“There’s a move away from familiar ‘Indian’ restaurant foods-North Indian curries and naan and such-and a surging interest in and appreciation for India’s many regional cuisines.” Agrawal believes it’s an exciting time to be cooking Indian food for Western consumers. The recipes in her debut cookbook draw specifically from the author’s Hoysala Karnataka Hindu Brahmin roots this particular South Indian vegetarian sub-cuisine comprises seasonal vegetables and fruits and unprocessed whole grains, nuts, seeds, oils and dairy, all said to be foods acceptable for offering to Hindu gods. By 2013, Agrawal had quit her day job in marketing, launched Brooklyn Delhi and started developing recipes for what would eventually become Vibrant India. Her blog, whose name is an acronym for “American Born Confused Desi” (a term sometimes used to describe a South Asian person born and raised in the States), grew in popularity, and soon she was conducting private cooking classes, catering and writing about food. In her first book Vibrant India: Fresh Vegetarian Recipes from Bangalore to Brooklyn, Agrawal-best known as founder of Brooklyn Delhi, an award-winning small-batch Indian condiments line-takes readers to her mother’s hometown of Bangalore and back to Brooklyn, where she reinterprets her family’s vegetarian recipes, often using local and seasonal ingredients.Īgrawal first learned to cook her ancestral cuisine at her parents’ side, but she developed and honed her modern, mash-up approach to food on her blog, “ ABCD’s of Cooking,” in 2009. I’ve never had anything like this!’” says Agrawal. Today, Agrawal considers it one of her most successful recipes, not only because it stayed true to the flavors of a traditional sambar while adding a rich sweetness but also because it wowed her toughest critic. When Chitra Agrawal first prepared lentil stew ( sambar ) with roasted butternut squash puree from her Crown Heights’ CSA share rather than with chunks of yellow pumpkin as is usual in South India, her mother was skeptical. Agrawal first learned to cook her ancestral cuisine at her parents’ side, but she developed and honed her modern, mash-up approach to food on her blog.

Vibrant india cookbook