From Malai Pyaaz Ki Sabzi to Tarbuj Na Shaak: India’s Original No-Waste Recipes

4 min readNew DelhiJul 24, 2026 11:00 AM Long before the ‘No-Waste Kitchen’ trend caught on in the world, India had already been practising this approach and creating delicious dishes. In parts of the country that underwent Partition, wars, and famine, cooking judiciously with whatever ingredients were available was commonplace.
When I came to Delhi almost 25 years ago and sat down to eat lunch with colleagues, I remember being a little concerned a colleague’s Pyaaz Ki Sabzi. It was served to me as a vegetable dish, but when I looked for vegetables, all I found were pearl onions in a spicy masala. I was young then and didn’t have the awareness to appreciate how nuanced and innovative it was to create an entire dish with just onions. Whole small onions had been cooked with turmeric, chilli powder, and some whole spices, and served with roti.
It was only a few years later that I discovered that this was a version of Rajasthani Malai Pyaaz Ki Sabzi. Cooked in the desert, where there is a paucity of ingredients and a high risk of spoilage in the heat, preparing a creamy delicacy with just onions is the kind of innovativeness you might see today on MasterChef Australia.
Cooking with peels and scraps to create an entrée isn’t new. If you travel across India, especially in Bengal and Rajasthan and the hill regions, you will be served the most divine, simple preparations made with ingredients most people would discard or, at best, use in a stock.
Cooking judiciously with whatever ingredients were available was commonplace. (Magnific)
One of my favourite discoveries was Matar Ke Chilke. The peels of young green peas were cut into small pieces, steamed, and cooked with diced potatoes, cumin, and other basic Indian spices to create a nutrient-rich dish. This is common in Marwari homes as well.
In East Bengal and Baangal homes, we prepare a fabulous bhorta or mash made with an ingredient most would simply trash. Lauer Khoshar Borta is a mash made with sautéed bottle gourd peels, garlic, and green chillies, which are mixed with mustard oil and onions. This mash sometimes includes cooked and slightly mashed shrimp and is always served with hot steamed rice. A true delicacy with a dinctive, nuanced flavour.
We also make a Lauer Khosha Bhaja or deep-fried bottle gourd peels. These are also accompanied Alur Khosha Bhaja–an absolute favourite. Wash potato peels, dry them, add a little salt, and deep-fry them. They will become like crisps. These bhajas are usually served with dal and rice, alongside fried neem leaves, fried diced brinjal, and fried karela. And you are supposed to mash them with your dal and rice. The crispy peels add a layer of texture to the soft rice and dal.Story continues below this ad
The reason you find so many recipes with peels and leaves in Bengal, an agrarian-rich state, is because the state has witnessed two major famines, the fallout of the Partition, and large-scale migration. These events forced cooks to innovate and make the most of the little they had in the kitchen. So, they used scraps, peels, and parts of plants that were never eaten before. Bhortas allowed the clever cook to use whatever was at hand to create a mashed vegetable which could be flavoured with mustard and chillies.

But a dish that we never thought of in Bengal and which would have required a truly creative turn in the kitchen is the Kalingar Nu Shaak or Tarbuj Na Shaak, a Gujarati curry made with watermelon rind. When cooked, the rind tastes like pumpkin or other squash vegetables. It also, surprisingly, takes little time to cook. You don’t actually use the green part of the watermelon. You scrape it off and only use the rind.
So the next time someone praises a Michelin-star kitchen for its ‘Low Waste’ menu, you can point to a Bengali, Gujarati or Rajasthani home and show them that what the world is raving about today was discovered here centuries ago.
Next week, I will be writing on a Delhi pilgrimage site–the 102-year-old Wenger’s, and why Delhiites love it.