Culture

Priya Krishna Makes the Spicy, Transformative Condiment Chhonk


“A lot of people say their mom is the best,” the food writer Priya Krishna says in our new Kitchen Notes video, “but my mom is actually the best.”

Priya’s mother, a recurring figure in her daughter’s writing, is Ritu Krishna, an Indian immigrant, a software engineer who funded her own college education with a job folding clothes at Sears, and an impressive self-taught cook. Drawing from memories of India and techniques touted on PBS cooking shows, she performed acts of “culinary wizardry” that would later become foundational to her daughter’s career in food.

Among the tricks that Priya inherited from her mother is how to make chhonk—a spicy condiment that, in Priya’s words, “makes pretty much any food taste better.” Like “curry,” the word “chhonk” describes a technique or a type of food, rather than a specific recipe. To make chhonk (which goes by many names across the Indian subcontinent), you just need a hot pan, some spices and aromatics, and a fat, into which the spices surrender their flavor. In the video, Priya makes a version in which cumin, chili powder, and dried peppers saturate melted ghee, turning it “the color of a sunset.”

In her kitchen, in New York City, Priya reflects on her Indian-American upbringing, as she recreates the condiment that enlivened her childhood meals. She prepares three dishes—a marigold-yellow dal, her mother’s saag feta, and coconut-squash soup—that could easily be served on their own, but here act as vehicles for the vibrant orange mixture. The process of making chhonk only takes about a minute, but it demands careful attention, Krishna warns. Leave the mixture over heat for just a few moments too long and the spices will burn.



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