Indian Cooking

Indian food is like classical music raga - it takes time to build up to a crescendo.

… Shobhaa De, Indian Model and Author.

Indian cuisine boasts about the widest variety of tastes, exotic aromas, and preparation methods. Being a country of diverse culture, the taste and preparation of food changes every few hundred kilometers along with the language dialects.

North Indian food is completely different in terms of look, flavor, and taste from South Indian food. Similarly, East-Indian food is totally different in its form than the food from West-Indian lands. Indian cuisine is recognized as part of different regions such as Asamese, Andhrite, Bengali, Gujrati, Kashmiri, Marathi, Punjabi, South Indian,and many more.

Widely Used Ingredients in Indian Cuisine

There are some special ingredients that an Indian kitchen stocks. The stock includes some gourmet dairy products such as Ghee and Paneer. These two dairy products are used in preparing sweets as well as savory dishes.

Ghee

Ghee is nothing but clarified butter, which is superior to the ordinary butter in terms of contents and flavor. The procedure of preparing this dairy product is little lengthy but the efforts and time spent on their preparation are worth the aroma and body they deliver to the food. The procedure goes as follows −

• Accumulate 8 parts of full cream of milk in a large deep pan.
• Add 2 parts of thick sour curds and mix well and keep aside for 4 to 5 hours.
• When the entire cream turns sour, beat it with the electric beater for around 20 minutes using water as required. This action separates butter and white buttermilk. The buttermilk is used in preparing a savory dish called Kadhi. It can be consumed as an appetizer too.
• Take out butter in a heavy bottom pan.
• Heat it on low flame till you get to see brownish golden burnt milk solids deposited at the bottom of the pan and a transparent golden ghee on the top of it.

Paneer

This is a basic ingredient of Paneer based gravies and desserts.

• Boil 2 liters milk in a deep pan.
• When it is coming to full boil, add 2 to 3 tbsp vinegar into it.
• Stir for a while occasionally.
• Boil for a few minutes further till you get to see milk chunks separated from thin white whey.
• Place a clean cotton cloth with edges spread outwards in another deep pan.
• Put water separated milk solids into the cloth.
• Assemble the edges of cloth to drain the whey completely and you get Paneer.
• Cut into pieces of desired shape and store in the freezer.

Some other important ingredients kept handy are −

• Dalia − Coarsely broken wheat. It is used to prepare a porridge-like snack.
• Semolina (Suji) − Finely broken wheat. It is used to prepare Halwa or Upma.
• Beaten Rice (Poha) − Dry, flat, flaky rice used in preparing various snacks.
• Puffed Rice (Murmura) − It is roasted rice in special kiln to make it puffed. It is used to make a spicy snack called Chiwda.
• Jaggery (Gud) − thick boiled and solidified pulp of sugarcane juice. It is added in lentils and veg dishes to balance hot and sour taste.
• Vermicelli (Semiyan) Long and thin spaghetti made of wheat flour. They are used for cooking a dessert named kheer and a snack named Upma.
• Kokum − They are the dried peels of a fruit from a plant belonging to Mangosteen family. They leave dark red juice when soaked in warm water. This juice is used in preparation of seafood gravies, and a spicy savory chilled drink named Solkadhi. Kokum gives sour taste to the food and can be replaced by Aamchur or Tamarind Pulp.
• Tamarind − It is a pod-like, flat, long, and pulpy fruit with greenish brown shell as thick as egg shell. Inside, there is a brown fruit held with ridges. Both raw and ripe tamarind is used in chutneys and gravies.
• Puffed Split Chick Peas (Chana) − Chick peas are roasted to make them puffed and they are shelled. These puffed peas are used in preparing snacks like Chiwda, toffees like Chikki, and chutneys.

Importance of Chhonk in Indian Cuisine

Chhonk (popularly known as Tadka) is a cooking method by which aroma of various spices extracted and incorporated in the food. Five main ingredients are put in chhonk by heating oil in a pan: Mustard seeds, cumin seeds, asafoetida, turmeric powder, and curry leaves.

Sometimes finely chopped green chili or garlic, juliennes of ginger, ginger-garlic paste, fennel seeds, or red chili powder, is added to release their aroma. These ingredients can vary according to the cuisine.

The chhonk not only adds aroma of spices to the food but also acts as a hunger inducing medium.

Indian Veg Stews

Indian cookery offers a very wide variety of stews preparation. The vegetable stews are made of diced vegetables. The vegetables are cooked by combining them with various spice mixes. For thickening the stew, either grated coconut, peanut, tomato, or onion pastes are used. Then they are seasoned with chhonk. The stews are popularly known as Sabzi.

Vegetables stews are made of almost any vegetables listed in chapter named “Vegetarian Cookery”. Some popular sabzis are −

• Potato-Cabbage (Aaloo-Gobhi)
• Spinach with Cottage Cheese (Palak-Paneer)
• Fried Okra (Bhindi Fry), Stuffed Okra with filling of coconut and peanut powders and spices.
• Steamed Potato in savory tomato gravy with cream (Dum Aaloo)
• Roasted Brinjal stew cooked with onion, groundnuts (Baingan Bharta)
• Sweet and Sour Bitter gourd cooked in tamarind pulp and jaggery (Khatta Karela)
• Cottage cheese in thick onion-tomato-spices gravy (Paneer Kadhai)
• Stuff-cooked Tomato or Capsicum
• Cauliflower, Potato, and Green Peas in coconut gravy
• Fenugreek leaves cooked with peas and cream (Methi Malai Mutter)

Indian Non-Veg Stews

The non-veg stews are made of diced meat pieces such as chicken, lamb, prawns, fish, and mutton cooked with spices. For thickening the stew, either grated coconut, tomato, raw papaya or onion pastes are used.

Meat stews are cooked using. Some popular non-veg stews are −

• Chicken Curry
• Mutton Curry
• Fish Curry
• Fish Fry (Fish coated with spiced rice flour and turmeric leaf and shallow fried.)
• Mutton in White Gravy
• Dry meat Stew (Sukke Mutton)
• Dry Prawn Masala
• Prawn Curry
• Spicy minced Mutton (Keema)

Indian Daals

Indian Daals are nothing but the lentils, pulses or beans cooked with aromatic spices. The lentils can be whole or split, with or without husk.

If the whole lentils are to be used, they are soaked for six to eight hours if they are whole and with husk. Sometimes they are sprouted to reduce the amount of sugar in the lentil. They are cooked in a pressure cooker to make them soft, edible, and bring down their anti-digestion properties.

Once cooked, spices are added and Chhonk is put over it to enhance the flavor. Let us take a look at some of the famous Daals.

Plain Daal

It is often made of split and husked Toor or Moong lentils. The lentils are washed and soaked in water for 20 minutes. Then they are cooked in a cooker till they turn completely soft but intact in shape. They are then boiled with water, little salt and ghee. Plain Daal is consumed without Chhonk.

Daal Tadkaa (Daal with Chhonk)

It is the plain Daal with Chhonk. The Daal is often cooked with chopped tomatoes and/or onions, garlic, ginger and other spices such as coriander powder, turmeric powder, and chilies. The Chhonk of ghee/butter with spices is put over cooked daal it to bring out best flavor.

In Maharashtra state, they add some Kala (Goda) Masalainto Daal while it boils for enhancing its flavor.

Rajmaah

It is prepared by cooking kidney beans. It is often paired with plain rice.

Ingredients −

Kidney beams 200gm soaked in water overnight, 1 large onion, 1 green chili, and 3 tomatoes finely chopped, 1 inch ginger and 6 cloves of garlic minced, 1 tbsp. Rajmaah Masala, 1 tsp cumin seeds, ½ tsp red chili powder, ½ tsp turmeric powder, water 600ml, 1 tbsp butter, ½ tbsp. dry mango powder, and salt to taste.

Preparation −

• Add Rajmah in pressure cooker with chopped onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and green chilies.
• Add cumin seeds, chili powder, turmeric, and water.
• Stir well and cook for 8 to 10 whistles.
• Take out from the cooker and check if it is cooked completely.
• Heat butter in a pan. Add cooked Rajmaah to it. Add little water, Rajmaah masala, and dry mango powder.
• Cook for another 6-8 minutes.
• Mash a few rajma beans with the back of a spoon to thicken the consistency of daal.

Chana Masala

It is prepared similar to Rajmaah using cooked chick peas instead of kidney beans. In addition, Rajmaah Masala is replaced with other tangy spice mix called Chana Masala.

Other Indian Daals

In India, field beans, moth beans, green beans, black-eyed beans and horse beans are often sprouted and cooked with grated coconut, chopped onion and tomatoes, and ginger-garlic paste.