Ananthanarayana, my sister's younger son, is a big-time foodie and loves to cook. For most of the evenings, during his stay, he was my assistant in the kitchen.

One evening, he gave me a total break from the kitchen with a promise that he would prepare a 'traditionally modern dish'. "Quite a funny phrase" I felt, but left the kitchen for him.

While he was busy in the kitchen, I relaxed a bit listening to my favourite Carnatic classics. And, in no time I heard his "dinner time!" call. Everyone, including Srikanth, promptly turned up to the dinner table immediately. Probably, the phrase intrigued everyone.

What he served then literally lived up to the name he gave. It was a spicy, sour and tangy rice dish with an equally interesting raitha. Everyone finished their portions calmly enjoying every morsel of the dish.

"How?", I said.
"Chintakaya, nothing else", he said. Looking at our perplexed faces, he got into details like how he prepared a variation of fried rice with Chintakaya pickle as the main ingredient and other herbs. "That's fine, but raitha?" asked Srijanani. "That is Chintakaya as well!" he said. "I just added some powdered sugar and some masala powder".

It left me wondering how food is such an amazing thing. A beautiful traditional taste like Chintakaya was made even more interesting with a small amount of creativity.

Take my word, go ahead and try it. Chintakaya is very traditional yet very flexible because of its interesting balance of tastes.