Nadia Haddad

Consumer editor, Wah Taste

Nadia has written about everyday cooking, street food, spice & pantry for most of the last decade and is unreasonably interested in the detail nobody else checks.

Street Food

What the cart does that your kitchen cannot

Street food is hard to reproduce at home for four specific reasons, and only one of them is the recipe.

Aug 19, 2026 · 4 min read

Street Food

Oil temperature decides nearly everything about a fried snack

Frying is a race between steam pushing outwards and oil soaking inwards, and the temperature of the oil is…

Aug 5, 2026 · 4 min read

Street Food

A good chaat is sour in three different ways at once

Tamarind, raw mango and yoghurt are not interchangeable sources of acidity — each carries a different acid…

Aug 2, 2026 · 3 min read

Regional Kitchens

Biryani is an argument about method, not about spice

The regional versions differ far less in their masala than in when the rice and the meat meet, and that…

Jul 9, 2026 · 4 min read

Regional Kitchens

The dosa belt and the roti belt are drawn by rainfall

Whether a region eats a fermented rice batter or a wheat flatbread comes down to how much water falls on…

Jul 6, 2026 · 4 min read

Regional Kitchens

One pot of dal, a dozen regions, and a completely different job each time

The same handful of pulses becomes a soup in one state, a sauce in another and a dry side dish in a third…

Jul 2, 2026 · 4 min read

Everyday Cooking

Cooking for one is not the same problem as halving a recipe

Cut the quantities in half and the geometry of the pan does not halve with them, which is why small batches…

Jun 12, 2026 · 4 min read

Street Food

Bhel has a shelf life measured in mouthfuls

The moment wet chutney meets puffed rice, water starts moving into the crisp components, and nothing can…

May 29, 2026 · 3 min read

Street Food

The green chutney on a cart is preserved by its own recipe

A pot of chutney sitting unrefrigerated through a hot afternoon is not being reckless — acid, salt and oil…

May 27, 2026 · 4 min read

Street Food

A tandoor cooks from its walls, and that is why the bread sticks to them

The clay cylinder is a heat store rather than a fire, and its stored heat is what makes a naan and a kebab…

May 25, 2026 · 4 min read

Everyday Cooking

Three pans do most of the work, and each is a different answer to evaporation

A flat tava, a deep kadhai and a sealed pressure cooker are not three sizes of the same tool — they take…

Apr 11, 2026 · 3 min read

Everyday Cooking

Cooking for thirty is a different craft from cooking for four

Scaling a dish up does not just multiply the ingredients — it changes what the pot does with heat, which…

Apr 6, 2026 · 3 min read

Spice & Pantry

Old dal never softens properly, and no amount of extra cooking fixes it

Pulses that have spent too long in a warm cupboard develop a hardness that is structural rather than a…

Mar 18, 2026 · 3 min read

Regional Kitchens

A thali is a composition and the small bowls are not there for variety

Every element on a properly built plate has a structural job — a staple, a wet, a dry, an acid, a cooling…

Mar 3, 2026 · 3 min read

Regional Kitchens

Paneer belongs to the milk belt and it refuses to melt for a reason

A fresh cheese set with acid rather than rennet behaves quite differently in a pan, and where it is eaten…

Feb 27, 2026 · 3 min read

Spice & Pantry

A nut or seed paste thickens a gravy in three ways at once

Cashew, poppy seed, melon seed and peanut are used as thickeners across very different regions, and each…

Jan 12, 2026 · 4 min read

Regional Kitchens

A Kashmiri winter is eaten from things dried in the autumn sun

A valley cut off by snow for months built a whole seasonal cuisine out of vegetables dried on rooftops, and…

Dec 26, 2025 · 4 min read

Nadia Haddad

17 articles