The monsoon season is romanticised in our collective minds and every year, we wait for rainy days and cool breezes. We pull umbrellas and sweaters (in Bombay) and spend cozy evenings in cafes or by our windows and think about all the wonderful things we’ll eat and drink and enjoy more in these few months than at any other time of the year.
It’s been pouring down here and we can’t help but think of all our Monsoon favourites so here’s a list of all the best things to eat and drink in this lovely weather:
- Pakoras: The Monsoon, with its rainy afternoons, cool evenings, lush green wetness everywhere, makes for the best weather to enjoy these golden bits of deliciousness. Read about two of our favourite Sindhi pakoras here.
- Chilli Chicken: The brilliant Chinese Chilli Chicken is an original Indian invention with a much-diluted and mostly forgotten root in fiery Sichuan cooking. Check out this recipe here.
- Rasam: Sour and peppery, Rasam tingles your taste buds and when the first mouthful goes down your throat, a warm happy feeling envelopes you. A great recipe here.
- Hot Chocolate: A shot of dark, delicious, hot chocolate sets the world in order and here are two ways to do it. A list of 5 of our favourite hot chocolate spots here and a lovely rich hot chocolate mix here.
- Malabar Biryani: A soul-filling biryani dish that is wonderfully balanced in its spiciness, with little morsels of savoury sweetness from generous amounts of golden onions and cashews. Fabulous recipe here.
- Vada Pav: A quintessntial Bombaiyya dish, the Vada Pav is a simple dish with complex flavours. A bite of this and your mouth explodes with different textures and flavours. Here’s a list of our favourite Vada Pav places.
- Sizzlers: There is something seriously satisfying about a sizzling plate heaped with delicious food and here’s a list of our favourite places in Mumbai & Pune.
- Usal Misal: A spicy, addictive, flavourful and protein rich dish just perfect for this weather. We absolutely love the one at Prakash.
- Brenda’s Sorpotel: A rich, spicy, red dish of Portuguese origin made with Pork. This dish inspires some serious passion amongst its lovers, even driving some to write poetry in its honour. Here’s Brenda’s recipe for it..
- French Toast Bread Pudding: This pudding has all the wholesomeness of a good french toast combined with the warm, oozy, cozy feeling of digging into a lush bread pudding. Get the recipe here.
- Methi Murgh: The smooth, delicious, fragrant gravy of this Methi Murgh blew our minds. A new cooking method made the whole experience fun and the reward at the end was beyond measure. Try the recipe.
- Tarun Uncle’s Mutton : A succulent dish of tender mutton cooked in a thick onion sauce with a slight mustardy sharpness, absolutely delicious with rice. Get the recipe here.
