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April 05, 2007
A combinatorial approach to Indian cooking (Part 1 of 2)
I once heard Rachael Ray say on her cooking show that when ladies from the Southern United States exchange recipes with others, they often hold back one ingredient so that the recipient of the recipe will be unable to replicate it. I don't know whether this is true or false, but if that's how it really is, then it's pretty sad. Cooking is one of my favorite ways to destress and it would be a pity if I didn't spread the joy by sharing my methods (or open sourcing them, if you will). My girlfriend praises my cooking a lot, but I use a pretty ordinary, almost algorithmic approach to cooking, which I'll outline below. Think of the below as a master blueprint to almost all of my Indian cooking.Note that I am a vegetarian, so I'm only going to concern myself with Indian vegetarian cooking. India has had an awesome vegetarian tradition mostly because of the sheer variety of ingredients available there; vegetables, gourds, legumes and lentils abound in even corner grocery stores. Here are the food groups I pick from when concocting a meal (so as not to break up the text too much, I've linked to Wikipedia definitions of Indian food terms when I can):
I. Starchy/bulky foods: Potatoes, pumpkin, soy chunks, tofu and paneer all fall under this category. I think of these foods as central ingredients in a meal because they add carbs and bulk to the meal. Starchy/bulky foods are well and good but they are pretty insipid (except perhaps for paneer), which is where I bring in...
II. Foods for taste and color: Any other vegetables that have color, a distinctive taste or both. Peppers, mushrooms, peas, okra and eggplant would definitely fall under this category. Not all vegetables in American supermarkets are available in India, so I'd stick to the ones above to start with and experiment with others when I'm more confident. No matter what combination of vegetables you use though, your Indian vegetarian meal will be utterly incomplete without...
III. Spices: Indian meals may seem almost overwhelming in flavor, but you'd be surprised how much of the flavor can come from one or two spice mixes that you can buy at an Indian grocery store. If you want to use the same spices many kitchens in India use, look for spice mixes made by companies like Everest or MDH. Safe bets are garam masala, pav bhaji masala, chhole masala, shahi paneer masala and dal masala. I don't shy away from fish masala, chicken masala and other meat masalas; contrary to what their name might indicate, they are usually vegetarian. They're similar in makeup to garam masala but emphasize different spices. Today I use spice mixes along with individual spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin and cilantro; sticking with spice mixes alone is a good idea to start with though. Spices and two veggies will get you pretty far, and maybe even all the way, but occasionally you want to add in a special touch...
IV. Sauces (optional): Sauces don't always have to be creamy like the stuff you get in Indian restaurants in the U.S. (in fact, I much prefer it if they are not). They can be tomatoey, creamy, floury or pasty. The question of whether or not to add a sauce to a dish is hard to answer because it depends the specific ingredients in the dish as well as what it's going to be eaten with (rice or rotis). It took me a few tries to figure it out, but a good rule of thumb is to have a sauce if you're gonna eat the dish with rice. As an aside, I should mention that saucy dishes are called 'wet'/'gravy' (Hin. geela), while dishes without sauces are called 'dry' (Hin. sookha). You'll see this distinction in translation on some menus in the U.S. as well, especially ones with Indian Chinese cuisine.
I've only mentioned sauces in passing here, but not actually gone into how to make them. Trust me that this apparent oversight is not intentional. The next post will outline methods to put a meal together using ingredients chosen from the four food groups above. It'll also contain instructions on how to make some standard sauces from scratch.
Posted by Vishy at April 5, 2007 08:07 PM