Indian Cooking Foray #1
Dear Friends,
In my old age I get really anxious every time I try to learn something new, especially if it’s complicated. I worry that my rapidly atrophying 22-year-old brain is going to forget all the most important (but tiny) details, like when to turn up the heat or whether or not to add salt. So for you and for me, I’m taking down the following cooking notes.
I had recently mentioned to my aunt that I was curious about cooking curry from scratch, but too scared I would screw it up to really try it. In a feat of kindness, my aunt asked one of her neighbors to give me a brief cooking lesson last week. Brenda is from Madras in Southern India and was a wonderfully generous and patient cooking instructor. These are two simple dishes she taught me, with some little tips and tricks along the way. I hope her wisdom and experience will be as helpful to you as they were to me.
Love,
Grace
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Today’s Contents:
How to Make Basmati Rice
How to Make Cholay (Curried Chickpeas)
Variations
How to Make Ghee
How to Mix Curry Powder
& end comments.
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How to Make Basmati Rice
Ingredients:
- Basmati Rice
- Water (proportions: 1 cup rice to 1.5 cups water, plus a little more water)
- Canola Oil (2 tsp or so)
- Butter/Ghee (clarified butter)
- Spices [Masala] (whole, not ground): Cloves (3 or 4), Star Anise (2), Cinnamon Stick (1), Bay Leaf (1)
- Curry Powder, 2tsp
- Salt
- Frozen Peas (optional)
- Cilantro (Optional, add at the end)
Cooking Order: You can start this rice AFTER you start cooking the Cholay, and everything will be ready around the same time. :)
Serves: 2 cups of rice could probably feed 4-6 people. I was surprised at how much just 2 cups of rice expanded. We ate it for days!
1. Put 2tsp oil into large, unheated pot. Add about an inch off a stick of butter. (You could use ghee, but in this case it’s just a matter of preference - this dish takes a while to cook, meaning that the butter will turn to ghee by the end). Turn up to high heat and put all spices into the pan. Stir it around and cover.
2. Rinse the rice in some water and pour out water. Do this twice or so, until the water runs out clear. (This gets rid of the rice flour and excess gluten sticking to the grains, and is an important step anytime you cook rice.)
3. Check out the spices from time to time and smell them carefully. After a few minutes, when the smell changes, add the rice and water. The spices should smell richer; I found that the scent of the cinnamon stick came out, and that the combination of spices reminded me of condensed milk. Cover & let it cook! Avoid stirring, since this will break up the grains of rice.
4. Wait until most of the water is gone. Add salt (a sprinkle around the pot will do the trick.) If you want to add frozen peas, defrost them in a microwave, drop them in, and stir gently to incorporate them into the rice.
5. Cover and cook it over low heat for another ten minutes. Watch it until it’s done - you should see steam coming out the sides of the pot lid. (I know, this is so precise!)
If you feel like it, sprinkle some cilantro over the dish before serving. Make sure your guests don’t eat the whole spices. :)
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How to Make Cholay (Curried Chickpeas)
Ingredients:
- Canola Oil, 2 or 3tsp
- Butter/Ghee
- Spices [Masala]: 1/2tsp-ish each of Brown Mustard Seeds, Yellow Lentils (urid dal), Cumin Seeds
- Curry Powder, 2tsp
- Garlic, Minced (~3 cloves)
- Onion, Diced (1)
- Garbanzo Beans (2 cans, leave in most of the juice)
- Diced Tomatoes (1 can, leave in juice)
- Salt
Prep: Dice up onions and garlic. For this recipe, precision is not a virtue, but laziness is! ;)
Cooking Order: Do everything for the Cholay before you start the rice. The Cholay can stick around for a while as the rice cooks - this time will allow the onions to soften and for the flavor of the spices and curry to permeate the dish.
Serves: 4-6 people, depending on how hungry you all are..
1. “Temper” the spices. I had never used this technique before, but Brenda said this is the crucial part that will make the dish taste right - tempering spices in oil releases all their fragrances into the food. Start heating the oil and butter, then put in all the spices. Cover the pot quickly! The mustard seeds will start popping in the hot oil and jumping out at you if you’re not careful. No one likes a hot mustard seed in the eye!
2. Add the garlic and onions and allow them to sautee together. (It’s good to add them in simultaneously, since the moisture released by the onions will stop the smaller chunks of garlic from burning)
3. Open 2 cans of garbanzo beans; tip upside down in sink to let most of the moisture drip out, but leave a little in. Pour garbanzo beans and the diced tomatoes into the pot, mix, and cover.
4. Let it cook for a while! Taste.
5. Add curry powder. Taste again.
6. And let it cook some more. When it smells and tastes good, it’s done!
*TIP*: If the tomatoes are too acidic, add a little sugar. Any will work, but brown sugar will add a nice caramelly flavor to your dish.
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Variation 1: Cauliflower, Tomato, and Onion. Replace the garbanzo beans with cauliflower and make the dish just like the cholay, by tempering, then adding everything in and letting it cook together.
Variation 2: Eggplant. Cook slices of eggplant covered in a microwave for 6 minutes, then temper spices in oil and sautee the eggplant for a while.
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How to Make Ghee (Clarified Butter)
1. Put a bunch of unsalted butter into a pot.
2. Cover it and let it cook over low heat.
3. Cook it for a while. When it’s become a golden brown, it’s done.
I’m always surprised at how long butter can keep at room temperature. Ghee can be kept in your kitchen in a sealed container for months, so if you cook with it often you can make it in larger quantity and leave it out.
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How to Make Curry Powder
After we had finished both dishes and were waiting on the rice, I asked Brenda, “What if you don’t have a prepared curry powder handy or run out?” She gave me these proportions and spices, which are the main ingredients to most curry powders.
4 parts Coriander
1.5 parts Red Chile
1 part Cumin
.5 part Fenugreek
*It’s important not to add too much Fenugreek to any dish, since the spice can become bitter. Like some other bitter foods, such as Chinese bitter melon, Fenugreek is said to be good for people who have diabetes.
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Brenda’s final tips to me were twofold.
First: All the aspects of Indian food should complement one another and blend; not one flavor should stand out from the others, but one should be able to savor and enjoy all of them. For this reason, she likes to put all the parts of a dish in at the same time and allow them to simmer together and truly blend into one cohesive taste.
Second: Indian food should look good and smell good - if it does both, it will inevitably taste good. This really rung true with me. Growing up, my mom always told me that Chinese cooking should have three key things: 色，香，味 - that is: color, fragrance, and flavor. No food should be without one of those factors - a dish is only complete when it looks good, smells good, and tastes good. That’s my goal! :)
All my love,
Grace
