Recipes

Cook with the ghaani

Everyday Indian recipes, made with Truly Cold Pressed oils and bilona ghee.

Jalebi, bright saffron-orange coiled spirals with a glassy syrup coating
Festive Sweet

Jalebi

Bite the coil and it cracks, then floods your mouth with warm syrup. Sunday morning, straight off the kadhai, before the crunch...

Prep 15 min Cook 30 min Serves 4

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Sooji ka Halwa, glossy deep golden semolina halwa holding soft ridges from the spoon, ghee glistening at the edges
Festive Sweet

Sooji ka Halwa

Glossy, golden and heavy with ghee, spooned hot into a steel katori with a raisin swelling on top. Twenty-five minutes from start...

Prep 5 min Cook 25 min Serves 4

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Shankarpali, a heap of small pale golden diamond-shaped fried sweets with flaky broken edges
Snack

Shankarpali

Small sweet diamonds that snap between your fingers and shatter on the first bite, with the smell of warm ghee still on...

Prep 25 min Cook 40 min Serves 8

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Hyderabadi Vegetable Biryani, a heavy copper handi of Hyderabadi vegetable dum biryani with the lid lifted away
Dinner

Hyderabadi Vegetable Biryani

Long saffron-streaked grains, crisp fried onions and torn mint underneath, and a cloud of steam when the seal is broken at the...

Prep 40 min Cook 60 min Serves 6

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Sattu Paratha, a sattu paratha torn open on a steel plate
Breakfast

Sattu Paratha

The paratha puffs on the tawa and steam pushes out at the edge, carrying the smell of mustard oil, ajwain and pickle...

Prep 25 min Cook 25 min Serves 4

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Sakkarai Pongal, dark honey-coloured sakkarai pongal heaped on a banana leaf, soft and glossy
Festive Sweet

Sakkarai Pongal

Dark, soft, jaggery-sweet rice with fried cashews on top and ghee that pools in the little craters where the spoon has been.

Prep 10 min Cook 40 min Serves 6

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Gulab Jamun, four deep reddish-brown glossy spheres half submerged in clear amber cardamom syrup in a shallow white
Festive Sweet

Gulab Jamun

Dark, glossy and warm, soaked through to the middle. Press one with a spoon and syrup rises around it.

Prep 30 min Cook 40 min Serves 6

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Gujiya, a pile of pale wheat-gold half-moon pastries with a twisted rope edge and a finely blistered surface
Festive Sweet

Gujiya

The shell breaks into blistered shards and the mawa inside is warm, grainy and sweet, with dry coconut and cardamom right behind...

Prep 60 min Cook 45 min Serves 18

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Rava Kesari, a warm saffron-orange rava kesari, soft and glossy
Festive Sweet

Rava Kesari

Glossy orange, soft enough to fall off the spoon, with fried cashews on top and ghee sitting in a thin shine on...

Prep 10 min Cook 25 min Serves 6

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Gujarati Kadhi, a pale golden thin yogurt curry in a small steel katori, steam rising
Lunch

Gujarati Kadhi

Pale gold, thin enough to drink, sweet then sour in the same spoonful, with curry leaves and a slick of ghee floating...

Prep 10 min Cook 20 min Serves 4

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Rasam, a traditional tin eeya chombu filled with thin amber-brown rasam
Lunch

Rasam

Thin, hot, sour and peppery. It froths up once at the edges, you switch off, and the ghee tempering goes in with...

Prep 10 min Cook 25 min Serves 4

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Dalma, a thick golden-yellow dal with visible chunks of orange pumpkin half dissolved
Lunch

Dalma

Toor dal cooked soft with pumpkin and raw banana, a ghee tempering of panch phoron poured in hot, and roasted cumin and...

Prep 20 min Cook 40 min Serves 4

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Dal Makhani, near-black glossy lentil curry, thick enough to hold ladle marks
Dinner

Dal Makhani

Black urad dal simmered until it turns dark, thick and faintly smoky, with butter sliding across the top and a slow swirl...

Prep 20 min Cook 150 min Serves 4

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Pav Bhaji, a deep red-brown mashed vegetable bhaji glossy with melted fat in a wide steel plate
Dinner

Pav Bhaji

Dark red bhaji, glossy at the edges, with a yellow cube sliding off the top. The pav goes down face first in...

Prep 25 min Cook 40 min Serves 4

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Dal Baati Churma, four round cracked wheat baati, deep golden with split tops
Lunch

Dal Baati Churma

A cracked baati split open and drowned in ghee, spicy panchmel dal poured over, and coarse sweet churma waiting on the side...

Prep 40 min Cook 60 min Serves 4

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Palak Paneer, vivid deep green spinach gravy with soft white paneer cubes half sunk in it
Dinner

Palak Paneer

Spinach so green it looks lit from inside, soft white paneer cubes sitting in it, and ginger and garlic still sizzling in...

Prep 15 min Cook 25 min Serves 4

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Motichoor Ladoo, eight saffron-orange ladoos made of countless tiny soft boondi pearls
Festive Sweet

Motichoor Ladoo

Break one open and it falls into hundreds of tiny sugar-soaked pearls, still soft, smelling of ghee and cardamom.

Prep 30 min Cook 45 min Serves 8

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Chhena Poda, a very dark, almost blackened cracked top crust
Festive Sweet

Chhena Poda

The top burns almost black and cracks under a spoon. Under it the chhena is warm, moist and grainy, sitting on a...

Prep 40 min Cook 60 min Serves 8

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Moong Dal Halwa, deep golden-brown grainy halwa with visible ghee pooling in glossy amber patches
Festive Sweet

Moong Dal Halwa

An hour of stirring turns pale dal paste into grainy gold, with ghee pooling at the sides and a smell that reaches...

Prep 20 min Cook 75 min Serves 6

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Bisi Bele Bath, a generous mound of thick brick-orange bisi bele bath in a heavy brass vessel, visible cubes of carrot
Lunch

Bisi Bele Bath

Thick, hot, tamarind-sour rice and dal in one pot, with a spoon of ghee melting a slow yellow hole in the middle...

Prep 25 min Cook 45 min Serves 4

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Mohanthal, thick matte squares of dark honey-brown besan barfi with a visibly grainy broken edge
Festive Sweet

Mohanthal

Deep honey brown, grainy under the teeth, the ghee and roasted besan reaching you a second before the sugar does. One square...

Prep 40 min Cook 50 min Serves 20

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Khaja, a stack of four pale golden khaja
Festive Sweet

Khaja

You bite the corner and about forty paper-thin layers shatter at once, and the sugar syrup that soaked into them the night...

Prep 45 min Cook 45 min Serves 6

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Creamy ven pongal with ghee, fried cashews and black pepper in a brass bowl
Breakfast

Ven Pongal

Rice and moong dal cooked until they lose their edges, crushed pepper and cumin through every spoon, cashews fried in ghee, and...

Prep 10 min Cook 30 min Serves 4

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Deep red carrot halwa topped with pistachios and almonds, piled in a brass bowl
Festive Sweet

Gajar ka Halwa

Red winter carrots cooked down in milk for forty-five minutes, then ghee and jaggery, until it turns glossy and pulls away from...

Prep 20 min Cook 60 min Serves 6

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