Student Food Essentials, page 2

Cooking for yourself away from home is easier with a cupboard that already holds the basics, and this page brings them together: basmati rice, atta, a bottle of cooking oil, and tins of chickpeas, beans, chopped tomatoes and saag. These are everyday staples at a student friendly price, chosen because they keep for months, cook in one pan and taste like the food you grew up with.

Batch cooking saves the most time. On a Sunday, soften two onions in oil with garlic, ginger and a spoon of garam masala, add a tin of tomatoes, then two tins of drained chickpeas for chana masala or kidney beans for rajma. Simmer for twenty minutes and it gives four or five portions. Cool it quickly, split it into tubs, keep two in the fridge to eat within two days and freeze the rest.

One pan meals help when the hob is shared. Crack an egg into a pan of saag and tomatoes, stir chickpeas through jeera rice, or cook rice by the absorption method: one cup of rinsed rice to one and a half cups of water, lid on, lowest heat for twelve minutes, then ten minutes resting off the heat. Fresh rotis are quick once you have a bag of chapati atta, and any flat frying pan stands in for a tawa.

In a shared kitchen, keep rice and atta in a clip lid tub with your name on it, so damp and other people's crumbs stay out, and stack tins at the back of your shelf. Opened tins go into a covered bowl in the fridge, never left in the can. For bigger bags to split with housemates, see bulk Indian groceries.