An Invitation to Indian Cooking - Madhur Jaffrey [10]
In Madras, it is customary to eat on the floor, out of a banana leaf, which serves as a plate. A mountain of rice is piled on the leaf, and a visitor unaccustomed to the southern ways begins to wonder how he can ever find room for all that rice. The host’s deft hands quickly make a craterlike hole in the mountain top, and into this is poured the highly spiced hot sambar (yellow lentils, cooked with asafetida, fenugreek, coriander, cumin, turmeric, chilies, mustard seed, and tamarind, to which have been added sliced vegetables such as tomatoes, onions, and eggplant). This is eaten with great relish, the entire palm of the right hand, from fingertips to wrist, being used to transport the food from leaf to mouth. The Northerners tend to look down on the Southerners for what they consider to be rather messy eating habits. In the North, the finicky pale when they see anyone soiling more than the top section of his fingers with food. I remember being scolded by my mother for letting the food slip from fingertip to midfinger. Whenever that happened, she would say, “Chhi, chhi, chhi” (dirty, dirty, dirty) and make me wash my hand. Whether we soil the digital end or the whole palm, one thing at least is generally true of all Indians: we like to eat with our hands. For this reason we have strict rules about washing hands and mouths before and after meals. This rule is followed meticulously by the poorest villager and the richest urbanite.
Some day, I hope, books will be written about all of India’s cuisines—Gujarati food, Malayali food, Assamese food, Punjabi food, Maharashtrian food, Sindhi food, Bengali food, Goan food, Kashmiri food, Hyderabadi food, to name just a few. But until that happens, my book can introduce you to the smells and tastes which I grew up with as a child in Delhi and which I have struggled over the years to re-create in my American kitchen. These dishes, some traditional and some adapted to the produce in American supermarkets, you can now cook in your own homes instead of having to rely on second-rate eating places or the mercy of Indian acquaintances.
Two words of advice
Avoid using aluminum pans when cooking with any ingredients that have acidity.
If you aren’t familiar with Indian cooking, it is wise to grind, measure, and set out all your ingredients before starting the cooking because so often parts of a recipe require that you work without interruption.
Sample menus
Kheema with fried onions
Green beans with onion paste
Moong dal
Rice with potatoes and cumin seeds
Yogurt with spinach
Chopped onions in vinegar
Gulab jamun • Fruit
Koftas (Indian meatballs)
Potatoes with asafetida and cumin
Rice with peas and whole spices or Parathas
Chana masaledar
Yogurt with tiny dumplings (boondi-ka-dahi)
Cucumber and tomato with lemon juice
Kheer • Fruit
Chicken cutlets
Sookhe aloo (“dry” potatoes)
Green beans with ginger
Rice with cauliflower and cumin seeds
Gulab jamun • Fruit
Chicken with tomato sauce and butter
Whole pea pods with cumin
Maya’s potatoes
Chapati or Plain boiled rice
Cucumber raita
Malpua • Fruit
Shrimp with dill and ginger
Crisp fried okra
Rice with spinach cooked in aromatic broth
Yogurt with potatoes
Tamarind chutney with bananas
Kheer • Fruit
“Butterflied” leg of lamb, marinated and. barbecued
Green beans with onion paste
Rice with spinach
Cucumber and tomato with lemon juice
Kheer • Fruit
Pullao (rice with lamb)
Shrimp with peas and parsley
Cauliflower with ginger and Chinese parsley
Eggplant bharta (smoked eggplant)
Yogurt with potatoes
Chopped onions in vinegar
Kheer • Fruit
Tandoori chicken
Rice with cauliflower and cumin seeds
Naan
Whole unhulled urad and rajma dal
Onions pickled in vinegar
Cucumber and tomato with lemon juice
Kulfi • Fruit
Sea bass in green chutney
Cauliflower