... Eggs and Dairy

Eggs, cheese, yogurt and milk are highly prized ingredients. In a hot climate, where such ingredients could quickly go off without refrigeration, dishes with dairy are often considered treats or cooked for celebrations. Egg curries are rich and unctuous and treated almost like meat in their preparation, with an onion and garlic base. Paneer is a wonderfully useful ingredient for vegetarians as butter-based paneer curries easily rival their meat-based counterparts. Yogurt is used extensively for its cooling properties, as well as a binding ingredient in marinades, and in fact raitas feature throughout the book depending on their headline ingredient (beetroot/beets and spinach, for example, make great raita flavourings). Desserts too. I’ve tried to make them a little less sweet than is traditional, partly because I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but also because many Westerners often complain that Indian desserts are too sweet for their palates.