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varieties. My own favorite is the Orange Pekoe from Darjeeling, with its smoky, nutty flavor. Indians almost never use tea-bags. They generally brew their loose tea leaves in a warm teapot. Here is how you can make a good pot of tea: 1. Use freshly boiled water. Do not let it overboil, since water that is kept boiling tends to become de-aerated. 2. Heat the teapot by rinsing it with boiling water. 3. Put into the teapot one teaspoon of tea leaves per cup of water to be used plus one teaspoon more for the pot. (If you like your tea weak add more hot water once the tea has brewed.) 4. Pour the boiling water over the tea leaves, cover and set aside for three minutes. If you are lucky enough to have a teacozy, cover your teapot with it. 5. Lift cover, stir, and strain into teacups. 6. Serve plain or with lemon and sugar or with hot milk and sugar or, if you like, with just sugar or just milk.

Many of the packaged teas available in America are blends of teas from several regions—often from several countries. Teabags also contain blends—some being slightly better than others. Pure Darjeeling teas, labeled as such, are available in some supermarkets and most specialty food shops. If you buy a pound of loose tea, store it in a tightly covered, light-proof container, away from the scent of strong spices and herbs.

Indian sweets tend to be very sweet. They tend also to be made of ingredients like vegetables (carrots, pumpkin), nuts (pistachios, almonds, coconut), flours (plain flour, rice flour, chickpea flour), and sweeteners (sugar, jaggery). But the most important ingredient is milk. Milk forms the base of more than half our sweets, and it is often milk in a form entirely unused in the West. Milk is boiled for hours until it forms a semisolid dough called khoya. Most people do not make khoya at home. They go out and buy it. It is simpler. Since khoya is unavailable here, I have used several substitutes, powdered milk being one of them. For other desserts, milk is boiled down until it is half or a third of its original quantity. Since I do this in a few of the recipes, let me give you a few tips that may help you.

How to boil milk down

1. Use a very heavy-bottomed pot. Cast-iron or aluminum covered with porcelain is particularly good for this.

2. Since the process is slow and tedious (it may take 1 to 1½ hours), bring a chair and a book to your stove.

3. Bring the milk to an “almost” boil. Watch it. If you let it boil over, you will have a big mess to clean. As soon as it seems that the milk will start to boil and rise, turn heat down to a medium low.

4. Adjust heat so that milk is always bubbling, but will not bubble over.

5. Once the milk has begun its slow boil, settle down with your book. Stir the milk every few minutes.

6. If a creamy crust forms on top, just stir it into the milk. It will taste fine when cold.

Kulfi

SERVES 6

This is Indian ice cream at its best. Milk is boiled down to a third of its original quantity. Sugar, cardamom, and nuts are added, and the thickened milk is then poured into special conical containers and frozen. Traditionally, kulfi is served with falooda, a transparent vermicelli rather like the Japanese noodles in a sukiyaki. Since I do not expect you to have the conical containers, you could use empty cans of frozen fruit juice, or individual custard cups or paper cups or even a single bowl.

6 cups milk

4 whole cardamom pods

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon slivered unsalted pistachios

In a very heavy-bottomed pot, boil milk down to 2 cups (see note). This may take up to 1½ hours. After the first hour, lightly crush 2 of the cardamom pods and add them to the milk.

When the milk has boiled down to 2 cups, turn off heat. Remove and discard cardamom pods. Add sugar and nuts. Stir well.

Grind the seeds from the other 2 cardamom pods and add them to the milk. Leave milk to cool.

When cool, stir once and pour milk equally into six 3-ounce or 4-ounce paper cups, or similar containers, or a bowl. Cover with aluminum foil and freeze. Stir the kulfi every 20 to 30 minutes to help break