“This was my salvation,” Rachel said, as she crumbled pieces of dry, rubbery cheese into a bowl.
She had chopped onions, tomatoes and an entire bunch of cilantro sitting on a cutting board. Our scruffy old wok, blackened from 25 years of solid use, sat over a flame, and inside of it cumin seeds sizzled and prickled the air with their musk.
Rachel is my daughter, one year younger than the wok. After she graduated from college a couple of years ago, she spent a year teaching at an American high school in Chennai, India. She had signed on as an intern, but when one of the faculty members fell ill, she was called on to take over one class, then another, until she had a full course load.
At night after school, she returned to her apartment to work on her lesson plans, grade tests and try and stay a chapter or two ahead of the advanced econ students. She made dinner — often when we Skyped she would be eating eggs and toast — and went to bed exhausted. Her auto rickshaw driver came early in the morning to take her back to school.
She could handle the demands of her new life, mostly, except for finding the time or energy to make lunch. That would involve an evening trip to the market, more than a mile away. Calling a driver. Puttering through the dusty streets. Crowds. Hassle. And then cooking.
Sometimes, she would get a pastry or lassi from the school snack shop. Sometimes she would just forgo eating, buckle up and work through her lunch hour to get a head start on the next day.
Finally, her friend Payal came to the rescue. Payal was an Indian-American teacher a few years older than her who had chosen to settle in Chennai. She had a cook, Rajan, whom she had trained to prepare her mother’s favorite Gujarati recipes.
Rajan had dinner waiting for Payal when she got home, and he left a box lunch in the fridge for her to take the next day. “Make two,” Payal said one day, and from then on he did. There was no argument, no talk of remuneration, no saying “this is too kind.” Rachel needed a lunch. Every day. Period.
Lunch was usually two kinds of vegetables and a hearty stack of homemade roti flatbreads. Rachel ate it with her fingers in front of the computer in her empty classroom. With Beyoncé playing at low volume, she worked on a lesson plan.
These were the meals that made her fall in love with Indian food.
Before she left India, she asked to spend a day cooking with Rajan. Of all the dishes he cooked, her favorite was paneer bhurji, a quick fry-up of cheese and tomato, and this is the dish she was showing me how to cook.
“Home-cooked Indian food is so different from restaurant food, even in India,” she said, adding handfuls of chopped red onion to the wok. “And it can be so easy to make.”
After a while (she had clearly learned the Indian home cook’s brilliant way with cooking onions) she spooned in bright yellow turmeric powder. She stirred in the tomatoes until they wilted, and then the cheese and cilantro until she deemed this gorgeous melange of yellow-stained cheese, red tomato and green herb ready.
I noticed that she cooks with a dish towel slung over her shoulder, just like I do. (“My friends always make fun of me, but where else are you going to put it?”)
She rolled out and cooked the roti, first in a hot, dry skillet and then right over a burner flame until they puffed. She stuck a finger into a pot of dal to test its seasoning and consistency. And then she served the food up.
“Oops, one thing,” she remembered, rushing to cut up a raw red onion. “You need this for a chaser. It’s non-negotiable.”
We ate without utensils, swiping up the dal and paneer bhurji with torn shreds of roti. “So good, right?” Rachel said, doing the in-seat happy dance that has been her response to good food ever since she was a little kid.
Now, thanks to the good people she met when she was so far from home, that little kid is teaching me how to cook.
Paneer bhurji
Serves: four
Total time: 15 minutes
Hands on: 15 minutes
- 1 block paneer cheese (14 ounces)
- 2 small red onions
- 2 small roma tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1/4 teaspoon red chili powder
- 1 bunch cilantro, partially stemmed and chopped
- Salt to taste
Crumble (do not cut) the cheese into marble-sized pieces. Dice the onions and tomatoes and set aside.
Heat the vegetable oil in a wok or skillet over a medium-high flame and add the cumin seeds. As soon as they sizzle and turn fragrant, add the onion. Cook until soft but only very lightly browned, stirring constantly, about 4 minutes. Add the turmeric and chili powder, and then the tomatoes. Cook about 2 minutes, until the tomatoes are very soft. Add the reserved cheese and the cilantro, and toss to heat through, about 3 minutes. Add salt, and taste for seasoning, adding more chili or salt if desired.
Serve with dal and fresh Indian flatbreads, such as roti or chapati.
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