Swan's Down (Chocolate Cake)

Extremely laborious in today's instant cake mix age, but well worth the effort if you have an appreciative audience who loves cake. This has traditionally been the birthday cake made for my sister and my birthdays, and for Aditya whenever my mom has been in town.

Spicy Chicken Roast A La Goa

A special occasion meal because of the time to prepare, the chicken roast was usually the chief guest at sit-down dinner which few of us could get up from easily. Accompanied by heavily buttered bread, and wine (for the adults), the meal finished off with caramel custard or the biscuit layered pudding.

Jeera Aloo

This is a dry dish which goes well with a simple yellow dal and rice or hot phulkas.


Ingredients:

• 2-3 large potatoes
• 1/2 inch ginger root
• 1 green chilly
• 1 tbsp oil
• 2 small/medium tomatoes
• Large pinch of hing (asafoetida)
• Jeera powder
• Dhania powder
• Jeera seeds
• Oil
• Salt

Goa Prawn (OR Fish) Curry

Best accompanied with rice. Try to use pungent green chillies, the combination of that with the coconut milk is perfect.


Ingredients:

• 1 coconut  
• 1 kodumpulli torn into strips
• 1/2 kg fish or prawns (deveined and shelled)

Banana cake/bread with cream cheese frosting

Recipe got off Food.com, posted by Rhonda J - great reviews but haven't tried it out yet. Baking time may increase based on individual ovens... can vary by almost 40 mins to an hour

Chettinad Pepper Chicken

Peppery hot, this chicken dish smells of madras. Really good with noolputtu - or idiappams. If you prefer to have it drier, you can boil off the excess water and get a thicker gravy.

Simple Biryani

Another staple from my childhood - lightly flavored biryani which was consumed in huge quantities. It was more "soul" food in it's flavoring,  and not the heavily spiced, oily version you get in restaurants. This isn't the "kerala" biryani either (no rose water flavor or small grain rice), it owes it's ancestry to hyderabad.

Fish Pickle (Sunanerthi's)

This is a great aunt's recipe - who I knew as Sunna Aunty. The fish pickle is absolutely super and should be eaten as a delicacy - apportioned on bread or a cracker and savored.

The problem with this recipe is that the portions aren't indicated - it's more of a hit and miss until you get the proportions right. You can use the other pickle recipe as guideline for proportions.

Mutton, Pork or Beef Pickle (Prasanna Aunty's)

This one brings back memories of school - a staple snack when we go back from school was bread and meat pickle - mouthwatering. I used to take this back to NID with me when I went back after the summer holidays - and the max it would last would be about 2 days.

This recipe is an Aunt's version (Prasanna Aunty, my father's cousin in Chennai).