Whether it is avarai uttakka - local beans cooked with potato, tomato, onions, garlic and tempered with mustard seeds, or sandagai - roasted tomato sauteed with small onion, garlic and coconut ground to a fine paste - the "masala made carefully after dry-roasting 17 spices and not bought off the shops" is the key, Indira says.
Carlo Crisci, who runs two-star Michelin restaurant Le Cerf, north of Lausanne, cooked a cold fondue of small cheese balls in a hot potato soup for a special event.