Indian Cooking For Dummies. Monisha Bharadwaj
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Potatoes
Although potatoes were introduced to India relatively recently, in the early 17th century (remember that India’s culinary history goes back thousands of years), they’re a much-loved ingredient in the Indian kitchen. Potatoes are added to curries to make them go further, cooked with spices to be eaten with Indian breads, battered and fried as snacks, and mashed to make spiced cakes.
I often get asked whether to use waxy or floury/starchy potatoes in curries. The good news is that it’s not always that important. Potatoes don’t need to hold their shape in all curries and some actually taste better when the potatoes crumble and add thickness to the sauce.
Floury: These are high in starch and have less moisture than the other kinds, which causes them to lose their shape easily. Stirring them constantly while cooking breaks them up and releases the starch, resulting in a gloopy curry. This is fine in some dishes that have potato as a main ingredient, such as the breakfast Batata Bhaji (Spiced Yellow Potatoes; see Chapter 17). They’re best used in recipes that need mashed potatoes such as Vegetable Samosas (Vegetable and Pastry Parcels; see Chapter 18). Examples of starchy potatoes include russet and red potatoes.
Waxy: On the opposite end of the spectrum are potatoes with a higher moisture content and lower starch content. These potatoes hold their shape better when cooked, and they taste buttery. They’re great in curries where they share the stage with other ingredients such as Aloo Gobi (North Indian Potatoes with Cauliflower; see Chapter 13) and for boiling. Varieties include new or baby potatoes and red fingerlings.
All-rounders: These fall somewhere in between the other two in terms of their starch and moisture content. They do all jobs well, so if you don’t want to buy a variety of potatoes, a bag of all-purpose white or yellow potatoes will be perfect for all your Indian recipes. Some cooks deliberately crush a few of the potatoes after they’re cooked to add to curry sauce to thicken it up.
Mangoes
The concept of eating seasonally is still very popular in India. Farmers markets in the winter are filled with dark orange carrots and gleaming white cauliflowers. But it’s the summer markets that excite me the most. Every year, around April (start of the summer in India), all of a sudden you see stalls filled with mangoes start to pop up in these markets. These aren’t just any mangoes either — they’re the most fragrant, sweetest, firmly fleshed mangoes in the world. The mighty Alphonso mango is arguably India’s best loved variety, and shoppers are willing to pay any price for those first few boxes. The price never really comes down because the season is short and demand is high. It’s no wonder that the mango is the national fruit of India. Alphonso mangoes are grown in a small region of India in the western state of Maharashtra. Other mangoes, such as the not nearly as good Kesar mango from Gujarat, start to appear a few weeks later.
Then as suddenly as they appeared, the Alphonso and Kesar disappear with the first rains of the monsoon season in June. It’s astonishing to me that the end of the season is so final — you see them in the market one day and they’re gone the next.
Then arrive the monsoon varieties, which are also delicious but don’t seem to have the glamour of the Alphonso. These varieties also quietly leave the market as the monsoons fade away in September.
You’ll find fresh Alphonso mangoes in some Indian stores during the season, although I’ve heard that each year availability could be affected due to import bans. Happily, there is an alternative: Cans of Alphonso and Kesar mango puree are available year-round, so you can easily whip it into ice creams and drinks like smoothies and Aam ki Lassi (Mango and Yogurt Drink; see Chapter 21). You may find cans of sliced Alphonso mangoes in syrup, but I find them too soggy for my liking.
Shopping for Meat and Poultry
When buying meat and poultry for an Indian recipe, you’ll want to manage your time by buying cuts that cook quickly but without going tough or by using the right cookware such as a pressure cooker or Instant Pot (see Chapter 3).
Chapter 5 tells you which cuts of meat and poultry are best for Indian curries. Red meat often means lamb or goat in a country where beef is not popular due to religious reasons. However, it’s certainly okay to replace lamb with beef if you prefer. The cooking times may change depending on the cut you use.
Lamb and beef: The most common way these will be put to use in an Indian kitchen is in a curry. The relatively long cooking time could toughen the meat, so I look for some marbling of fat that will keep the meat moist and tender. Lamb shoulder or chuck steak both have a good proportion of lean meat and collagen without a great deal of external fat. Because both these meats can take a bit of time to soften, I cube them into smaller ¾-inch pieces.The more tender cuts such as sirloin and lamb chops are used for “drier” cooking methods such as pan-frying and grilling when making kebabs.When buying meat, make sure it’s bright red and not brown or gray, which may mean that it’s getting to its use by date.
Chicken: The quality of the meat varies from one commercial producer to another, so you’ll need to try out a few before you decide on a favorite. I look for texture and size, because I don’t want the meat to toughen when I cook, especially in dry-cooking recipes like kebabs and tikkas.The cut is a matter of preference. Some people like boneless chicken breast; others enjoy thighs on the bone. Generally speaking, Indian curries benefit from having some bone because it adds to the flavor of the sauce.You won’t see skin-on chicken in curries because it can slip off during the cooking. If you’ve bought skin-on chicken, hold the skin with some paper towel and rip it off. The paper towel will give you a better grip.To prevent salmonella poisoning, wash your hands and all surfaces with hot soapy water after preparing raw poultry. Food safety organizations recommend that raw chicken not be washed at all. Use a separate cutting board, and never place a cooked food on a surface that had raw chicken on it.
To store it in the fridge, wrap your meat or poultry and put it in the fridge as soon as you get home from the store. For a whole chicken, save time later by cutting it up into curry cut (see Chapter 5) before refrigerating it.
To freeze it, put it into freezer bags, pushing out as much air as possible before you seal them. (If you’ve bought in bulk, divide it up into smaller portions before freezing.) Label each bag with the date and what the bag contains. (Frozen poultry can be deceptive — you may inadvertently thaw chicken thighs when what you really need is chicken breast.)
Defrost meat or chicken in the fridge or microwave (on low). Make sure to put a tray in the fridge under the defrosting chicken to collect and discard any dripping juices. Never defrost your chicken at room temperature on the kitchen counter. Cook your meat or poultry as soon as it has thawed.