orange, pearl), the key to this dish is in having bite-sized whole tomatoes. Regular-sized tomatoes would have to be sliced up, which would not create the same end result as cherry tomatoes.

Q2. What kind of potatoes should I use for the recipe?

Use the kind that you would use for making French fries. See this note for details.

Keep in mind that you can make different kinds of potatoes work for this recipe if you adjust the boiling time and handling approach. We ultimately want the potatoes in the dish to be well-roasted with browned edges, not crumbly or mushy. This can be achieved by undercooking when boiling / peeling with a really gentle hand / frying on high heat with extra oil, even if the potato variety is less-than-ideal for this method of cooking.

If, after all that, the potatoes do mush up, you still get a delicious end result even if not this dish – serve it up as “cherry tomato aloo chokha”. Been there, done that ;)

Q3. Can I substitute sea salt with any other kind of salt?

Yes, just adjust the quantity based on saltiness. Though I’d call out here that coarse-grained salt tastes really good with this recipe, and if you can get hold of it, use it.

Q4. Can I use any other oil instead of olive oil?

You can use peanut oil. The taste will change slightly, but it will still work.

Q5. Can I use chopped raw garlic / garlic paste instead of garlic powder?

By all means. I used garlic powder because I had it and it helped put the dish together quickly.

Quick-reference recipe card:

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Cherry Tomato Stir Fry with Potatoes and Basil

This cherry tomato potato stir-fry is an easy side dish flavored with garlic, fresh basil and black pepper.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine Fusion

Diet Vegan, Vegetarian

Keyword tomatoes

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Parboil Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Servings 3

Author The Steaming Pot

Equipment

• pressure cooker (optional)

Ingredients

• 200 g Cherry tomatoes
• 3 Potatoes ~300 grams
• Salt to taste preferably coarse-grained
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1/4 tsp Garlic powder or 1/2 tsp crushed garlic
• Fresh Italian basil leaves for garnishing
• 1 tbsp Olive oil

Instructions

Parboil, cool and cube the potatoes

• Parboil the potatoes so that the skin comes off easily but the potatoes do not fall apart. This is how to do it in an Indian-style pressure cooker: place the potatoes in enough water to submerge them, heat on high until the cooker whistles, then lower the heat and cook for another three minutes.
• Then take the pressure cooker off the heat. Let the pressure release naturally until the lid can come off.
• Take the potatoes out of the pressure cooker, let them cool completely.
• Peel and chop the potatoes into cubes.

Stir fry

• Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan. When the oil is hot, add the garlic powder and parboiled potato cubes.
• Cook on medium-high heat until potatoes start taking on a golden crust.
• At this stage, add in the cherry tomatoes and continue to cook on medium-high heat. When the cherry tomatoes just begin to burst, switch off the heat and add the seasonings: salt, pepper, and torn basil leaves. Mix everything well.
• Serve cherry tomato potato stir-fry hot as a side dish with any meal.

Notes

1. Do not substitute cherry tomatoes in this recipe with sliced regular tomatoes. The key to this dish is in having bite-sized whole tomatoes.
2. Potatoes should be cold or, at least, at room temperature when they go into the oil. If you add the potatoes while they’re hot, they will turn to mush.
3. Pick a firm variety of potato that remains structurally intact through the steps of parboiling, peeling, cubing and stir-frying - such as the kind you would use for French fries.

Related Recipes

Looking for more cherry tomato recipes? Try:

If potato recipes interest you, check out:

The post Cherry Tomato Stir-Fry with Potatoes appeared first on The Steaming Pot.

I moved this site from my trusty theme Bueno to GeneratePress in August 2026.

The decision to migrate themes was not taken lightly.

Bueno had served me solidly since 2010; even though it stopped receiving maintenance updates years ago, it was initially comfortable enough for me to make small PHP edits and tide over WordPress (WP) and PHP upgrades.

Then came the big mobile-first search / indexing changes circa 2016, and the issues grew more glaring.

For sites such as mine, built before the era of responsive design, the WPTouch plugin was a blessing – it offered a vanilla mobile-friendly version of the pages while the desktop version remained as designed.

Until I realized that ~80% of my traffic was mobile, and it made little sense to focus primarily on the desktop version.

In 2026, the ravages of time and lack of attention to the site started to get out of hand. I learned that search engines now considered core web vitals a ranking factor. I did what I could with optimization and caching plugins, and yet the reports did not look great.

Besides, having a separate mobile experience meant that any optimizations needed to be applied on TWO instances of the site, making it a maintenance nightmare.

I knew I needed to switch to a single, responsive, actively maintained theme.

How to achieve this switch effectively was the question.

The Challenges of Theme Migration on a Live Site

I had attempted theme migration a few years ago and abandoned the quest – I ran into issues and lost search traffic due to the 404 errors in the process.

Once bitten twice shy, as the saying goes.

This time, I wanted the theme switch to be seamless.

Zero downtime during cutover. No disruption to search engine crawlers or users. 100% clean go live.

With the scale and complexity of the transition on my 16-year-old site, achieving this on shared hosting without a “non-production” system seemed impossible.

Until I discovered that web hosts now provide easy ways to create a WordPress staging environment on which the bulk of development, testing and post-deployment fixes can be done. I could make use of a nifty automated staging creation feature on my web host HostGator’s shared hosting plan (affiliate link).

With this newfound knowledge, I felt ready to take on the challenge of migration.

Here are the steps I followed for this site’s migration, structured as a reusable guide. You can use these instructions as a framework to execute a zero-downtime theme switch on your own WordPress site.

Migration Strategy

Follow the Quick Jump section below to go directly to the specific phase with details.

• Before You Begin
• Phase A: Create a staging site as mirror of the live site
  • A.1. Identify the live site to use as source for staging
  • A.2. Create staging
• Phase B: Configure the staging site
  • B.1. Preliminary setup
  • B.2. Customize the new theme
  • B.3. Validate quality and performance
• Phase C: Port changes to live site
  • C.1. Back up the pre-cutover live site
  • C.2. Prepare the live site for cutover
  • C.3. Switch theme from old to new
• Phase D: Post-cutover actions
  • D.1. Monitoring site health
  • D.2. Clean up

For background, this was the technical stack I was working with:

• HostGator shared hosting
• WordPress 7.0
• PHP 8.3
• Yoast SEO 28.3
• WP Fastest Cache 1.5

If you are on a different technical stack, the steps may differ in particulars – the broad approach would likely be the same. (Please share in the comments if not.)

Before You Begin

Phase A: Create a staging site as mirror of the live site

A.1. Identify the live site to use as source for staging

1. Log in to HostGator Customer Portal and launch cPanel.
2. Find Softaculous Apps Installer and click to open the script installation.

   

3. Go to the live site’s installation to create staging from.

Here things got tricky for me. HostGator documentation suggests a click-to-clone approach on the live site’s installation to create staging. But my 2010 site The Steaming Pot pre-dates the Softaculous installation method – it was not even listed in the existing installations.

What now?

After some digging around, I found a solution.

Softaculous’s Import Installation feature can get an unlisted site under the umbrella of existing installations.

I set forth with this method, and then another hurdle came up – Import Software for WordPress listed only 6.8 and 6.9 as supported source WordPress versions, while The Steaming Pot was on version 7.0. I took a chance with 6.9…

…and that turned out just fine. The import feature did not downgrade the WordPress version (phew!).

Just choose the highest WordPress version available and click Import.

And that’s all that’s needed to get the site listed as an available installation.

A.2. Create staging

Next to the live site’s installation, click the Staging icon to open the details input page.

Enter these details on the page:

• Live Installation URL – Double-check that the URL is correct – https://www. or not, as per your site. If not correct, it means that some error happened during the installation import – return to step A.1, edit and revise the import before creating staging.
• Choose Installation URL – This defines where the staging environment will be placed. A simple setup is to choose the same Protocol and Domain as the live installation, and type “staging” in the Directory field. Your staging site will now live at https://www.yourdomain.com/staging.
• Database Name – This will be auto-generated and populated. You can leave it unedited, or edit it such that it is unique for your installation.
• Disable Search Engine Visibility – [Most important!] Keep the box checked to prevent search engines from crawling the staging site and penalizing your live site’s SEO for duplicate content.
• Site Name – Prefix with “Staging – ” or something to that effect. It will help you notice which WordPress dashboard you are logged into, so you don’t accidentally make test changes on the live site.

Click the Create Staging button – this will duplicate your files and database for staging. Once it finishes, it will provide you with the login URL for the new staging site.

This completes Phase A – the staging site is now ready as a mirror of the live site.

Phase B: Configure the staging site

B.1. Preliminary setup

Before you start customizations, here are a few precautionary actions.

B.1.1. Color code the dashboards

This is not technically necessary for theme migration, but valuable for preventing human error: change the color scheme of the staging dashboard such that it is distinguishable from the live site.

It is all too easy to inadvertently make changes to the live site thinking you are on staging. (Been there, done that.)

Go to Users > Profile on the staging site and change the Admin Color Scheme to something distinct so you always know visually which site you are working on.

Here, my staging dashboard is set to color scheme Coffee, while the live dashboard uses Fresh.

B.1.2. Install the parent theme

On the WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes. Click the Add Theme button.

In the Search Themes input box, enter the parent theme name that you plan to customize OR upload the parent theme using the Upload Theme button. In my case, I use the free GeneratePress (GP) theme that I get through search. Hit Install on the theme icon.

B.1.3. Install and activate the child theme

[The steps below apply to GP Child theme – align them with your own child theme.]

Download generatepress_child.zip from the official GeneratePress site (see Using Child Theme).

Upload the theme via Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme.

After successful installation, click Activate to switch the staging site to the GP child theme.

The theme is now ready to take in customizations.

B.2. Customize the new theme

This section covers the high-level areas of customization typically touched during theme migration, with the particulars I modified for this site.

B.2.1. Typography

One of the first customizations I did was switching to web-native fonts.

My old theme Bueno used the Cufón font for heading text – Cufón relies on JavaScript to replace HTML text with dynamic Canvas/VML elements. This had usability and rendering issues – for example, special characters such as & or $ would not appear in headings. And so I switched typography to a combination of Lora, Montserrat and Georgia.

A few guidelines:

• Use Customizer > Typography instead of CSS rules – GeneratePress’s Typography controls include separate desktop/tablet/mobile for many typography elements so you get responsive text styling without hand-written media queries, and can preview live before you publish
• Limit the requested variants to only the weights you will use – for example, for headings (e.g., Bold 700) – to keep render-blocking requests minimal
• Use font-display swap – With this setting, text displays immediately in Georgia (or system serif), then switches seamlessly to the chosen font the moment it finishes loading – this avoids a flash of invisible text (FOIT) while the webfont loads, improving Core Web Vitals

B.2.2. Shortcodes

WooThemes provided handy shortcodes (e.g. woo-sc-box, woo-sc-list.bullet) with which custom styles could be easily added to HTML. These were often used on my posts when the site was on Bueno by WooThemes.

To continue using embedded shortcodes, I migrated the shortcode classes to the new theme’s style.css, and applied theme-agnostic CSS.

B.2.3. Colors

I mapped the color codes from my old theme’s custom.css to the new theme’s Customizer > Colors settings.

B.2.4. Navigation menu

I designed a new top navigation menu for the site on Staging, combining elements from two existing menus.

To avoid having to create it from scratch, I installed the Duplicate Menu plugin, copied from the larger of the existing menus.

Then I added other elements as needed to the new Site Navigation Menu, and set it as primary.

B.2.5. Ad unit placeholders

A new responsive theme meant reworking ad unit placements on the site.

This had to be done in a way that would enable rigorous testing on Staging without artificially inflating ad impressions, and later during go-live, would cause no hiccups or downtime.

This is how I achieved these needs:

1. Planned ad placement logic and test scenarios
2. Created the ads if they did not exist already
3. Used CSS to design desired responsive behavior
4. Set up ad containers as testing blocks on staging – this included all the code required except the IDs that would actually render the ad
5. Tested the behavior of the testing blocks on different device displays

By the end of this step, ad unit placeholders were ready to go live with a simple embedding of IDs in Phase C.

B.2.6. Function customizations

Specific features such as a custom widget for featured posts, responsive loading logic, conditional display filters, etc. were added through PHP code.

One of the issues that affected this site pre-migration was to do with static image sizes. Old articles had been created using hand-written HTML that directly embedded the src URL into the img tags, and so did not render with the srcset markup needed for responsive image sizing. Instead of bulk-editing all old articles, I opted for a safer solution with custom PHP to repair the markup in images.

B.3. Validate quality and performance

After the planned CSS and PHP customizations, I tested the page for performance, accessibility, SEO and best practices, and fine-tuned the code based on the results. I used Lighthouse for these insights.

Phase C: Port changes to live site

C.1. Back up the pre-cutover live site

Run a complete backup of your live site (both Database and Files).

I used the UpdraftPlus Backup/Restore plugin for this step.

C.2. Prepare the live site for cutover

C.2.1. Export customizer settings from staging

First, check if your theme provides an out-of-the-box option for porting customizer settings. If not, as it was in my case with the free GP Child theme, this approach worked for me:

Install and activate the Customizer Export/Import plugin on staging.

This plugin adds an Export/Import option to the WordPress Customizer – using this option opens up the Export/Import screen.

Click the Export button. This creates a DAT file (generatepress_child-export.dat in my case), which will get used in a later step for importing customizations to live.

C.2.2. Define navigation menu on live site

Using the Duplicate Menu plugin approach that was successfully employed in staging [see B.2.4. Navigation menu], set up the Site Navigation Menu on live.

At this step, the Site Navigation Menu is NOT switched to primary so as not to disturb the current live site. That will be done later.

C.2.3. Install the parent theme on live site

As done on staging [see B.1.2. Install the parent theme], repeat the steps to install the parent theme on live.

C.2.4. Move child theme files from staging to live

Through HostGator cPanel File Manager, navigate to the staging folder containing the child theme. Copy the entire child theme folder to the folder where the live site’s theme files reside.

After this step, the child theme should show up on the WordPress dashboard Appearance > Themes section as one of the themes available on the live site.

C.2.5. Configure ad units in disabled mode

Place the ad units on the live site as finalized on staging [see B.2.5. Ad unit placeholders], this time including actual production IDs.

C.3. Switch theme from old to new

Now comes the moment of truth (or blog-appropriately, the proof of the pudding): time to switch themes on the live site.

Nothing should break as all changes have been pre-tested on staging. Still, as a precaution, I recommend enabling maintenance mode on the site for human visitors during the switch; search engines can continue to access the site uninterrupted. If all goes well, maintenance mode can be turned off instantly and business-as-usual restored. If, in the worst case, things break, you have a shield behind which you can restore the old theme OR fix the issues before going live.

C.3.1. Turn off caching

Temporarily deactivate caching, so you aren’t serving stale pages or caching the maintenance screen.

C.3.2. Enable maintenance mode

Install and activate a maintenance mode plugin (I used LightStart) on the live site. Turn maintenance mode ON.

Use these settings when turning on maintenance mode –

Bypass for Search Bots – This setting controls whether search crawlers see the maintenance page (503 status) or bypass it to view live site content, while maintenance status is Activated.

If you have tested all changes on the staging site, choose “Yes” – this has the advantage of never truly bringing down the site during Maintenance, even though the site may be temporarily not visible to humans. The underlying production site remains accessible and functional.

If there is a risk that the site may break during the upgrade, choose “No” to prevent search crawlers from indexing the errors.

Robots Meta Tag – Choose “index, follow”
For a temporary maintenance window, leave this at “index, follow” rather than changing it to “noindex, nofollow” to prevent search engines from de-indexing the pages during upgrade.

Status – Activated

Ensure that your maintenance mode plugin lets you, as admin, review the live site as you apply the changes, so you can confirm the behavior incrementally with each step.

C.3.3. Activate new theme and import customizer settings

Go to Appearance > Themes on the live site’s WordPress dashboard.

Activate the newly copied GeneratePress Child theme.

Then navigate to WordPress Customizer > Export/Import to open up the Export/Import options.

Under Import, click the Choose File button to import the .dat settings file you downloaded earlier [see C.2.1. Export customizer settings from staging].

Check the “Download and import image files?” box if you have changed theme visuals (logo, header, etc.) on staging and want to port those images over to live. Else, if the image files exist with the same names on live already, leave it unchecked.

Click the Import button to load the customizer settings to live.

C.3.4. Set the new navigation menu defined in C.2.2 as primary

C.3.5. Deactivate WPTouch

Go to Plugins and deactivate WPTouch. As the new theme is natively responsive, there is no longer a need to serve a separate mobile theme via the WPTouch plugin.

C.3.6. Enable ads

Enable the ad serving script that you had kept disabled when configuring ads on live [see C.2.5. Configure ad units in disabled mode].

C.3.7. Disable maintenance mode

Turn OFF Maintenance Mode.

C.3.8. Turn on caching

Reactivate caching.

Run a Purge All command to clear the existing cache.

Your new theme is now live on the site.

Phase D: Post-cutover actions

Your actions post-cutover are crucial after this major overhaul.

As a precaution, retain the staging site, the old theme in deactivated mode, and the unused plugins such as WPTouch, just in case you need them for an emergency fallback.

D.1. Monitoring site health

Plan to have buffer time post-cutover to watch over, investigate and resolve unexpected issues if any.

Do this in the next few minutes:

• Open an Incognito/Private window on desktop / tablet / phone to verify the layout, the menu structure, and the mobile responsiveness. Get this peer-tested if possible.
• Ensure ads are being served correctly.
• Ensure analytics is being tracked after switchover. In case your analytics code was inserted directly into the old theme, you may have to re-insert it into the new theme.

Do this in the next few hours:

• Check SEO / canonicals / schema.
• Check several important posts / pages / category pages.
• Monitor error logs on the server.

Do this in the next few days:

• Check that new posts and comments are being published correctly.
• Continue to monitor error logs on the server.
• Observe changes in site analytics after theme switch.
• If any latent issues are observed, fix them: continue to follow the staging -> live approach.

D.2. Clean up

After a safe period (say, 30 days or until you are sure you will not have cause to roll back the changes), clean up the old artefacts that you no longer need.

• Plugins that were used to support the old theme, such as WPTouch
• Old theme: keep a separate backup for reference if needed in future; delete its folder from under /wp-content/themes/ in the active site installation
• Unused thumbnails: your old theme might have used image sizes that you no longer need on the new theme. To free up server space, consider a purge. I did not do this activity as part of the migration, but it’s worth thinking about if you have a space concern.
• Staging environment: remove the files, database and database user (assuming you had not reused an existing user during staging environment creation [see A.2. Create staging]

  

  

That closes the loop and ties up all the loose ends neatly. You now have a fully functional live site on a modern theme, no obsolete remnants from the legacy theme – and all this without bringing the site down.

Closing Notes

I have shared in this article the full set of instructions based on my experience with migrating this WordPress site from WooThemes’ Bueno (2010 non-responsive theme) to a customized GeneratePress child (2026 responsive theme), on HostGator’s shared hosting plan (affiliate link).

Your specifics may vary based on your technical stack and the particular needs of your migration. I would love to hear how it worked out for you, or what else you had to do to achieve this with zero downtime.

To help you during migration, here’s a printable, condensed checklist of Phases A through D: Zero-Downtime Checklist (PDF).

The post How I Migrated a 16-Year-Old WordPress Site from a Legacy Theme with ZERO Downtime [2026] appeared first on The Steaming Pot.

I bought a pack of dried black limes a few months back; after one use, the rest of the pack sat dormant in the pantry. Recently I wondered if the limes were still fit for consumption – and learned to my pleasant surprise that dried limes store extremely well and should be usable for over a year.

So I experimented with making a dried black lime beverage.

After a few trials, I have settled on a mint-infused dried black lime cooler recipe that I’m about to share with you. This drink pairs wonderfully with Indian meals – its tart-sweet-earthy flavor balances the spices in the food, and the fresh mint adds a cooling contrast.

For readers who have never heard of dried black limes before, let me talk about this mystery ingredient first.

What are dried black limes?

I was introduced to dried black limes through Afghani food channels, around the time I discovered borani recipes. Its culinary use in stews (pierce; cook along with broth; exclude when eating) and appearance (brittle; black; hollow) had my curiosity piqued.

I found a small pack of dried limes on Amazon and ordered it to make a vegetarian version of ghormeh sabzi. [The debut attempt didn’t turn out well enough to document – hopefully a refined version will make it to the blog one day.]

Dried black limes proved to be as interesting in reality as they were online. This ingredient comes from fresh limes traditionally sun-dried over days – the loss of moisture gives them their long shelf life and dark hue. When simmered in hot liquid, they rehydrate and release their intense “smoky citrussy” flavors, redolent in a way of nimbu ka achaar.

This summer drink is one of the simplest ways of enjoying the signature pungency of dried black limes.

Ingredients

Some links below are amazon.com affiliate links. The Steaming Pot will earn a small commission if you buy via the links, at no additional cost to you.

[For 6 glasses]

• Dried black limes – 4 [buy here]
• Water – 1.5 liters
• Sugar – 6 tablespoons (*adjust to taste)

For serving

• Fresh mint leaves
• Ice cubes

Equipment: mortar / molcajete and pestle, saucepan

*I normally add lower sugar than what’s considered usual – not in this recipe though. Dried black lime cooler needs a generous amount of sweetness to balance its acidity. I tried reducing the quantity of sugar in the early recipe trials and felt the drink was too sour. A tablespoon of sugar per 250ml of water it is, then.

How To Make Dried Black Lime Cooler

Place four dried black limes in a large mortar or molcajete.

With a few firm hits with the pestle, crack the limes open. You can stop pounding when each lime has opened up – need not grind to powder.

Transfer the cracked dried limes into a pan, and add 1.5 liters of water.

Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. The bubbling water would turn dark as the dried limes release their juices and flavor.

Switch off the heat, and stir in the sugar till it dissolves.

Let the pan cool naturally to room temperature. Strain the drink into a clean bottle or jug with a tight-fitting lid, and discard the cooked black lime bits. Transfer the drink to the refrigerator to chill.

Dried black lime cold drink is ready to serve.

To Serve

Place ice cubes into each glass. Drop in fresh mint leaves. Pour over the dried black lime drink. Enjoy!

Pairing Suggestions

Dried black lime cold drink gives great company to Middle Eastern/Persian-adjacent Indian meals, such as vegetable pulao, gobhi musallam with flatbreads, kaddu borani and parathas.

FAQ

Q. Can dried lime cold drink be stored for later use?

Yes. You make this drink in a large batch, strain and refrigerate it, and have it over 3-4 days. Note: for best taste, add fresh mint leaves only when serving.

Q. Can I reduce the quantity of sugar in this recipe?

I tried that and felt it left the drink too sour. Adapt the sweetness to your taste though. My own preference, if I want to consume less sugar, is using smaller serving glasses and/or adding more mint and ice.

Q. Can I use fresh limes instead of dried limes in this recipe?

No! If you have on hand fresh limes not dried, then go for other beverage recipes such as this lemon and strawberry cooler.

Q. I found a pack of dried limes but they are not black – they are brown (or yellow). Are they the same?

I have not done a taste test so cannot say whether the lighter-color dried limes taste any different from black limes. Online sources mention that the black ones are more strongly pungent. Maybe try substituting them in this recipe and share how that worked out?

Q. Some recipes call for removing the seeds from dried black limes before cooking, as the seeds make the dish bitter. Should that be done in this recipe?

I let the seeds remain and only strain the drink before serving. Skip the deseeding – the drink is delicious without the extra step!

Quick-reference recipe card:

Print

Dried Black Lime Cooler with Fresh Mint

Dried black lime cooler - a chilled summer drink with the signature pungency of dried black limes and the freshness of mint.

Course Drinks

Cuisine Fusion

Diet Vegan, Vegetarian

Keyword cooler

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Cooling and Refrigeration Time 4 hours hours

Servings 6

Author The Steaming Pot

Equipment

• mortar / molcajete and pestle
• saucepan

Ingredients

• 4 Dried black limes (loomi)
• 1.5 liter Water
• 6 tbsp Sugar (adjust to taste)

For serving:

• Fresh mint leaves
• Ice cubes

Instructions

• Place four dried black limes in a large mortar or molcajete.
• With a few firm hits with the pestle, crack the limes open. You can stop pounding when each lime has opened up - need not grind to powder.
• Transfer the cracked dried limes into a pan, and add 1.5 liters of water.
• Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. The bubbling water would turn black as the dried limes release their juices and flavor.
• Switch off the heat, and stir in the sugar till it dissolves.
• Let the pan cool naturally to room temperature. Strain the drink into a clean bottle or jug with a tight-fitting lid, and discard the cooked black lime bits. Transfer the drink to the refrigerator to chill.
• Dried black lime cold drink is ready to serve.

To Serve:

• Place ice cubes into each glass. Drop in fresh mint leaves. Pour over the dried black lime drink. Enjoy!

Related Recipes

Interested in other recipes with unusual-for-Indian-cooking ingredients? Explore:

Looking for more summer drink ideas? Try out:

The post Dried Black Lime Cooler with Fresh Mint appeared first on The Steaming Pot.

We are truly blessed in India to have access to a wide variety of mangoes* – from the tangy Totapuri to the syrupy-sweet Chausa, from the small Sindhura to the massive Banganapalli – each abundant in our neighborhood stores.

Regional variations exist of course: try as we might, we cannot get Bihar’s Malda mangoes in Bangalore (no, please don’t tell me they are on Blinkit; you need to eat the real deal) – but these variations only add to the richness of India’s mangoscape.

From the spectrum of sweetness, firmness, fibrosity, and color that mangoes offer, it follows that we can build upon the fruit a super-strong armory of recipes.

So here’s my “armory”. Follow the Quick Jump section below to go directly to the recipe listings, or read on for a special mango serving idea with vanilla ice-cream and toasted nuts.

The Barebones Mango “Recipe”

Truth be told, you don’t need a recipe to enjoy a ripe mango.

Just wash the mango well, cut off its top, and if you have a Chausa-ish (i.e. squishy and syrupy) specimen on hand, squeeze out its goodness directly into your mouth. If you have a firmer variety such as the Langra, slice the mango roughly without skinning it (only remove the top), and use your teeth to scrape out and eat all the juicy flesh from the skin. (Note: don’t discard the pit without extracting all the fruit off it too)

This is how we always ate mangoes in Bihar – none of the “checkerboard method” or “glass method” for us. [Aside: If the process of eating a mango intrigues you, the always-entertaining reddit has an interesting thread on the topic: how to eat a mango.]

To bring in more sophistication to your serving of the mango, let me offer another way to make mango cubes and suggest accompaniments for a party-pleasing dessert course.

For anything more elaborate than the basics in this section, mango recipe details follow – categorized by the fruit’s degree of ripeness and the nature of recipe (breakfast, drink, chutney, etc).

Dive into our mango recipe collection.

Recipes by Mango Ripeness

Ripe Mango Recipes

Desserts, wholesome breakfast, thick milkshakes and the like, made with ripe mangoes.

• Mango Phirni (Rice Pudding)
• Aamras
• Fresh Fruit Rabri
• Mango Milkshake
• Chia Mango Pudding
• Mango Raita: Yogurt Dip with Mangoes
• Mango Oats
• Sabudana Pudding with Mangoes
• Dahi Chura with Aam

Semi-Ripe Mango Recipes

Early summer brings with it semi-ripe mangoes that are on the way to pulpy sweetness but not quite there yet. Make the most of their gentle tang in these side dishes.

• Ginger Jaggery Chutney with Mango Chunks
• Sweet Mango Chutney
• Aam ka Raita

Raw Mango Recipes

Salsa, an offbeat dal, a variety of chutneys – all made with the unripe mango.

• Aam Panna: Green Mango Drink
• Raw Mango Mint Chutney
• Kairi Khatti-Meethi Chutney
• Raw Mango Garlic Chutney
• Raw Mango Diced & Spiced
• Toor Dal with Raw Mango

Recipes By Category

Mango Desserts

Sweet treats that place sweet mangoes as the star ingredient.

• Sabudana Coconut Milk Pudding with Mangoes
• Aamras: Flavored Mango Pulp
• Fresh Fruit Rabri
• Mango Phirni

Mango Breakfast Recipes

Start your day with these cool fruity favorites.

• Dahi Chura with Aam
• Mango Oats
• Chia Mango Pudding

Mango Chutneys

Mango condiments made with raw or semi-ripe mangoes in a variety of recipes, fresh or cooked, to different effects.

• Mango Raita: Yogurt Dip with Mangoes
• Raw Mango Mint Chutney
• Ginger Jaggery Chutney with Mango Chunks
• Kairi Khatti-Meethi Chutney
• Raw Mango Garlic Chutney
• Sweet Mango Chutney (made with Semi-Ripe Mangoes)

Mango Drinks

Beverages ranging from richly sweet using ripe mangoes to savory-spicy using the unripe ones.

• Mango Shake
• Aam Panna: Green Mango Drink

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