This meal in the making comes from Jordan Maseng, a Chez Panisse alum and devoted student of world cuisines. His curiosity has led to extensive traveling and tinkering. The resulting dosa project is one of our favorite offerings. Dosas are thin pancakes made from fermented rice and lentil batter originally from Southern India. This kit comes with enough batter for you to make 4 large crepes, and plenty of rich masala potatoes and tomato-roasted peanut chutney to fill them with. There are a limited number of dosa kits available, but there’s plenty more Indian fare here… 

We’re making chicken tikka masala (organic chicken breast meat in a rich and creamy spiced tomato sauce) and saag paneer (creamed spinach with cubes of fresh cheese.) These can be reheated in a matter of minutes or frozen for another time. Just get yourself some basmati rice for whenever you indulge.

There’s also fresh mint chutney and tomato-peanut chutney which are delicious on grilled lamb chops, roast chicken or seared branzino filets over rice. The mint chutney could also brighten a roast carrot salad and the tomato-peanut chutney could dress up roasted cauliflower.

Yogurt provides a cool layer to all this richness, so we are offering our favorite local kefir-style yogurt from Aris Natural Food in Inglewood. This strained yogurt is particularly dense and creamy. The plain yogurt can be layered with any of the flavors this week, turned into a raita or sweetened to your liking. A mere spoonful of mango yogurt can finish a meal on a sweet note. 

If more dessert is more your style, Colleen Koperek, the pastry chef at Forage is making a batch of kheer, Indian rice pudding with cardamom. You could eat this as is (cold and straight from the container on your drive home from picking it up), or you could serve it warm. You could even garnish it with chopped Santa Barbara pistachio kernels and K&K Ranch’s plumpest golden raisins. We will also add recipes to the site for pickled golden raisins with chili and mustard seeds, which is terrific on grilled lamb chops, and pistachio aillade, which is delicious on branzino.

We’ve been sipping on our dear friend Savita’s homemade chai, and we’re thrilled that she’s making a big batch to share with us this week. Savita grew up sipping chai on an Indian ashram and still carries a thermos full of it wherever she goes. Her chai is made with organic rooibos tea steeped with fresh ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves. It is naturally caffeine-free and has no added sweetener. You simply need to heat it with your milk of choice and sweeten it to your liking. You can also enjoy it iced.

This week’s delicious organic wine from Small Town is Bring It, a versatile, chillable red blend from Swick. We had a bunch of requests for more of this agreeable red, so we’ve brought Bring It back. It’s also the season for Schaner Farm’s tangerine juice, which we’ve added to the juice options.

This week’s farm box will have all the usuals, plus cauliflower, carrots, sugar snap peas, mint, cilantro, and anything else we can find that works well with Indian foods and flavors.