No-cook menus for no-fuel days

As I chatted with a restaurateur friend the other day over some lemon tea, she shared her anxiety about the LPG crisis. “Our chefs are working on some no-heat menu ideas; they’ve got some cold soup trials next week, let’s see how that turns out.”

She’s clearly not alone in feeling anxious about this. So many people in my circle have brought it up in conversation. While looking for recipes that require no heat, I thought it was the right time to dig up some nuggets, all from my inherited wisdom kit, about how to slow down and heed the season and the inner temperature, as it were, when we’re feeling stressed or burnt out. This is also linked to building a regenerative mindset in matters of food, and understanding where we stand in the system we belong to: how relationships and inheritances shape us, and how all this informs how we live: how we eat, think, act. 

My mom often used metaphors when she wanted to highlight important life lessons. It didn’t matter how bitter the experience, she always offered something bitter as an antidote. A fall in the playground resulting in a bruised knee, the betrayal of a friend, the loss of a prized possession...they all fell in the “needle for a thorn” category.

Her therapy was wide-ranging — culled from a secret stash of simple, everyday recipes that she turned to, and with a twist, they’d be primed to suit any situation. There was bitter lemon pickle and a bittersweet kashaya, and lemon peel chutney, among others, ready to make us squirm, and eventually calm down, as they soothed taste buds, the gut, and the mind. None of these call for any stove-top cooking. With the summer upon us, there are enough recipes that require no heat, to help us conserve energy in all forms. Here’s one such meal: 

Masala puffed rice with masala
raita and lemon thokku 

 Puffed rice (serves 2): 

 2-3 cups puffed rice 
 1 carrot, peeled and grated
 1 small onion, chopped
 2 tomatoes, chopped
 ¼ cup freshly grated coconut
 Coriander leaves, chopped
 2 teaspoons rasam powder
 Salt according to preference
 1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
 A pinch of hing
 1-2 tablespoons salted, roasted peanuts
 1 big lemon, halved

Masala raita:

Grind a quarter cup of freshly grated coconut, half a teaspoon of mustard seeds, a green chilli, a dash of hing and a handful of coriander leaves, and make a paste. Then, make a raita with the ground paste, thinly cut cucumber, salt and a cup of thick curd. 

Lemon thokku:

De-seed and pour boiling hot water on a couple of lemon rinds, chillies (three or four), and quarter-inch ginger and let this sit for 20-30 minutes.
Cool and grind it to a paste. In a clean and dry bottle, add the rest of the ingredients — a couple of fresh lemons that have been washed, dried, de-seeded and chopped up fine, two tablespoons of groundnut oil, a dash of asafoetida, quarter spoon of turmeric, two teaspoons of roasted fenugreek seed powder, a teaspoon of red chilli powder, salt and sugar as per your preference.

Mix well, add the paste slowly, and shake the bottle to mix again. Refrigerate and use in ten days.

(Ranjini is a communications professor, author, and podcaster, straddling many other worlds, in Bengaluru. She’s passionate about urban farming and sustainable living, and can mostly be found cooking and baking in her little kitchen, where, surrounded by heirloom coffee kettles and mismatched tea cups, she finds her chi.)