Indian Standard Time in recipes

If an Indian tells you that he'll be with you in 2 minutes, take a seat. It could be anywhere between 5 and 20 minutes. Time is pretty elastic that way in the subcontinent.

Still ... one doesn't expect this relaxed view of time to extend to recipes. The wife saw whole wheat noodles at an Indian groceries store and because the package directions said to boil for 2 minutes, we thought they might make a healthier replacement for rice noodles in stir-fries. Unfortunately, it was not 2 minutes. The noodles needed 8 minutes to become al-dente.