Sometimes you really just want some goddamned comfort food. I once woke up to a decidedly not-positive email, and wanted to eat my feelings. You’re familiar with these: the ones that have you reaching for the tub of ice cream when you’re sad, angry, happy—okay, anything, really. Let’s just acknowledge that sugar is addictive and we’re all craving it all the time.

Anyway. From time to time, I’ll get these cravings, or think about certain tastes (triggered by a memory, or a phrase in conversation, a scene in a movie, or a song). I was once standing on a metro platform in Chicago, waiting for the train to show up, when I had the sudden urge for dosa. The thin, oily kinds you’d find being flipped at light speed in the khau gallis of India.

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Another example because I feel like sharing. Every time I hear an old rock song, I’m transported back to my favorite dive bar in Mumbai, and a long-standing ritual: ordering at least one plate of fiery chilli chicken and lots of cheap Kingfisher beers to wash it down with, and then yell-philosophizing over Bryan Adams and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on LOUD until closing, or one of us felt sleepy. Whichever came first.

Anyway. On this particular occasion in the (sort of) present, I was hit with a sudden craving for Indo-Chinese food. The super fast-food, super unhealthy kind that’s given it the name “dirty Chinese” (although I’m going to avoid using it here because I’m sure there are other, more racist connotations, and we’re not racist, right? Answer: no, we are not).

There’s a certain MSG- and sodium-laden wonder to the fried rice or hakka noodles you can get from super shady street stalls in India—usually little more than rickety tables, propylene stoves and gritty, probably-uncleaned dishes. But if you were a hardy Mumbaikar like me, you leaned the hell into fast food like this. And you enjoyed it, visible layers of grease and all.

Khau gallis literally translate to food alleys. Essentially, they’re stretches of road across neighborhoods in a city that offer food stall after food stall after food stall selling everything from pav bhaji to dosa to Indo-chinese, chaat, eggs done however you want, sandwiches, pizzas, kebabs, etc, etc, etc. It’s all hot, greasy, and fast. It’s all of potentially questionable quality (ie, don’t bring your new-to-India friends here if they like playing roulette with their health). It’s also always packed, because the food is delicious and hits the spot after a boozy night, before payday when you’re running low on bills, or… just because. I’ll always hold that you never need a reason to hit a khau galli for some food.

Now, I’m in the American Midwest, and in the midst of this Global Upheaval (I’m getting kinda tired of this phrase) I obviously haven’t had the opportunity to find an Indo-Chinese place here. Yet. One that can match the oiliness and the oh-God-it’s-so-hot-my-mouth-is-burning-off feeling. But, I really wanted this now—all my synapses were firing at 100, and I was literally salivating. Like, it was visible.

So, of course I went online to see if there was any way to get remotely close to that taste that I missed. But I also had mushrooms that were going to go bad soon, and we’d already had our fair share of mushroom soup. Enter this recipe, from the blog Whisk Affair.

I’m not going to give you a recipe for this because, to be quite frank, hers is fantastic, and I don’t stray from it. (Except with the rice, because I always forget to chill it down after making it, before it goes into the mushroom mix to be cooked up again. I never learn.)

So, behold. It’s salty, it’s eggy, it’s meaty, it’s carb-y. It’s got spice, it’s got umami, it’s got pungence, it’s got caramelization.

There’s no MSG in this, but it doesn’t need it. Which might be why it doesn’t taste of the gallis of India.

But you know what?

I’ve made this a few times, and this rice, it still hits the spot, if in a different way.

And I’m really okay with that.