A great many vegetables have graced my kitchen in the past year; some for the very first time, and others, long lost friends. However, bell peppers were missing from the list; an oddity second only to my referring to vegetables as ‘friends’.

It’s not as though I dislike bell-peppers or so; I merely don’t find them all that appealing. Red ones make it into Goulash every time, and the yellow/orange ones grace the summer salads for color, but the green ones, sadly, never seem to make an appearance. Perhaps it’s just that they rank on the bottom portion of the Capsaicin content list. As I have redundantly stated several times before, I have always tended to prefer anything that makes my oral mucous membranes smart over anything sweet; so the poor bell-peppers went unnoticed for most of my life.

However, I found a few of them nestled cozily in my crisper; and it took a mere minute or two for the bewilderment at how they got there (after all, it wasn’t the first time I had gone into some kind of excited trance at the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ market or Rainbow Grocery and come back home with loads of things I had no recollection of purchasing) to be replaced by consternation as to what to do with them. As ever, I looked to Old Reliable (imagine, I’ve been spending so much time surfing the net, I’ve even nicknamed it!!), and thanks to the lucky discovery of another amazing food blog, I found just the recipe, and at exact proportions that would make it a favorite and regular dish at the Gastronomic Lab (must stop with these silly nicknames!).

(Thanks, Shyam!)

Combining the bell-peppers with hot green chilies (a tweak on the original Rajasthani recipe, which calls for only hot green chilies) was spectacular, because it provided a kick without searing my oral mucosa. I might even make the bell-peppers a regular now!

They went very well with puris, which was another landmark dish for me as I had never really made puris in this kitchen. It was a treat all ’round, seeing those puris puff up and later being paired with the amazing Taporia and yoghurt. S. loved it as well, and we actually made and enjoyed all that twice that same week!