Deo learnt to make kheemyache gole in pandhra rassa from her mother-in-law, who inherited the recipe from her mother. Mutton mince is seasoned with Kolhapuri masala, ginger-garlic paste, and chilli powder, shaped into lemon-sized balls and deep-fried in a wok. Coconut milk is added to the meatballs, and the dish is served with brown bhaat, a special rice grain from the region.

Bethica Das, a Sharjah-based home chef, associates her mother’s cooking with aam shorshe chingri bhapa, a Bengali dish made of raw mango and mustard paste. It is made by grinding mustard to a paste with curd, turmeric powder, coconut, raw mango, and green chillies. A few poppy seeds and a dash of mustard oil are added for good measure. Prawns are marinated in this paste and steamed in a steel tiffin box. It goes well with steamed rice.

Chef Smrutisree Singh, a MasterChef season 6 finalist from Odisha has another dish imbued with the aroma of memory is ambil, or bamboo shoot curry. In Odia cuisine, several vegetables and curries are cooked using bamboo shoots, found abundantly in the state. Sharp and pungent, it brings together flavours of dried red chillies, curry leaves, ladyfingers, brinjal, and turmeric, and tastes earthy.

Assamese chef and documentary filmmaker Tahin Ojah says every meal starts with khar, a palate cleanser made of raw papaya. It is sometimes made with jackfruit seeds or cucumber too. The peel of the banana [a special type called the athiya kol] is sundried and then burned until it turns into ash. These ashes are immersed in water, which is then strained to become khar. Khar is a dark brown liquid that is added to a vegetable or sometimes even parts of fish and meat is cooked in it,” says Ojah. Once you add this dark brown liquid to any of the above ingredients, the dish is called khar.

Home chef Aanchal Khanna’s family has a repertoire of family recipes, like lotus stem koftas, passed down from her nani and dadi. The stems have to be so fresh that there’s still mud clinging to them; that’s when they absorb spices best—a mix of fennel, dried coriander powder, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, amchur powder, ajwain, and garam masala. They  are kept overnight in a bucket of water to soften and then boiled the next day. Then besan is added for binding, balls are shaped and the koftas are deep-fried before being added to a tomato and onion gravy.