Indian Cooking For Dummies. Monisha Bharadwaj
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Grains
Your Indian meal will always have grains as a part of it. The grains could be in the form of rice or breads made with wheat or lentil flours. Although the variety of Indian ingredients in supermarkets keeps growing, you’ll probably find a larger variety at an Indian grocery store. It’s worth a trip just for the wonderful aromas and unusual ingredients you’ll see — you won’t need to buy them all! Table 4-2 lists the ones you’ll want to stock up on.
TABLE 4-2 Buying Grains
| Grain | Description |
|---|---|
| Atta | A stoneground (called chakki on Indian packaging) whole-wheat flour used for making rotis, parathas, and other breads. You can’t use whole-meal flour instead, so if the recipe calls for atta, use atta. |
| Besan | A kind of chickpea flour used for batters for fritters like pakora, to make gluten-free breads, or for thickening curries |
| Poha | A dried flaked rice that rehydrates easily to make a quick, hearty snack when cooked with spices. It’s available as “fine” or “medium”; I always buy the medium because it holds its shape better. |
| Rice | Indian basmati rice is available in most stores. Look for aged, mature, or old basmati (you’ll often see these terms on the packaging) because it’ll fluff up better. Or if you can’t bother to read labels, just buy the most expensive one because it’s likely to be the best aged. Cheaper basmati is good for rice pudding and for blending into a batter for rice and lentil pancakes called dosa. |
| Semolina | Wheat broken down into various-sized grains. Coarse semolina is used in puddings and pancakes, and fine semolina is used as a crust for fried shrimp and fish. |
Nuts
During Diwali, the grandest festival celebrated in India, people send boxes of nut selections across the country as gifts. All these nuts are plump and glossy, and they’re meant to be enjoyed during the holiday season. An Indian kitchen, however, requires a variety of nuts that need to blended to a paste, and it would be sacrilege to use those fat beauties in a curry base! Instead, you’ll want to visit an Indian grocery store for cheaper versions of nuts that will add texture and thickness.
Here are the nuts you’ll want to have on hand:
Almonds: Buy whole almonds to slice as a garnish for desserts and rice dishes. You can use ground almonds to thicken some curries.
Cashews: Look for packs of broken cashews that can be blended to a paste and added to curry bases. Halved cashews are good for adding texture to vegetable dishes or chopped up as a garnish over curries and desserts.
Peanuts: Although technically not nuts (they’re legume), peanuts are the most popular nut in western Indian kitchens. Roasted, salted peanuts are good lightly crushed as a garnish for salads and curries. You can also blend them to a paste to thicken curry sauces.
Pistachios: You’ll need a few of these, shelled, to garnish Indian desserts. The green color is a beautiful pop over cream and fruit.
Walnuts: Walnuts aren’t often used in curry sauces because they can add a bitter note. Use them chopped for garnishes or in salads.
Flavorings
Salt is a very important ingredient in the Indian kitchen, and your food just won’t taste right without it. It won’t taste good without sour ingredients either. You’ve probably tasted tamarind already (just check the ingredient list on your bottle of Worcestershire sauce) or in Asian and Mexican foods. Sweet tamarind is different from the sour pods needed in Indian curries.
Table 4-3 lists the flavorings you should have on hand.
TABLE 4-3 Buying Flavorings
| Flavoring | Description |
|---|---|
| Salt | Choose fine sea salt if you want additive-free or you can use regular table salt. |
| Sugar | Granulated sugar is used for sweets or to balance flavors in a curry without changing its color. |
| Jaggery | Jaggery is a block of cooked sugarcane juice. It’s used in some Indian desserts and curries to add an earthy sweetness. The block can be grated or cut. Jaggery melts like sugar when heated. It can be stored in an airtight box for up to a year. Brown sugar can be used as a substitute for jaggery. |
| Tamarind | The sausage-shaped fruit of a large tree, tamarind is sold in blocks that can be stored for up to a year. Look for wet tamarind, which feels softer than hard blocks. It’s rehydrated in hot water (see Chapter 6). Tamarind concentrate can be too intense and can change the color of the final dish, so avoid it. Jars of ready-made paste are available, but they’re more expensive than buying the blocks and making the paste yourself. |
| Vinegar | White or brown vinegar is used in some Indian curries to add a sour note. Specially flavored vinegars aren’t essential because the subtle notes will be lost among the stronger-smelling spices. |
Beans
I don’t know of a single Indian kitchen that doesn’t have an assortment of lentils and legumes. The word dal is used to mean raw legumes, as well as the cooked dish. All lentils have a fairly similar taste, but some are slightly earthier or sweeter than others. They also have varying textures.
Although you don’t need to stock a huge variety if you’re not eating lentils every day, you may want to vary what you buy so that you can pick your favorite ones. I choose mine based on how long they’ll take to cook, so bear in mind that the smaller the lentil, the faster it will cook, especially if it’s had the skin removed. If you want to swap, try like for like sizes to keep textures and cooking times similar.
Indian packaging companies are notorious for calling pulses and legumes by various names;