Recipes
Olive oil is not a European-only ingredient. It is a finishing oil, a salad oil, a tempering oil, and it behaves beautifully in an Indian kitchen once you stop treating it as a substitute for refined oil and start treating it as a flavour in its own right. Ten ways we actually use BONO at home. Tap any recipe name for its own page.
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The Two-Minute Dal Finish
Your everyday dal, hot · 2 tbsp BONO · 1 tsp cumin seeds · 2 dried red chillies · 4 garlic cloves, sliced thin · a pinch of hing · juice of half a lime
Make the dal exactly as you always do. In a small pan, warm the BONO on medium, not smoking, just shimmering. Add cumin, let it crackle for a few seconds, then the chillies and garlic. The moment the garlic turns pale gold, kill the heat and add the hing.
Pour the tadka over the dal at the table so everyone hears it. Finish with lime.
Why it works: ghee coats, olive oil lifts. The peppery finish of a good EVOO cuts through heavy dal in a way ghee cannot, and the garlic stays sweet instead of turning bitter.
Whipped Coriander-Mint Chutney
1 large bunch coriander · 1 small bunch mint · 2 green chillies · 1 inch ginger · juice of 1 lime · 1 tsp salt · 5 tbsp BONO · 2 tbsp cold water
Blitz everything except the oil into a rough paste. Then, with the blender running, pour the BONO in a slow thread. It emulsifies into something glossy and thick that clings to whatever you put it on.
Keeps a week in the fridge. The oil seals the top and stops it browning.
This is the one that converts people. Most chutney goes dull and watery by day two. An oil-emulsified chutney stays green and spoonable.
Masala Toast, Chaat Masala, Reckless Drizzle
4 slices bread or 2 pav · 1 ripe avocado or 1 boiled potato, mashed · 1 tsp chaat masala · juice of half a lime · 1 small onion, diced fine · 1 tomato, deseeded and diced · green chilli to taste · BONO, generously · sev to finish
Toast the bread hard. Mash the avocado or potato with chaat masala and the lime. Spread thick, scatter the onion, tomato and chilli over it.
Now drizzle the BONO in a wide zigzag across the whole thing, more than feels sensible. Sev on top. Eat standing up.
Chaat masala and peppery olive oil are an unreasonably good pairing. The black salt and the polyphenol bitterness pull in opposite directions.
Paneer Tikka Salad, Lemon-BONO Dressing
250g paneer, cubed · 3 tbsp thick curd · 1 tsp kashmiri chilli · 1 tsp garam masala · 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste · salt · 1 onion and 1 capsicum in chunks · salad leaves · FOR THE DRESSING: 4 tbsp BONO, juice of 1 lemon, 1 tsp honey, 1/2 tsp roasted jeera powder, salt
Marinate the paneer and vegetables in the curd and spices for fifteen minutes. Char them in a hot pan or air fryer until the edges blacken in places.
Shake the dressing ingredients in a jar until thick. Toss the warm paneer through the leaves, dress heavily, eat immediately while the paneer is still soft.
Dress it warm, not cold. Warm paneer drinks the dressing; fridge-cold paneer just wears it.
Bhindi, Tossed Not Fried
500g bhindi, wiped dry and halved lengthways · 3 tbsp BONO · 1 tsp ajwain · 1 tsp amchur · 1/2 tsp haldi · 1 tsp coriander powder · salt · 1 tsp BONO to finish
Toss the bhindi with the oil and all the dry spices until every piece is coated. Spread on a tray in one layer. Crowding steams it, and steamed bhindi turns to glue.
Roast at 200°C for twenty minutes, shaking once. It should be blistered and dry at the edges. Finish with a raw drizzle of BONO off the heat.
Deep-frying bhindi uses far more oil for a worse texture. Roasting in olive oil gets you crisp edges without the pan of used oil to deal with afterwards.
Chilli-Garlic Dipping Oil for Pav
6 tbsp BONO · 6 garlic cloves, crushed · 2 tsp kashmiri chilli flakes · 1 tsp crushed black pepper · 1/2 tsp salt · 1 sprig curry leaves · warm pav or khari to serve
Warm the oil gently with the garlic on the lowest flame for five minutes. It should never sizzle hard. You are infusing, not frying. Add the curry leaves for the last thirty seconds.
Pour into a shallow bowl, stir through the chilli, pepper and salt. Tear the pav and dip.
Make it an hour ahead. The flavour keeps developing as it sits, and it is better at room temperature than hot.
Podi Oil for Idli and Dosa
4 tbsp molaga podi (idli podi) · 5 tbsp BONO · hot idlis, dosa or even leftover chapati
Spoon the podi into a shallow bowl and make a well in the middle. Pour the BONO in and let it sit for a minute so the powder drinks it. Stir once with the back of a spoon until it turns into a loose, rust-coloured paste, not a puddle with dry powder floating on it.
Dunk the idli in while it is still steaming.
Gingelly oil is the tradition and it is a good one, but it is also assertive enough to bury the podi. BONO is quieter on the nose, so you taste the urad dal and the chilli instead of the oil.
Instant Lemon and Green Chilli Pickle
4 lemons, cut into small wedges · 8 green chillies, slit · 2 tbsp salt · 1 tsp haldi · 1 tbsp mustard seeds, coarsely crushed · 1 tsp methi seeds, roasted and powdered · 1/2 tsp hing · 200ml BONO
Toss the lemon and chilli with the salt and haldi in a clean, bone-dry glass jar. Leave it on the counter for two days, shaking once a day, until the rind softens and the lemons give up their juice.
On day three, warm half the BONO with the mustard, methi and hing until it just smells toasted, then cool it completely before pouring it in. Top up with the remaining raw oil so everything sits submerged.
Pour the tempering in cold, never hot. Hot oil hitting raw lemon cooks the rind and turns the pickle muddy. Submerged and dry-spooned, this keeps for months without refrigeration.
Soft Phulkas, Made with Oil Instead of Ghee
2 cups atta · 3/4 tsp salt · 2 tbsp BONO in the dough · roughly 3/4 cup warm water · a little extra BONO to brush
Rub the BONO into the atta and salt with your fingertips until it looks like damp sand. Add the warm water a little at a time and knead for a full five minutes, until the dough is soft enough to take a fingerprint. Rest it, covered, for twenty minutes.
Roll thin, cook on a hot tawa until it puffs, and brush with a few drops of raw BONO instead of ghee.
This is the one for anyone in the family avoiding dairy, and it stays soft longer in a dabba than a ghee phulka does. The oil in the dough is what keeps it pliable in a lunchbox four hours later.
Curry Leaf and Black Pepper Mushrooms
300g button mushrooms, halved · 3 tbsp BONO · 2 sprigs curry leaves · 1 tsp coarsely crushed black pepper · 4 garlic cloves, sliced · 1 green chilli, slit · 1/2 tsp salt · squeeze of lime
Get the pan properly hot before the mushrooms go in, and do not crowd them. Cook in two batches if you have to. Leave them alone for the first two minutes so they brown rather than sweat.
Push them to the side, add a little more BONO with the garlic, curry leaves and chilli, let it all crackle, then toss everything together. Pepper, salt, lime, off the heat.
Pepper and curry leaf is a Chettinad pairing and it wants a fruity oil behind it. Add the pepper at the end, not the start, so it stays fragrant instead of turning dusty.
A single generous drizzle turns basic food into an obsession.
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