Roti Making Class at Trivandrum

Roti At Home 

Learn to Cook North Indian Favourites in Trivandrum

Would you love to make soft rotis, flavourful dal and delicious North Indian curries in your own kitchen?

Join our hands-on North Indian cooking class in Trivandrum, where you can learn practical cooking techniques while preparing four to five popular dishes in a relaxed, three-hour session.

Roti-making is a regular feature of our classes. Alongside it, you can learn dishes such as butter chicken, paneer tikka, dal and other vegetarian or non-vegetarian favourites, depending on the menu.

The class is suitable for beginners, food lovers, travellers visiting Kerala and anyone who wants to recreate the flavours of North Indian cuisine at home.

Rather than simply watching a demonstration, you get involved in the cooking process, learn how ingredients and spices work together, and gain practical experience you can use again.

Learn the techniques. Prepare the dishes. Enjoy the meal you create.

Join us in Trivandrum for a hands-on introduction to North Indian cooking.

These menus draw on dishes commonly featured in Indian cooking courses and visitor-oriented cooking experiences, including breads, lentils, paneer, curries, rice and accompaniments. 

1. North Indian Restaurant Favourites

- Roti

- Butter chicken

- Paneer tikka

- Dal makhani

- Jeera rice

Ideal for visitors who want to learn popular dishes they have enjoyed in Indian restaurants.

2. Vegetarian North Indian Cooking

- Roti

- Paneer butter masala

- Dal tadka

- Aloo gobi

- Mint chutney

A meat-free menu that introduces paneer, lentils, vegetables and a fresh accompaniment.

3. Tikka and Tandoori-Inspired Dishes

- Roti

- Paneer tikka

- Chicken tikka

- Mint-coriander chutney

- Dal fry

Focus on marinades, spice combinations and cooking techniques. Adapt the chicken dish to your available equipment.

4. Punjabi Comfort Food

- Roti

- Chole masala

- Rajma

- Aloo jeera

- Cucumber raita

A hearty vegetarian class introducing chickpeas, kidney beans and everyday Punjabi flavours.

5. Restaurant-Style Curries

- Roti

- Kadai chicken

- Shahi paneer

- Dal fry

- Cucumber raita

Explore the different bases, spices and finishing techniques used in rich North Indian curries.

6. Home-Style Chicken Cooking

- Roti

- Chicken keema matar

- Dal tadka

- Seasonal vegetable sabzi

- Cucumber raita

A practical menu for people who want to learn everyday meals rather than only restaurant-style dishes.

7. Everyday Indian Cooking for Beginners

- Roti

- Paneer bhurji

- Mixed vegetable curry

- Yellow dal

- Jeera rice

A beginner-friendly menu with versatile techniques that students can repeat at home with familiar ingredients.

Practical tip: Five dishes in three hours is a reasonable target, but choose recipes with overlapping preparation steps. For example, prepare a common set of spices and ingredients in advance, and use the waiting time while a dal simmers to practise rolling rotis.

3. What makes a hands-on cooking class valuable?

A hands-on class offers more than a list of recipes. Students learn by doing, with guidance at the moments that matter.

- Practise the technique: Knead the dough, roll the roti and learn how to cook it properly.

- Understand the ingredients: Discover how spices, aromatics and different cooking methods influence flavour.

- Build confidence: Learn to judge dough consistency, curry texture and seasoning rather than relying entirely on measurements.

- Ask questions: Get immediate feedback and troubleshoot mistakes while cooking.

- Take the experience home: Enjoy the food prepared during class and leave with recipes and practical skills to practise again.

For international visitors, a cooking class can also offer a personal introduction to Indian food culture. For local participants, it can build confidence in preparing restaurant favourites at home.

The real value of a hands-on cooking class is not just learning five dishes. It is learning the techniques that make it possible to cook many more dishes independently.

 

Mutton Soup on a Rainy Day

Mutton Soup

 How often do you drink soup? 
Are you a fan of mutton soup, or beef soup or veg soup or mushroom soup or crab soup?

Btw, I still feel the best soup I had was the crab soup made by my mom while we stayed at Cambridge Layout, Bangalore. This was around November of 2011 in Bangalore when the weather was cool for a soup. 

So, I'm sharing the link to the crab soup recipe blog post. 

Check it out and feel free to ask for any doubts regarding this recipe. 

Marina

Chocolate Cake Illustrated Recipe Sheet

Recipe - Illustrated Chocolate Cake

 Have you tried using a recipe illustrated sheet to bake a cake?

If no, here is one such easy-to-follow recipe.

Chocolate Cake Visual Recipe Sheet:

 Ingredients

 → 3 eggs

→ 200 g sugar

→ 120 g butter

→ 150 g flour

→ 40 g cocoa

 → 1 tsp baking powder

 → 120 ml milk

Then the sheet could visually guide you:

1. MIX Eggs + sugar → whisk

2. ADD Butter → milk → vanilla

3. SIFT Flour → cocoa → baking powder

4. FOLD

5. POUR A graphic showing exactly how full the cake tin should be.

6. BAKE 180°C → 30–35 min

7. FINISH Cooling → frosting → decoration

Try this out and let me know the final outcome.

If you're looking for a proven recipe, the one which I regularly follow, check this chocolate cake recipe blog post. 

9 Essential Steps of Bread Making: From Flour to Fresh Loaf

Bread Making Steps

 Homebaker Tips — South India

Watch the dough, not the clock. Warm Kerala/South Indian weather can make dough ferment much faster. If it has doubled in volume, it's ready—even if the recipe says otherwise.

Use lukewarm, not hot, water. Hot water can weaken or kill the yeast. The water should feel comfortably warm to your finger.

Hold back some water. Different brands of maida absorb water differently. Add most of the water first, then gradually add the rest until you get a soft, slightly tacky dough.

Don't add too much flour while kneading. A slightly sticky dough often produces a softer loaf. Adding flour repeatedly can make the bread dense.

Give the dough enough time to develop. Good bread isn't only about yeast. Proper kneading, fermentation and proofing are what give you a light texture and good flavour.

Use a cooler spot for long fermentation. In hot weather, if the dough is rising too quickly, move it to a cooler part of the kitchen or refrigerate it.

Don't over-proof. If the dough rises beautifully and then collapses or develops a strong yeasty/sour smell, you've probably gone too far.

Preheat the oven properly. Give your oven enough time to reach the required temperature before putting the bread in. Small home ovens can vary considerably from the displayed temperature.

Let the bread cool before cutting. It may be tempting to slice it immediately, but the crumb continues to set as it cools. Cutting too early can make the bread appear gummy.

And one particularly useful South Indian home-baker rule:

Warm climate = less yeast + more attention to fermentation.

You don't necessarily need to increase yeast because your dough is slow. Temperature, fermentation time and yeast quantity work together.

For your 9 Steps of Bread Baking poster, I'd condense these into a small box at the bottom:

Homebaker Tips

Measure accurately → Keep the dough soft → Watch fermentation, not the clock → Don't over-proof → Preheat well → Cool before slicing.

In South India's warm climate, your dough may rise faster than the recipe suggests. Let the dough tell you when it's ready. 

Popular Bakeries to Buy Bread in Trivandrum 

1. St Michael's Plamoodu
2. Eastern Bakery
3. Square One Home Treats

What is Tadka?

Tadka

 What is Tadka?

Tadka (also called tarka, tempering, or chaunk) is a North Indian cooking technique where whole spices and aromatics are briefly fried in hot oil or ghee. The hot fat extracts their flavour and aroma, and the mixture is then poured into a dish or incorporated into it.

Think of it as a final flavour boost—a small amount of oil carrying a lot of aroma.

Common ingredients in a tadka

Depending on the dish and region, you might see:

• Cumin seeds (jeera)
• Mustard seeds
• Dried red chillies
• Asafoetida (hing)
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Curry leaves
• Green chillies
• Turmeric
• Ghee or oil

The sequence matters. For example, cumin is added to hot ghee, allowed to crackle, followed by dried chilli and garlic. The whole process may take 30–60 seconds.

Popular dishes that use tadka

          Dish                       Typical tadka

• Dal Tadka Ghee, cumin, garlic, dried red chilli, hing
• Dal Fry Ghee/oil, cumin, garlic, chilli
• Rajma Cumin, hing, dried chilli
• Chana Dal Cumin, garlic, dried chilli
• Kadhi Cumin, mustard, dried chilli, curry leaves
• Jeera Rice Cumin fried in ghee
• Khichdi Ghee, cumin, hing, dried chilli
• Aloo dishes Cumin, dried chilli, sometimes ajwain
• Raita Cumin, dried red chilli, sometimes mustard

The interesting thing about tadka

The same basic dish can taste completely different depending on the tadka.

For example, plain dal + ghee + cumin + garlic + dried chilli becomes dal tadka. Change the tempering to mustard + curry leaves + green chilli, and you've moved toward a very different flavour profile.

So, in simple terms:

Tadka is the technique of blooming spices and aromatics in hot fat to release their flavour—and using that flavoured fat to finish or enhance a dish.

It's one of those deceptively simple techniques where 30 seconds in hot ghee can transform an entire pot of food.

In Malayalam, we use the word - “താളിക്കുക” (thāḷikkuka) is essentially the Malayalam equivalent of tadka, though there is a slight distinction.

The equivalents

Language Word                      Meaning

Hindi तड़का (Tadka)    Tempering spices in hot oil/ghee

Malayalam താളിക്കുക (Thaalikkuka) To temper/bloom spices in hot oil

Tamil தாளிக்க (Thāḷikka) / தாளிப்பு (Thāḷippu) To temper / the tempering

English Tempering                  Frying spices/aromatics briefly in hot fat