Hello, COTM peeps, and welcome to the home for reporting on all Raghavan Iyer recipes for Spring 2025 and beyond! During his lifetime (he died in 2023), Iyer produced a number of cookbooks, as well as a memoir with recipes, ranging from the lean to the massive. While he did not have a dedicated recipe site or blog, there is bound to be much found online by searching recipe names or books.
The book titles below link to the respective indexes on Eat Your Books for lists of and info about recipes therein, with some recipe links and all the recipe titles to help with online searches.
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We have Chunky Potatoes with Garlic and Peanuts all the time, the book (660 Curries) sort of opens to that page! (550)
So that’s one dish of spuds I can recommend already.
MUMBAI JHINGA (VEGETABLE CRUSTED SHRIMP) from The Turmeric Trail
I told myself several times “this isn’t gonna work” and sure enough it didn’t. Puree carrots, onion, garlic, and chilies, lime juice. Toss with butterflied raw shrimp.
The veg mix doesn’t stick to the shrimp ! Course not.
Then coat that mess with uncooked cream of wheat and fry. The result is delicious, but almost all of the veg slurry is still in its dish, very little was captured under the cream of wheat (the c of w stuck quite well.)
The headnote reads “…street vendors roll them in uncooked cream of wheat, smother them in minced vegetables…” But the recipe directions says “combine the minced vegetable mixture and shrimp… Completely coat each shrimp with cream of wheat.”
So. The flavor I loved, the carrots added a little sweet to the savory, and the cream of wheat is a surprise to me–equal to fine breadcrumbs for sure. Fries up golden, a crisp thin shell.
One other quibble with this recipe–no mention of salt at all.
A lot of other similar recipes say to drain the liquid from the first marination well before the breading or battering step (and use gram flour and/or corn starch). I like the idea of the semolina though!
Here’s one that might be useful (with a video) for reference:
Ah! I was hoping someone who knows would reply. That video makes clear the way this should be. Looks like a more exciting recipe too, though I was fine with the flavor of the carrot “coating”. Thanks very much for this!
Alternately, this video is more similar in that the breading is semolina. However, an egg is added to the marinated shrimp before the semolina (and I trust this guy’s recipes):
Yes, that’s more like it, include an egg, keep watery vegetables on the side. I looked up Ranveer Brar, too–he seems interesting, fingers in lots of pies. Also figured out that jhinga means shrimp. Thank you again ma’am!
Rava (cream of wheat)-crusted seafood is a specialty of the western coast of India, from Mumbai down through Goa (Konkan coast) on to Mangalore. No egg needed – the spice paste and moisture from the seafood makes the rava adhere. You need to let it sit for a bit for the crust to settle before frying.
One of the things that drove me crazy when I first came across Raghavan Iyer’s books (thanks to Chowhound) was that for some mysterious reason, he assigns often nonsensical legit-sounding names to dishes. So while there is no “Mumbai Jhinga” – there is plenty of Kolambi (aka prawns aka jhinga) Rava Fry – Kolambi being the marathi / konkani word for prawns (jhinga is hindi).
Anyway, back to the recipe. I don’t know why there is carrot or onion in it – unless he was going for an Americanized north Indian pakoda where vegetables are mushed together in a batter and fried in dollops.
But your pic demonstrates an admirable job despite the challenges (and a questionable recipe)!
Next time, skip the vegetables, use the spice paste to marinate, toss them in some cream of wheat and a bit of rice flour, let them sit for the crust to dry out, and fry. A rava-fried piece of seafood is a thing of crunchy deliciousness!
No need for egg – the seafood and spice paste are enough for the rava to adhere, and if it’s too wet with egg, it won’t be crisp.
From Indian Cooking Unfolded, the Potato Chile Bread aka Aloo Paratha made it into my (and my family’s) regular rotation.
They are not really Aloo Paratha, which are potato-stuffed flatbreads.
They are a significant simplification, where the potato is mixed with the flour to form a gnocchi-like dough that’s then rolled into flatbreads. I call them all-in-one aloo paratha, my mom calls them aloo chapatis. She’s more accurate, because some versions of non-wheat / gluten free chapatis use mashed potato in the dough to make them softer (especially when millet flour is in play).
Anyway, they are easy and taste good. Need to increase the spice quotient vs what would be used in the potato stuffing, because here the flour dilutes the flavor.
Thank you! Since I wasn’t familiar with rava as a term, the use of Mumbai in the title (and Jhinga) had me wondering… I am still very much learning!
Yes, I noticed that I couldn’t google other recipes for “Mumbai Jhinga”, but now I see lots for rava fried prawns. Both the correct plans for crispy seasoned shrimp and the vegetable fritters appeal to me. (Forgive me, is it pakora? I can’t find pakoda.)
Tonight I’m doing chicken and rice from “660”. Will report, no frying.
APRICOT CHICKEN – from 660 Curries
This one made us happy, I’d happily do it again. Chicken thighs browned and then braised with plumped dried apricots, the seasoning is red onion, strips of ginger, cayenne pepper, garam masala, brown sugar, and vinegar. I used a wimpy amount of cayenne but that’s what we like. In the book is a separate recipe for garam masala, but I used my little Penzey’s jar of the stuff. This recipe is topped with crispy shoestring potatoes–I left those out, made one of his rice dishes instead to accompany.
BUTTERY BASMATI RICE with spinach and onion – from 660 Curries
So glad I tried this–buttery is always good, but with cumin. red onion, spinach it is really good – I’d have it as a side on Thanksgiving or Christmas no problem. R. Iyer had a fairly complicated method for cooking this–I just used my rice cooker.
Often written with an R, it’s a retroflex sound between a hard D and R. I always write it as D because it sounds closer to it, but many transliterations use R (which it’s not).
But yes, search for pakora or bhajiya (or in the uk, bhajji)
Side track, what you get when you say pakoda varies across the country . In the west (Mumbai environs), pakoda means something that looks like a hush puppy, made with various flours or lentils. In the north, it’s chopped up vegetables in a batter (which are bhajiya in Mumbai, including the single vegetable ones like tempura).
(You’re an expert for sure…) I get what you mean, “Marie” could sound like “muh-dee”, depending on a person’s accent.
The 660 book has a list of fritters in the index, a place to start I guess.
Moong dal pakoda / mung bean fritters in 660 are a family favorite (with green chutney, not tamarind).
If you make them, be careful not to add any water to the soaked lentils when you grind (or as little as possible) and leave the batter a bit coarse. Watery batter won’t form pakoda (if you end up there, make crepes / pooda / chilla instead of fritters — also delicious).
What he calls lentil fritters (using urad dal / peeled black gram) are pretty classic and delicious too, but without raisins. In donut shape they’re called meduvada.
And finally, tapioca fritters are more patty than fritter, absolutely delicious and regional to Maharashtra. You can shallow fry them (careful, tapioca sputters).
CURRY NOODLES w/ SHRIMP, On The Curry Trail, pp. 58-59
Oh my goodness this was so delicious. I dirtied so many dishes, which normally makes me not want to cook something again, but I want this again soon. First you deal with your rice noodles. I didn’t realize that the ones I have in the pantry aren’t vermicelli, but it didn’t hurt the dish at all. While those are soaking you first cook a beaten egg, then slice, put in large bowl. Then cook sliced onion for a minute or two, and then add vegetables (he calls for snow peas, I used baby bok choy - he says you can use whatever you want) along with chilies and ginger. Once cooked add a teaspoon of Madras curry powder and add to the bowl with the eggs. Next cook the shrimp until just starting to curl, add another teaspoon of the curry powder to this, and add to the bowl. Drain the noodles when ready and add a teaspoon of the curry powder to those and toss around. Add the noodles to the hot wok and stir around to warm and cook the spices. Add back in all the stuff in the bowl and toss around, adding soy sauce, scallions, the sprouts I left out, fish sauce, rice vinegar, salt, and sugar. Toss until combined and warmed. He has you topping with cilantro, but I didn’t have any and used basil. Not really that important to the dish. This gave us two healthy portions and one left over for LLD’s lunch. I will look on jealously.
. In the west (Mumbai environs), pakoda means something that looks like a hush puppy, made with various flours or lentils. In the north, it’s chopped up vegetables in a batter (which are bhajiya in Mumbai, including the single vegetable ones like tempura).
