Bollywood Party
Starters
© Marcus Nilsson
Fried Shrimp-Stuffed Crêpes
For dinner parties at his stunning apartment, Surajit Bomti Iyengar serves pantras (fried stuffed crêpes) as an appetizer. They're well worth the effort of making crêpes (which are surprisingly easy to prepare once you get the hang of it). Coating the crêpes with egg and bread crumbs makes them fantastically crispy when fried.
Main Course
© Marcus Nilsson
Pickling-Pot Lamb Curry
During mango and lemon seasons, most Indian housewives put up pickles in their mataman, an earthenware pickling pot. Hemant Oberoi of Varq at the Taj Mahal Hotel ingeniously uses his pot, custom-made to absorb high heat, to cook this outstanding curry and infuse the lamb with pickle flavor. Spicy Italian pickled peppers are a great alternative to mango pickles.
© Marcus Nilsson
Buttery Pigeon Pea Dal (Mitti Handi Dal)
Dal—a thick stew or puree of beans or legumes—is a staple in every corner of India. At the Nadesar Palace in Varanasi, chef Sanjeev Chopra has an elaborate method for cooking his nicely spiced dal very slowly in an unglazed clay pot, over a wood fire, but it's also great cooked simply in a saucepan on the stove with butter and cilantro stirred in at the end.
Side Dishes
© Petrina Tinslay
Gingered Green Beans
Scott Conant makes his crisp-tender beans with ground ginger, since freshly grated ginger invariably creates unappealing little chunks.
Desserts
© John Kernick
Lemon-Curd Sandwich Cookies (left)
Sablés (French butter cookies) were Kevin Sbraga's favorites growing up. "I'd sneak them when I wasn't supposed to," he says. His wife, Jesmary, who teaches baking, had the idea to sandwich them with lemon curd.
Coconut Sorbet
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