Plates from everywhere

Soaked tapioca with peanuts, green chili, and lemon. The Navratri and vrat plate that is actually good, not merely allowed.

Slow-roasted gram flour, ghee, and sugar, rolled while warm. The Diwali tin. The tin that never lasts until January.

Steamed rice-flour dumplings filled with coconut, jaggery, and cardamom. Ganesh Chaturthi’s offering, and the best thing in the house that week.

Saffron rice layered with spiced potatoes, cauliflower, and fried onions, sealed and steamed until every grain is perfumed.

Chickpeas in a dark, tangy tomato-onion gravy. The north-Indian dhaba classic that turns a tin of beans into dinner.