Curry began in South Asia, but not as a dish. If you’re thinking of curry as a generic, go-to dish across this entire region you’re partly right. Curry is a signature element in desi (native to South Asia) cuisine, but what you may not know is that curry is not a specific dish as such, but rather a process, a way of cooking.It’s a real pity that curry got stuck as the name of a dish and representative of an entire cuisine, (to come: Colonial Curry: It’s a Verb not a Noun), but the good news is that once you figure out that curry is a process, you’re going to find this way of cooking not only very exciting, but pretty easy as well. And yes, if you come across words you’ve never heard before, don’t feel discouraged because it’s very easy to become familiar with South Asian cooking terms. Just take a look at Words You (May) Need to Know where I’ve listed many new words and terms. Write to me if you want to know more! Okay, let’s start with the basics.
INGREDIENTS:
Remember, the cut of your ingredient matters. I like bone-in chicken, beef, lamb or goat, cut into what most South Asian butchers know as “curry pieces”. But you can work with mainstream Canadian cuts, meat only or a combination of boneless and bone-in. For fish, it’s best to use fish steak, not fillet. Prawn, shrimp, and other seafood are unbelievably easy to curry, as are most vegetables. A saalan or curry emerges when a main ingredient is flavoured with spices, blended with condiments and/or other ingredients such as vegetables, and cooked in a special way in oil, butter or ghee till the ingredients are tender, the spices have released their flavours, and the dish is embraced in a sauce. Some curries are wet, which means they have a distinct sauce; others are served dry, with the sauce reduced; some have a runny, thin sauce; and many are in-between. Or, if you like to add a grain, you can start by making a curry, but end up with a pulao or biryani, or even a thick, chunky broth called haleem.
Not all South Asian dishes are curries or saalan, by which I mean that they don’t have to have a sauce; but they are all “dressed” in a certain fashion, as the Greek traveller Megasthenes wrote when he pitched up in India around 300 BCE. So the next step is to get a sense of how to dress your ingredients.
PROCESS:
Curry cooking is a mix of various types of cooking, and it includes stir-frying, sautéing, browning, tempering and simmering, usually on a cooktop or hob. I like to roast and grill in the oven as well. The main aim of curry cooking is to make a base sauce, usually with onions, spices and condiments, and cook the main ingredient(s) in this sauce in such a way as to bring out the best flavours, while also reducing the sauce, and fully cooking the protein or main ingredient(s). That’s the gist of it. I explain the process below in more detail. Before you start cooking, however, it is good to gather together a cooking pot that’s shallow, like a Dutch Oven or Rondeau, and a skillet that is not so shallow. A Wok works beautifully for Karahi dishes and for bhaaji, but not for all kinds of curry. You also need several other ingredients including, you guessed it, your spices.
SPICES, AHHH.
I am so excited I can hardly write. The one element that makes South Asian food stand apart — and in my unabashedly biased view, head and shoulders above — other cuisines, is the variety of spices we use, and the different ways in which we use them: whole, chopped, sliced, ground, crushed, roasted, fried, diced, made into a paste….I’m sure there are other ways that I can’t remember! I’ve done a list of spices below that I suggest you get to start off – I will post a second list later for those who want to explore the whole gamut of South Asian cooking. Many of the spices listed below are available at regular grocery stores; others at specialty stores. And you may have quite a few of them already in your kitchen!
PANTRY LIST : SPICES AND INGREDIENTS
- Turmeric powder (haldi)
- Red Chilly (Chili) powder (mirch)
- Cumin whole (zeera)
- Royal Cumin (Shahi Zeera) available at most South Asian grocers; longer seeds, smoky flavour
- Cumin powder (zeera)
- Coriander powder (dhania)
- Clove, whole (laung)
- Cinnamon (daalchini)
- Green cardamom (choti elaichi)
- Black pepper, whole (kaali mirch)
- Red Chillies (Chilis), whole dried (sukhi mirch)
- Bay leaves (tej patta)
- Cooking oil: I recommend Canola Oil but corn or other vegetable oils work
- Ghee: I add ghee to flavour, not as a cooking medium
FRESH INGREDIENTS (some can be frozen, see below!)
- Onions: Regular cooking onions, preferably yellow
- Ginger paste and Garlic paste: Buy fresh ginger and garlic and make a paste AND YOU CAN FREEZE THE PASTE. You can grate ginger and freeze it too. When freezing garlic paste, add a dash of oil and it won’t go a funny colour. It is amazing. Or buy store made paste and freeze that if you like. You need a fair amount so I wouldn’t recommend the kind of paste you get in a tube –doesn’t work with South Asian food. Either way, you don’t need to get this fresh every time!
- Kaffir lime leaves: Buy fresh and store in freezer for up to 6 months
- Curry leaves, (curry patta): Buy fresh and store in freezer for up to 6 months
- Lime: Wedges, served with the meal, a Bangladeshi favourite.
- Green or red fresh chillies (chilies): Whole, as a garnish or served fresh on the table to bite into!
OTHER STUFF (but not essential)
- A cooking pot that is wide and more shallow than a standard stock pot. I strongly suggest you go in for a Dutch Oven or Rondeau because the process of “currying” includes aerating the spices and letting the steam add to their flavour. But if you don’t have the ideal pot, don’t worry. A regular pot that you have already will do as well.
- A wok, or a karahi, a South Asian wok, but a pot will do if you don’t have a wok.
- A skillet that is somewhat deep, if possible.
- Griddle or tawa — optional.
- A sieve to drain rice.
- Blender/food processor; and emulsion mixer -optional.
- Mandolin to slice onions: strongly recommend.
THREE STEPS TO MAKING A GREAT CURRY
So how do you make a saalan or curry? The trick is to learn the process of “currying.” Once you nail that, you will also begin to get a hang of the similarities in South Asian cooking techniques and also, how they are different.
STEP ONE: Make the sauce. You need a pot that is shallow, like a Dutch Oven or Rondeau, (I don’t recommend a wok for the entire process of making a curry), hot oil, and evenly and finely sliced onions. The key is how you slice your onions. I have recently started using a mandolin to get them evenly thin. Fry the onions in a consistent heat, preferably medium, stirring gently. The depth and colour of these onions will vary –some recipes call for a light golden tone, others for deeper brown.When your onions have reached the required colour and consistency, reduce the heat and add a liquid to the mix. This can be ground onion, plain whipped yoghurt, or just hot water. Stir and cook until the onions soften, then add your spices, and other ingredients.
STEP TWO: This is the act of currying. In Bangla the word for this step is kaushano which means to reduce; in Urdu and Hindi it is to brown or bhoo-no, or bhoon-na; in my Dhaka dialect it is kassna which means to reduce. (Madhur Jaffery’s Ultimate Curry Bible has a lovely description of this stage of cooking on p. 38). Basically, what you are doing is cooking/reducing/browning spices, often diluted with water or yoghurt, till they change in flavour, texture and pungency, adding fish, chicken, meat or vegetables either right at the start, or in due course. I once spent a few days in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with Madhur Jaffery, and one of the remarks she made was that cooking Indian food was “like a chemistry experiment.” You have to watch the ingredients as they cook and adjust the temperature as the experiment proceeds, adding liquids, stirring, cooking – until this stage is complete. In other words, you can’t leave your curry on the hob and trot off to do something else. When the sauce glistens and the oil separates, you add the protein or vegetables and bhoono some more, depending on the recipe.
STEP THREE: Dum or simmer. Dum literally means “breath.” This is a very distinct part of most South Asian cooking, to let the dish simmer, covered and on very low heat for some time. The juices merge and mingle in the pot and the protein becomes tender. Fish curries don’t need to simmer for long, nor does chicken. I usually place the pot on a tawa or circular griddle to get an even, low heat. When the dum time is done, you usually add the garnish, if called for in the recipe, and turn off the heat. The garnish cooks in the steam of the dish and releases its own aroma. Mouth watering, truly.
Once you have these steps nailed, you are equipped to tackle any recipe that requires currying. Remember, the degree to which you curry something will bring about a different result – a light combination of spices and heat will give you a more subtly flavoured dish, while one with sharper spices and more heat will result in a deeply layered, spicy main course.
And finally, Andaaz (Intuitive Estimate)
Andaaz is a lovely word. I want to share it with you. It is an Urdu word that has a functional, practical meaning, which is to estimate or assess. To have andaaz is to be able to measure or evaluate a thing, to discern. But andaaz also has a more elegant, almost intangible meaning. When a person has a particular andaaz it means that the person has a certain style, grace, elegance or bearing that is distinctive and special. Andaaz may describe the way a musician renders a beat or a singer sings a song. Or a cook creates a dish.
Andaaz is somewhat like a cook’s intuitive sense, telling her or him how or when to do what. You see with your eyes and you smell with your nose and you hear with your ears. But when you use all these senses, and others that have no name, you have andaaz. Here’s wishing all those who follow my blog the best of andaaz on their culinary journey!
PHOTO CREDIT
Photo by Gagan Kaur: pexels
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