An Invitation to Indian Cooking - Madhur Jaffrey [64]
Corn, in India, is available only during the late summer months. The fresh cobs, peeled and roasted, are sold on street corners, rather like chestnuts. The corn seller carries a portable hibachi-type charcoal stove on which he roasts his corn, and he sells it sprinkled with salt, red pepper, black pepper, and lime juice. I have tried roasting the hybrid “sweet corn” available in most American stores, but it is too tender, and very often it just shrivels up. The only times I have been successful have been with what most Americans would call the “tougher” ears of corn. If you ever do manage to find some “tougher” ears which won’t “melt in your mouth,” peel them and roast them over charcoal. They can be superb. And don’t, for heaven’s sake, put butter on them. Eat them either plain or sprinkled with salt, freshly ground pepper, and a little lime or lemon juice.
Fresh okra is not always easy to find, and when it it available be sure to buy it as you would green beens. Pick a pod up and snap it, and if it is young and crisp, you buy. Otherwise, walk on. If you are lucky enough to find good fresh okra, you can slit and stuff the pods with fried onions and spices; you can slice them very fine, deep-fry them until they are crunchy and serve them with an omelet; you can also slice them and cook them with onions, garlic, ginger, and tomatoes.
Potatoes are a popular staple throughout North India. Not only are they cooked in combination with meats, other vegetables, rice, and dals, but they are also cooked with every imaginable permutation of spices. A young child may want his potatoes boiled and then fried with cumin seeds; at a picnic one might have “dry” potatoes cooked with red peppers, fenugreek, fennel, cumin, and mustard seeds; at a banquet one might be served potatoes cooked with yogurt and the garam maslas, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, bay leaves, etc.; and of course, there is my favorite, potatoes cooked with asafetida and cumin, a “wet” dish best enjoyed with pooris.
A vegetable that was once basically ignored in America and that is now evoking the first stirrings of interest, is the eggplant. Still, it seems confined to the occasional parmigiana, moussaka, or ratatouille. It deserves better. Stuffed, baked, and covered with sauce, it makes a glorious main course. Its roasted pulp, when mixed with yogurt and fresh mint, makes a refreshing summer “salad.” Deep-fried in slices and smothered in one of many sour chutneys, it can serve as an appetizer or an accompanying vegetable dish.
I can’t really begin to list all the Indian vegetables and fruit. We have a “pickling” carrot that is dark red, like a beet; during late winter, Indians buy green chickpeas, or chholas, which can be cooked or eaten raw; our sweet potato has the consistency of a crumbly Idaho baking potato; we eat lotus stems and water chestnuts; we have jamuns and falsas and bair and kaseru and parval—fruits and vegetables which don’t even have any English names. And this list could go on and on.
The recipes in this chapter are mostly for vegetables that can be found in supermarkets—beans, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, eggplant, peas, potatoes, etc. I do have some recipes for okra which should be cooked only when fresh pods are available.
Green beans with onion paste
SERVES 4–6
Green beans can be cooked in many ways. In India we tend to overcook them—at least according to the best Chinese and French standards. But as