An Invitation to Indian Cooking - Madhur Jaffrey [5]
There is another slight misconception even among knowledgeable Americans, which is that most Indian food is cooked in ghee, and that ghee is clarified butter. Actually, there are two kinds of ghee. The usli ghee, or “real ghee,” is indeed clarified butter, but if you consider India as a whole, it is very rarely used. In a nation where milk and butter are luxuries, cooking in usli ghee for the masses is unthinkable. Most people keep a small jar of ousli ghee in their kitchen and use it occasionally on chapatis or dal, for cooking special dishes, or for religious and medicinal purposes. (I remember when at the age of twelve I had my ears pierced, for a month my mother applied hot fomentations of usli ghee and turmeric to my tortured earlobes!) In the western state of Punjab, however, usli ghee, butter, buttermilk, and milk are used much more frequently. The Punjabis, a tall, strong people, tend to believe that their enterprising spirit and immense energy come from the meat, corn bread, mustard greens, and dairy products they consume, and in some households it is quite common to give each child a daily spoonful of usli ghee pretty much in the same way that American parents pop vitamin pills into their children’s mouths.
The other ghee, the one that is more commonly used, is made up of various vegetable oils and is what is called vegetable shortening in America. It is sold under various brand names—Dalda and Rath being the most popular—and can be purchased in large cans. In my own family we always used this vegetable ghee because my father insisted that usli ghee was too rich for a daily diet.
The cooking medium that is used almost as frequently as vegetable ghee is oil. It is cheap and excellent for deep frying. Also, different states show their individuality by using local oils—coconut oil in Kerala, mustard oil in Bengal, and peanut or sesame oil in various parts of North India.
In the last few years India, like most other nations, has become increasingly aware of the possible harm that can be caused by saturated fats. Both Dalda and Rath are said to contain saturated oils and are therefore being rejected in favor of peanut oil, mustard oil, and other unsaturated oil mixtures. For this reason, I have used vegetable oil as the cooking medium in most of my recipes. You can use peanut oil or any other unsaturated oil mixture that you prefer. If, however, you wish to use usli ghee, directions for making it can be found on this page.
Newborn Indian infants do not, of course, start off life on spicy foods (I have been asked this question several times). They thrive on mother’s milk, like most other infants. I do remember one particular custom in our family, however. As soon as an infant was born, whether at home or in the hospital, my grandmother would come and write the sacred syllable “OM” (I am) on its tongue, with a finger dipped in honey. Children develop the taste and desire for spicy foods rather slowly. Our standard excuse, as six-year-olds, when we didn’t want to eat was that the cook had put some red pepper in our food by mistake. If my mother was the only one presiding at the table, we would generally get away with it, but sometimes my father would arrive and insist on tasting the food and then our ruse was discovered. At the age of six, I loved to put sugar on my bread, but by nine I had graduated to a thick layer of hot mango pickle.
Children in America are always being told not to eat too much candy. We were always being told not to eat too many sour things like tamarinds, raw mangoes, and aam papar (aam papar is made with sour mangoes,