Food

Kadai Paneer and a Volunteer

Mother-son duo brings Indian home cooking to community

Purnima Dubey and Akshay Deora smile during a cooking class at the Philip Heit Center for Healthy New Albany. Some of the dishes Purnima Dubey and Akshay Deora focused on during the class were spinach dal (red lentils with spinach), kadai paneer (skillet cooked cheese with onions, peppers and tomatoes) and whole wheat roti (unleavened flatbread).

Kadai Paneer

For some, cooking is a necessary evil to get ingredients from the fridge into one’s mouth.

For the mother-son duo Purnima Dubey and Akshay Deora, cooking is an opportunity to spend time with family and share their favorite flavors with the community. “I have always used cooking as a way of interacting with the kids,” says Dubey. “So both my oldest son and Akshay have helped me in the kitchen with baking, with cooking Indian food, just as an activity where we could spend some time together.” Cooking became an even more intimate part of New Albany High School senior Deora’s life when he decided to incorporate it into his volunteerism at the New Albany Food Pantry for his senior seminar project. Although he had volunteered at the food Skillet cooked cheese with onions, peppers and tomatoes Ingredients (yields about 15 servings) • 16 oz. fresh paneer • 4 large green bell peppers • 2 large red bell peppers • 4 fresh Roma tomatoes • 13 oz. can crushed tomatoes • 3 tbsp. vegetable or canola oil • 1 ½ large yellow onion • 2-4 cloves of garlic, to taste • 3 tsp. salt • 1 tsp. turmeric • 1 tsp. coriander powder • 1 tsp. methi seeds • ½ tsp. kalonji • 1 tsp. cinnamon powder • 1 tsp. cumin powder ¼ heavy cream (optional)

Directions

Chop onions and peppers into ½-inch chunks. Cut paneer into ½-inch pieces and bake at 350 degrees on a greased cookie sheet until paneer is lightly browned but still soft. Meanwhile, add oil to a stockpot and heat on medium heat for 1-2 minutes until oil is simmering. Add onions and coarsely chopped garlic and sauté until onions are translucent and garlic is fragrant. Add methi, kalonji, turmeric and coriander and fry for 1 minute. Add peppers and sauté on medium-high heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring every few minutes until peppers are soft. Add fresh tomatoes and cook for 3-5 minutes. Add browned paneer and salt, stir, and then add crushed tomatoes. Cook for additional 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables reach desired softness and a thick gravy forms. This is called a sabzi. Add cinnamon powder and cumin powder and stir to combine. Add heavy cream (if using). Turn off heat and rest sabzi for 5-10 min. Serve warm with roti.

Members of the New Albany community learned about Indian home-style cooking from Dubey and Deora. The mother-son duo’s class focused on healthful, vegetarian Indian dishes.

pantry since his freshman year, Deora says Eileen Pewitt, cooking education coordinator for Healthy New Albany, helped him put a twist on his service requirement.

Eventually, Deora says, Pewitt asked him and his mother to put on a cooking class at the Philip Heit Center for Healthy New Albany as a part of Healthy New Albany’s multicultural cooking program.

“I had been … using ingredients that are available at the pantry and then creating recipes that pantry clients can then use with those ingredients,” Deora says. “The culmination of that was cooking at the Heit Center, where my mom and I cooked home-style Indian food for the class.”

Dubey says the program at the Heit Center gives the New Albany community a way to learn about cultures they may not be frequently exposed to, despite the fact that there is a substantial Indian population in New Albany.

“One of the things that these types of classes contribute is promoting the diversity within New Albany and finding a way for people from different backgrounds to connect with the community as a whole,” Dubey says. “There are quite a few Indians in New Albany and they are very active members of the community, but food is a way for people of all backgrounds to connect over something common because everybody has to eat.”

Part of connecting with the New Albany community meant making participants in the class feel as though the recipes being taught were accessible to them, which was part of the reason Dubey and Deora decided to recreate home-style cooking as opposed to more elaborate dishes.

“So the title of the class that we gave out to the people before they came was ‘Indian Home Cooking,’” Deora says. “We wanted to push that the food that we made – we made a couple of dishes – were truly home cooking for a lot of Indians.”

Tess Wells is an editorial assistant. Feedback welcome at feedback@ cityscenemediagroup.com.

Whole Wheat Roti

Unleavened flatbread

Ingredients (15 servings) • 3 cups whole wheat flour • 2 tsp. salt • 2 tsp. vegetable or canola oil • Warm water for kneading the dough

Directions

Place flour in a large bowl.

Add salt and mix into flour with fingers.

Add oil and mix into flour.

Make a well in the center of the flour and add 1 cup water. Mix flour and water and continue mixing while adding water in small amounts.

Mix with fingers until all the flour is combined into a loose ball.

Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.

Cover with a towel and rest for at least 15 minutes.

Divide dough into 2-inch balls.

Roll dough into a thin round, roughly 5-6 inches in diameter.

Bake on a preheated, mediumhigh heat skillet until light brown on both sides, about 15-30 seconds per side.

Remove skillet from flame and, using tongs, transfer the dough directly to the flame until the bread puffs up and has brown spots. Cook both sides and be cautious not to burn.

Transfer to a plate and lightly grease roti with butter.

Serve warm with sabzi and dal.