The 'Taste the Nation' host shares her go-to dal, her family's sambar recipe, and why she isn't partial to a masala dabba.
In 'Taste the Nation,' Lakshmi spotlights immigrants and their foods—like the rasams and dosas she and I grew up with."I'm eating rice and dal as we speak," Padma Lakshmi tells me. As the longtime host and executive producer of, Lakshmi has become accustomed to divulging what she's eating. But today's recitation of her lunch seems particularly serendipitous.
I chatted with Lakshmi about that particularly personal episode, learning her family's dal and sambar recipes, why she isn't partial to a masala dabba, and what she hopesOne of the things I really appreciated about this episode was the showcasing of South Indian foods. I've never seen that on TV; North Indian food is much more represented.
I think that's why I don't go out to eat Indian food, because it all tastes the same to me. There's the butter chicken; theres some brown gravy/red gravy/orange gravy; and then it's all just different mystery meats floating around in there. I want to see my vegetables—I think that's the biggest difference between going out to eat at an average Indian restaurant [versus] eating at home. South Indian food is much more vegetable-forward.
We make dal three or four nights a week, but the dal that we make is very mild: Just masoor dal with some spinach in it. But then we do a very simple tadka with onion, ginger, tomato, a pinch of sambar powder, and some curry leaves. We sauté that and add that to the dal that we boiled, and we blend it or just leave it. We throw in handfuls of raw spinach leaves and stir that up and turn [the heat] off. Some days we'll do sambar instead of dal.
My whole jam is teaching other people about foods and the communities that they come from, and that's why I think context is really important in food.There's a part in the show when [actress] Madhur Jaffrey says she thinks our generation will create an Indian-American fusion cuisine that will help Indian food gain traction in the West.
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