Curry India: thoughts about the curry before our South India Food Tour 2025
Before we fly, having an introduction to what makes a curry seems sensible. The tastes on a plate. The concept of Ayurveda. Spice. What makes a satisfactory meal that appeals to all our senses. We are heading to two states of Southern India: Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Each has its own culinary flavour, each its own terroir. Climate, geography, geology and history all influence what we will see and eat. A little context makes sense.
I have been reading some excellent writers on the subject and have borrowed heavily from these. I’m opening with Camellia Panjabi for a general curry background, going into more detail on thickening and souring agents, colour, the role spices play, garam masala, fresh herbs, the basics of making a curry. Camellia Punjabi shares her hints and tips, and then I lean on Pushpendra Pant for his thoughts on Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Heads up - this is a long blog.
Culinary India by Camellia Panjabi
This is a wonderful introduction to food in India. The interesting sections we might enjoy are reproduced for you here faithfully as she has written so brilliantly on the subject.
“At different points in its history, India was influenced by many foreign cuisines as the result of invasions and rule by invaders. Another major influence on Indian cuisine, apart from these cultures in India, has been the ancient Hindu treatise on health, the Ayurveda, as well of course the countless other tradtions that an ancient civilisation develops over the centuries. As Indians now relocate from one part of the courtry to another, and restaurateurs set up establishments in regions of India other than their own, cross fertilisation between the sub cuisines of India is taking place. Enterprising Punjabi restaurant owners have taken Tandona chicken, naan, butter chicken, chole and tarka dal throughout India and abroad, and Punjabi cooking has begun to influence homestyle cooking all over India. The caterers of Udipi (a village near Mangalore) have given all India and many parts of the globe a taste of idli, dosa and Madras coffee.
But many local Indian culinary practices are stil little-known outside their regions. Political boundaries were drawn within the sub-continent after independence in 1947 and, today, although one may refer to the outline of a political state within India (based largely on language), the culinary boundaries do not necessarily coincide with the political ones.
As with all cuisines, the regional produce forms the base. The Malabar coast of Kerala, with its profusion of pepper and garam masala spices, uses these liberally in cooking, and most, though not all, Keralan food is hot. When it is not so, the restraining hand of Brahminusm has come into play, as spicy food is said to activate sensuality and consequently inhibit clear and high thinking. So the food of the Namboodri Brahmins is mild.
Thus, the influence of religion and caste is also important. Within Hinduism there are two main streams: the Vaishnavites and Shaivaites - the followers of the gods Vishnu and Shiva. While the Brahmins in both communties are largely vegetarian, there is a larger incidence of vegetarianism among the Vaishnavites. Other relgions, Ike Jainism, which was a reformation movement among some Hindus, advocate a strict code of vegetaranism.
Geography itself has a part to play. Along some coastal regions of India, notably Bengal and in Maharashtra among the Saraswat Brahmins, fish is eaten by Brahmins without losing caste. Climate, income levels, traditions and beliefs all influence cuisine. So do the preferences of the palate which differ between communities. The food of the people of Nellore and Telangana (in Andhra), Chettinad (in Tamil Nadu) and the Syrian Christians (of Kerala) is fiery-hot. That of West Bengal is mild and sweet, while in East Bengal - now Bangladesh - it is much hotter, though the dishes in both Bengali cuisines are the same. The food of Gujarat is mildly spiced and sweetish - the people use jaggery in their cooking, even in savoury dishes - while in nearby Rajasthan, with its arid landscape, the food is more pronouncedly spicy.
As far as curries are concerned, the rice-growing regions of India have a large number of curries with thinner gravies meant for eating with rice, while curries in the wheat belts of India have thicker gravies well-suited to eating with rotis and parathas. In this book an attempt has been made to give a glimpse of most, though not all, the cuisines of India, outlining their distinguishable differences. I hope you will be tempted to delve further.
The philosophy of Indian cuisine
When I mentioned that I (Camellia Punjabi) was writing an Indian cookbook to the famous chef and cookery writer Anton Mosiman, he said, "Do write about the philosophy of Indian cuisine. It is so difficult to cook something well without first understanding what the philosophy of the cuisine is”. Of course, he is right. But trying to explain the philosoptry of an ancient and complex cuisine in simple terms is no easy task, becaue one cannot describe the significance of one set of factors without outlining how it connects to others. So I will try to identify the various elements that underlie the system of beliefs on which the philosophy of Indian cuisine is based.
India is of course a subcontinent, equal in size to Westem Europe, but without a single common language. [Other than the lingua Franca of English but this might be a sensitive political point so I raise it gently. AW]. It has about two and a half times the number of people, several language scripts and many more religions. So it is not easy to label under a single heading. One has to allow for differences in climate and availability of produce, and vast differences in income among the people, as well as different religions, customs, traditions and beliefs.
The strongest influence on Indian cuisine, or at least among 80 per percent of Indians - the Hindus - is Ayurveda, an ancient body of knowledge on health. Ayuris derived from the word ayus meaning span of life in Sanskrit, and veda means knowledge. Thus Ayurveda is the knowledge concerning the maintenance of long life. Its origins are in the Atharvaveda, the contents of which date from around 1000BC.
Then in 200ABC a medical treatise called Charaka Samhita was written in Sanskrit by a sage called Charaka, who re-edited Agnivesa, a text written earlier, outlining the science of prolonging life without illness. Samhita means compilation. It deals with the origin of medical science, a detailed classification of diseases, all food and drink substances and details of lines of treatment, the use of drugs, diet and practices for achieving good health. In all, there are 150 chapters on specific topics.
Numerous other texts were composed through the centuries, and the Ayurvedic tradition continued as a vigorous and expanding scientific tradition up to the sixteenth century. Ayurvedic texts were translated into Greek by Cridos (300BC), Tibetan and Chinese (AD300), Persian (AD700) and Arabic (AD800).
Ayurveda is not confined to medicine only: it covers the whole subject of life in its various ramifications. It discusses the purpose of life, the importance of mental as well as physical health, and a code of ethical conduct for healthy living. The aim is salvation - to keep the body as well as possible and to give life such quality that one can progress beyond it. Life is a combination of the mind, body and soul, and this is in fact the central subject of Ayurveda.
“He alone can remain healthy, who regulates his diet, exercise and recreation, controls his sensual pleasures who is generous, just, truthful and forgiving, and who gets along well with his relatives” (ie: enjoys a happy family life, in an extended sense).
It is amazing that all these observations were made thousands of years age while it is only in recent times that scientists and thinkers have observed that a lot of diseases emanate from bottled-up emotions, grief and negative thoughts.
Ayurveda understands the properties and actions of food differently from Western science. The bio-chemistry of an edible product is not everything. For example, vegetable oil and dairy fat, such as ghee from cow's milk, are not seen merely as fats, but also in terms of their effects on the body, which are supposedly very different.
Ghee is cooling, while oil heats the body. Another special quality of ghee is that it assimilates the good properties of the foods it is mixed with and adds them to its own, without losing any of its own properties, while oil undergoes a transformation when it assimilates the properties of other food.
According to Ayurveda, the human body is composed of seven body elements or tissue layers. These are plasma (sometimes called the 'skin), blood, muscle, fat, bone, nerves and marrow and reproductive secretions. And there are innumerable channels that supply the various tissue constituents. Good health means proper flow through these channels and an equilibrium in the proportions of the seven body elements.
Also, there are three primary life-forces in the body, or three biological humours. The Ayurvedic term for humour is dosha, that which causes things to decay. The humours correspond primarily to the elements of air, fire and water, and in Sanskrit are called vata, pitta and kapha. Vata, translated as wind, means that which moves - for example, breathing, and beating of the heart; pitta is fire, dosha translates as bile, that which digests things, including mental digestion, or the ability to comprehend reality; and kapha as phlegm, that which holds things together.
Ayurveda believes that when the humours are out of balance and aggravated, they manifest symptoms and give rise to various diseases. The excess humours move into the body's channels, causing improprieties in their flow. Diseases should first be treated with food, and medication only later if required. The treatments using foods are based on the six tastes (rasa in Sanskrit) - sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent. Each taste has its specific therapeutic actions. The tastes increase or decrease the biological humours, as the case may be. Everyone needs a certain amount of each of the six tastes, and relative proportions differ according to the constitutional or humour type of the particular individual. Too much of any one taste is harmful to any constitutional type.
The sweet taste gives strength to the tissue elements, is good for nourishment, and harmonises the mind. Sweet-tasting products are not only those which taste sugary, but include rice, ghee and fruits. Sweet food is heavy on digestion, however.
The sour taste stimulates the digestive fire and enzymes and sour-tasting food, for example lime and tamarind, are easy on digestion and good for the heart. (It is only relatively recently that modern dietetics has decreed that vitamin C is good for the heart, and vitamin C is found in all sour foods). By sour the Ayurveda means food that is naturally so, not man-made sour items such as vinegar.
Purgent tastes, as in onion, pepper and garlic, help digestion, improve metabolism and dilate channels in the body. Foods with bitter taste eliminate bacterial elements, purify the blood and are light on digestion. Examples include bitter gourd, fenugreek seeds and lemon rind. Substances that have a predominance of astingent taste, such as betelnut leaf, most green vegetables and foods containing tannin like tea, possess the propertes to heal ulcers and wounds. They dry up moisture and fat in the body and act as water-absorbents.
A lack of any of the six tastes in the food will also aggravate the relevant humours. So now one can appreciate the raison d'être of the complexity of the Indian meal, which includes a spicy-sour taste mix, a yogurt-based item, a dash of a hot and bitter pickle (often lime with the bitter rind), and a sweet. The traditional Indian thali meal (served in several small bowls on a large silver tray) has been devised to contain these complex requirements in a way that can be replicated every day.
Ayurveda characterises food and drugs in three ways:
1 Firstly, by its tastes (called rasa in Sanskrit), which, as explained above, act on different humours.
2 Secondly, by the potency (veerya) of the action it has on the body. All food items can be classified as either cold or hot.
3 The third categorisation is by way of special action on the body (prabhava). For example, two food or drug items may be similar in relation to their taste and potency, but differ in their special action: for example, figs and dates are sweet and heating, but figs have purgative qualities.
Equally, all human beings can be classified into three mental types. A person is made up not only of physical or bio-chemical elements, but also of non-apparent constituents. These constituents decide the responses to stimuli that are received by the individual. These differences are governed by the qualities of Satva, Rajas and Tamas. Satva means pure and therefore a person who has dominant Satvic traits will be a thinker on a higher plane, will have more curiosity, strive hard for real knowledge and will try to win in competitive situations by adoption of fair means. A person who is Rajsic will be basically a doer, industrious and domineering, who will use almost any means to succeed. A Tamasic person will not even have a desire to learn or to put in effort and lacks the intellectual capacity to encompass the gravities of a situation.
Different types of food can contibute to a Satva, Rajas or Tamas influence. Food that is easily digestible, fresh and ripe, can be cooked by a simple and quick process (though not in a microwave oven) and taken in moderate quantity contributes to the strengthening of Satvic forces. The person consuming such food is alert, quick-thinking and in harmony with nature. He is stimulated by or quick to grasp even the slightest stimuli.
Highly spicy food, food produced by suppressive means (such as battery-produced eggs) or the meat of slaughtered animals is Rajas-dominant. The person who consumes such food loses the capacity to distinguish the more subtle stimuli and as time goes on requires stronger ones to reach a good level of deep understanding.
Food that has a preponderance of oily and spicy ingredients and food that is overcooked, stale and undean, is liked by people in the state of Tamas or ignorance. All junk food would be included in this category, because it is prepared long before being eaten.
A practitioner of Ayurveda, when prescribing a diet for a person, would take into consideration his disposition, body type (which humour dominates his constitution), the season (because the humours behave differently in different seasons and food has to be adjusted for their heating and cooling properties) and particular state of health. He would tend to advise eating foods that grow in the region in that season. That is nature's way of balancing the requirements of the body.
The Ayurvedic texts also describe the methods of food preparation and consumption. Food should be prepared with love and good feeling. Hence even in affluent homes, in spite of having domestic help, many housewives cook for the family, though the help will prepare the food.
Food should be consumed in relative quietude, quite contrary to the Western emphasis on conviviality and conversation. Surprisingly, alcohol is not forbidden by Ayurveda. On the contrary, the Charaka Samhita lists eighty-four types of alcoholic preparation and claims that they strengthen the mind, body and the power of digestion, and help in overcoming sleeplessness and grief. Practical observations indeed, and remarkably relevant today, considering when they were witten!
Similarly, meat or fish is not expressly discouraged. In fact, the Charaka Samhita includes goat, chicken, antelope and turtle in those meats that are particularly good for health. However 'we are what we eat' (Upanishads). Flesh has the force of violence in it, and the negative emotions of fear and hatred as part of it. It has therefore no place in a Satvic diet.
Generally, Ayurvedic teachings exhort people to follow a pure lifestyle, one that gives clarity and peace of mind Physical purity involves a wholesome diet with emphasis on raw or freshly cooked vegetarian food, pure air and water, proper exercise of a calming nature (yoga) and physical cleanliness. Purity of mind involves non-violence, friendliness and compassion and a means of earning a living that does not bring harm to others and provides a service to humanity.
Why an Indian meal?
The world's eating preferences are becoming unified. First, it was the high-protein diet that won a following then the white meat variation of the protein-dominated diet took over. Now the world is moving towards the Mediterranean diet, dominated by carbohydrates and flavoured with olive oil, tomatoes and basil. Thai cuisine, with its aromatic blend of herbs, chilli, ginger and lemon flavours is becoming increasingly popular. New diets arrive daily.
Indian cuisine…is first and foremost carbohydrate-dominated, with emphasis on wheat chapatis and rice as a staple food. Everything else is in a sense accompanies curry, as we shall see, as a flavoured dish to eat with Indian bread or rice. Unlike pasta, Indian roti is a wholewheat bread, retaining the entire goodness of the grain. Traditionally it was eaten with a dab of ghee which is revered for its health-giving properties in India, but today uncooked oil is substituted. The rice that comes from the growing areas of the south is of the parboiled variety, partially boiled with the husk, then dried and milled, which retains more goodness than the polished variety.
Vegetables play a more dominant role in Indian cuisine than in perhaps any other. Usually one green and one other vegetable form part of every meal. India offers an array of vegetables unequalled anywhere in the world, and a vanety of ways to cook each one.
Protein is also present in the Indian diet, of course, but much more effort is made to use protein derived from lentils and dairy products, rather than from meat. Legumes or dals boiled with herbs and tomatoes, seasoned with spices and eaten with rice, provide the amino-acid balance that constitutes complete protein.
The composition of a meal would be about 60-90g of meat, poultry or fish, a portion of vegetables, and maybe an additional root vegetable like potato, a pulse such as lentils, and a grain (wheat or rice), 2-3 tablespoons of raita (whisked and flavoured yogurt), a little fresh herb chutney (for chlorophyl) and a cachumber of raw vegetables like onions and tomato.
The role of yogurt (which should be live) is very important because it introduces good flora into the digestive system. A vegetarian meal inclines toward being alkaline which is much better for health than an acidic one. But in India even a non-vegetarian meal is usually followed by fresh fruit which provides the alkaline balance.
As in Thai food, ginger, chili and a sour accent are also essential, as are garlic and a range of spices. Spices play an important role in keeping the intestines decongested - they have an anti-inflammatory action as in the case of turmeric, anti-bacterial, as with curry leaves; digestive functions, as with cumin and clove; and anti-flatulent propertes as with asafoetida. Certain spices have particular actions - for example, coriander seeds have diuretic properties and black pepper dries mucus. The composite effect of a combination of spices is to facilitate digestion and ensure a cleaner intestine, which is believed to be the key to good health.
In terms of use of time, Indian food has certain specific advantages. First, many items can be cooked a day in advance. The dough for bread can be made a day ahead, as can lamb, chicken or fish curry which should be kept in a refrigerator: in fact, cumes taste better the following day. Lentis (dal) can also be made a day ahead, but should be freshly seasoned. Vegetables are best prepared just before they are to be eaten, as is yogurt raita. Rice should also ideally be made fresh, though cooked rice can be eaten a day later.
What many Indian working women do nowadays is to make a fried onion, ginger, garlic, tomato and spice masala mixture (daag) and keep it in the refrigerator for up to two weeks, or longer in the freezer. Whenever they want to make a curry they heat a few spoonfuls of it with some oil, add the meat, chicken, fish or vegetables, and sauté for a few minutes, add some water and with no further effort they have a curry. Even when cooking a 'dry vegetable, they put a few spoons of the mixture in a wok, with maybe just 50ml of water, then add the vegetables and cook over a low heat. It is a simple and effective method, especially useful for working women.
Indian food is also quite economical to prepare as expensive cuts of meat are not essential, and, as explainec above, you only need small quantities of meat combined with vegetables, lentils, yogurt, rice and chapatis to make up a meal. With other additions such as chutneys, cachumbers and papadams a table for an Indian meal looks quite bountiful.
What exactly is a curry?
Curry, as the word is used today in India, simply means gravy. In the West, gravy is a liquid sauce made with juice from the meat, and thickened with flour and seasonings. Indian curry or gravy is made by cooking the meat or vegetables along with lots of ingredients including thickening agents and a combination of spices but using no flour. Western dishes most closely resembling curry are ragout, navarin and hotpot.
A lot has been written about the word curry and whether it was actually an Indian word in the first place, or invented by the English. The Tamils (the people living in the southern Indian state of which Madras is the capital) have the word kaari in their language, which has twelve vowels instead of the five in English and slightly different phonetic emphasis changes the meaning of a word. (Kaari is actually part of a longer word, Kaikaari, in the Tamil region, where caste differences are taken seriously, and these are reflected in different meanings of kaari. The Brahmins of Tamil Nadu, who are strict vegetarians, mean by kaari a vegetable dish cooked with spices and a dash of coconut. When the non-vegetarian communities of Tamil Nadu use the word kaari, it literally means meat, which they pronounce with more emphasis on the end of the word as in kaaree.
They would call a meat dish with gravy a kaaree kolambu, kolambu being gravy. The origin of the word curry seems to be a meat or vegetable dish to be eaten with rice, which is considered to be the main dish of the meal.
The English first established trading stations and factories (which in those days meant agencies) on the Cambay (west) coast of India in the early seventeenth century. But with Robert Clive's activities in Madras in the mid-eighteenth century, the English settlement there slowly grew into a thriving trading station, and much later women arrived from England and households were set up. Naturally, hiring of local cooks and servants followed. Hence certain regional dishes were borrowed and adapted - Tamil 'pepper water' was one of these, with muloga (pepper) and tani (water) making up the popular mulligatawny soup. Even today the Anglo-Indians of South India make a soup called pepper water.
Madras curry became synonymous with a hot curry: later on when people who were fond of curries returned to England, the curry powder trade was established in Madras where it continues to this day.
Cooks in English households in Madras would not have been Brahmins, who would have refused to handle non-vegetarian food. They would most probably have been from the castes who converted to Christianity, who would agree to cook meat, beef and pork. So they would certainly have referred to meat dishes to go with rice as curry.
In Northern India, particularly Punjab, khadi means a gravy dish made out of powdered gram lentil and yogurt which is often served with dumplings. Similarly, in Gujarati, the same word means a yogurt-based gravy eaten with rice. To the Sindhis curry means a lentil dish made with thur dal and gram flour, served topped with a medley of vegetables as a popular Sunday lunch dish, eaten with rice and fried potatoes. To the Bori Muslim community of Mumbai kaari is the Bori curry made with meat or chicken on a base of powdered peanuts and grams.
Curry means a dish with gravy, specially suited to combine with rice, and since it is widely believed that Indians always eat rice, does every meal include a curry?
In fact, rice is not always part of a meal except in Southern India and Bengal and for the more affluent Gujaratis for whom rice follows the poori or chapati in a thali. The rest of India would have home-made roti made of millet or wheat, and only on some occasions would rice accompany roti, which would be eaten dipped in a dal or vegetable made not too dry as an alternative to a dish with gravy or curry. Similarly, rice is most commonly eaten with lentils, which would normally be accompanied by a vegetable.
In affluent homes a dry meat or fish dish, such as a bhuna, might also be served with dal and rice, India's national dish, but this is not an everyday menu.
The important point is that it is incorrect to think of rice and curry as inseparably linked.
A housewife choosing to include a curry when composing a menu, would do so in preference to a liquidy de or a gravied yogurt (dahi khadi) to accompany rice and/or roti. The rest of the vegetables made would be dr In such a situation she would make a semi-solid dal and would also choose to make a curry rather than a dn version of the meat so as to feed more people. Curry can be stretched even further if mutton or chicken, sa is combined with vegetables like potatoes, turnips or spinach. The curry has to complement the other dishes served in terms of the quantity of gravy, colour, flavour and spice. If other dishes are brown or yellow, a greer curry such as meat with spinach would be suitable. And if the curry is going to be a brown one, it would go well with a yellow dal and a green vegetable.
In a way Indian cuisine is like classical Indian music. It has been handed down through generations without a written code. So curries, like other dishes, have always lent themselves to improvisation.
Since there are no rigid or cassic recipes for any curry dish - any number of good cooks would have a different recipe for the same dish - one really has to search for the best-tasting version of a particular dish.
[This is, of course, how Camellia Panjabi’s book came about AW].
Choosing a good recipe for a dish is a subjective matter, and means that you are free to change the recipe to suit your taste. You will not be breaking any rules in doing so.
This is the interesting point about Indian cuisine. In addition to its immense diversity, it offers a great deal of flexibility. So you are able to mix and match to suit your taste, and increase or decrease your ingredients as you prefer... just so long as you understand what each ingredient can do for you.
How to make a curry
Again, from Camellia Punjabi
The starting point in making a curry is to choose a cooking pot with a non-reactive inner surface. Most curries have a sour ingredient, so if a copper or brass pot were used it would have to have a tin lining. Stainless steel is better from the reactive point of view than aluminium or enamel but the pot should have a thick base or the spices will stick while frying. Traditionally in India, brass pots were used which were re-tinned regularly. In southern coastal India terracotta pots were and are still used, especially for making fish curries, as these have a strong sour tang. And as unglazed terracotta 'breathes' and allowe aeration, fish curry can be kept for a while without refrigeration in a hot climate. For fish you need a wide but not very deep pot so that the pieces of fish can be laid flat without overlapping. For a curry with lots of liquid a deeper pot is necessary. A flameproof casserole-type dish made of earthenware is ideal for making curries of all types, as are saucepans, particularly those with flared sides which make it easier to fry spices etc. Non-stick pots are suitable for Indian foods as onions and spices can be fried without sticking.
All curries have a main ingredient such as meat, fowl, eggs, or a single vegetable like potatoes, brinjals (aubergines), mushrooms, or a mixture of vegetables such as peas, diced carrots and french beans or potatoes and cauliflower.
Most curries start with the heating of cooking fat.
Traditionally Indians prefer to use ghee, which is clarified butter, believing it to be more nutritious and to give better flavour to, the food. Ghee does indeed give a wonderful flavour but nowadays most people use oil instead because of the cholesterol factor. In western India, groundnut oil is most popular, in parts of south India it is sesame oil, while in Kashmir and Bengal mustard oil is used; sunflower and corn oil are also becoming popular throughout the country. You can use the oil of your choice. Because spices and onions have to be fried for a while at the start of making a curry, butter is not suitable as it burns and turns brown very quickly. The amount of oil needed varies with the shape of the pan. If there is too much oil, refrigerate the curry and the oil will solidify on the surface and can be skimmed off.
Ghee can be bought ready made. If you prefer, make it by melting unsalted butter and simmering it for 45-50 minutes until the solids brown. Strain through fine muslin or cheesecloth and refrigerate. The simmering time depends on the amount of water in the butter.
In Western dishes there are normally two or three main items in a sauce. Classic sauces are either butter and flour-based, or stock and cream may be used as a base, with the addition of wine. Apart from in the classi bouquet garni, or fines herbes mixture, herbs are often used in isolation.
Curry contrasts with this in many ways. The base of the sauce, if non-vegetarian, is always stock.
Indians always use meat, chicken or fish on the bone (we love to chew on the meaty bones while eating) to give the curry a robust flavour. The cuts include a few gelatinous pieces as well, to give body. For extra flavour, the shank bone containing the marrow is used. [Butchers cut meat in different ways than in the West. Many of the cuts are small and are chopped into lots of small pieces suitable for frying. Lack of refrigeration also means your meal might have been watching you a couple of hours before being cooked. The butchery area of the bazaar is a strong reminder of where our non-veg food comes from and can be quite hard to cope with from a Western perspective where we are used to pre-dispatched meat on display. This applies to fowl rather than mutton or lamb, terms often used interchangeably. AW].
Then there is always a second base or thickening agent to give the curry the required consistency: this may be onions, coconut milk, ground seeds or nuts - all contribute to the flavour, besides giving body to the curry. Flour is not used as a thickening agent as it lacks flavour.
The same ingredients may play dual roles or different roles in different curries depending on how they are used and combined to achieve texture or consistency, taste, colour and flavour. For example, onions, if puréed or lightly fried, may act as a thickening agent in one curry, while in another, if browned by frying, may give a deep brown colour as well. Similarly, yogurt may give body to one curry, but work as a souring agent in another, especially if the recipe requires the yogurt to be a day old.
So a curry recipe will be better understood if we work out the role that each ingredient plays in the recipe. The effect of each of the spices is a little complex.
Spices are like musical notes.
All melodies (or curries) are composed of the same musical notes (or spices).
1 The choice of spices: this makes the sum total of the taste and flavours.
2 The sequence in which the spices are put into the pot is important, as is the length of time each spice is fried and allowed to release its flavour.
3 The ways the spices are used: they may be fried or simply added to the boiling mixture. This is like the tone of the note - high or low. Frying releases the flavour of the spice more strongly than plain cooking.
The sequence of use of spices is important because each spice has its own pattern of releasing flavour with heat.
With some this takes just a few seconds, others do better with being fried for a minute or more. If all the spices are added simultaneously, either some will burn or some will remain uncooked (or kacha), meaning that the flavour remains unreleased.
Spices release their flavour in the most potent form in hot oil. Once moisture has been added to the mixture to which the spices are added, the release of their flavour diminishes.
This includes the addition of ingredients like raw onions or tomatoes, as well as water or other liquid. For this reason onions are put in first, fried and their moisture reduced, before the spices. So it is important to follow the recipes exactly, with the spices in the sequence mentioned, to release flavours as they are meant to be.
For those who know a little about Indian cooking or enjoy Indian food, the importance of the word Bhutan will be appreciated. It means frying either spices alone in oil, or meat or vegetables along with the spices, stirring continuously so that the spices are in constant contact with the hot oil and base of the pan, but do not stick.
This process of stir-frying, which releases the flavour of the spices so effectively in the oil, is the heartbeat of a curry recipe. In some recipes spices may be put in at the next stage following the bhuna process, after water or ingredients containing moisture have been added. This will be done if the spices are meant to play a secondary note in the curry tune. This process also explains why Indian food in restaurants contains a lot of oil. If less oil is used in the bhuna process one has to stir constantly to avoid sticking, and this is labour-intensive. If enough oil is added to cover all the spices, three to four pots can be cooked at the same time, as the spices do not stick so easily. The second reason why restaurant chefs put a lot of oil into curry is that it helps the food to keep better without refrigeration if it is cooked in the morning to be served in the evening or the next day. [It is noteworthy to read that bunha is a process rather than a specific curry, as currently used within UK takeaway terminology. AW].
Many food writers and international chefs have mentioned to me that they find it mystifying how in Indian cuisine the same types of spices are common to almost every dish, unlike European food which has a different seasoning in each dish. Indian cuisine has a complexity of taste in its curry dishes, and a range of spices is used to create different tastes. It is the relative proportion of spices, the way they are used, as well as the balance of spices with other flavourful ingredients, that gives the final taste and flavour. For example, if a recipe contains a lot of red chilli, but is combined with coconut milk, the red-hot flavour is balanced with sweetness, and when the proportion of coconut is higher than that of chilli, the result is a delightful symphony of flavours.
Curries usually have one ingredient which imparts its particular characteristic colour and another which gives a sour tang, an important element in the complexity of flavour when combined with other ingredients.
Another important point to note at this stage is the strength of the heat. Curry was traditionally cooked over firewood or coal. Even today, the very best Indian food made by traditional cooks for important occasions will be cooked in this way in large brass or copper pots. Initially, the fire is medium-hot at the bhuna stage, but once this is done, the curry should be simmered on a very low fire, with the lid on so that the aromas do not escape.
Traditionally at the final stage a couple of live coals are put on top of the lid so that a gentle, steady heat comes from the top as well as the bottom of the pot.
Thickening agents
Many ingredients can be used in this way the most common being onions.
Onions are used finely or coarsely chopped, sliced or puréed. The proportion of onions to the min gredient of the cury is important, because this will determine whether there is a sweet element in the taste as well as the thickness of the gravy. The finer the onions are cut, the less time they have to be fried or otherwise cooked in order to blend perfectly into the gravy. Onions are also puréed before frying, or sometines cooked in their own moisture without oil to give a thicker gravy with lots of bulk. This technique is follow a more in restaurants than at home, and is called "boiled onion paste' by chefs. The longer onions are fried, to browner they will get and the deeper the colour of the curry will be. They may be deep-fried until deep bron and crispy, and then ground or blended, and added to the gravy. This gives a good flavour and consistency.
When the onions are fried only until light pink in colour, they will impart a sweetish taste to the curry. Certain varieties of onion, like Spanish onions, are too sweet to be appropriate for curry-making. The most suitable from the taste point of view are the French and the small pink English.
At the time of frying the onions, ginger and garlic are often added too. Garlic browns quicker than onions, and so it is usually added later
Yogurt
Yogurt (always known as curd in India) gives body and a creamy texture to a curry, but Indians mostly use yogurt as a 'souring' agent.
Cream (malai) and 'hung' yogurt
In certain dishes, particularly in the Ganges plain; cream or malai, as it is called in Northern India, is used It was incorporated into later Moghlai cooking under the influence of the local cuisine of the dairy-dominated region around Faizabad and Lucknow. Similarly yogurt is used in a concentrated form, after being left to hang in a muslin cloth, so that the whey drains away. In this way, the yogurt does not develop a grainy texture during cooking. [There is more on yoghurt a few paragraphs on. AW]
Using coconut
Coconut-based curries are de rigueur in the southern half of the Indian peninsula. Coconut is used in two basic ways. Either the coconut is ground (and sometimes grated and roasted before grinding) along with other spices, and the spice paste is then sautéed in oil. Or coconut milk is extracted by adding chopped or grated coconut to water, liquidising it in a blender and then straining it. In this case the spices would be sautéed first, and the coconut milk added thereafter.
The taste of fresh coconut is not easy to replicate with processed products. It is unfortunate that supermarkets have not yet got round to selling freshly grated coconut (though frozen desiccated coconut is available - sometimes its taste is on the sweeter side) or freshly ground coconut, which would be so useful not only in Indian but also in Thai and Indonesian cooking. It is easy to extract coconut milk from freshly ground coconut too, by putting it into a blender with water, or just by soaking it.
I have tried dried desiccated coconut powder instead of both ground coconut and coconut milk, and it is not very effective. An exception is Nestlé's coconut powder, which is an acceptable substitute for to although there is a variation in taste between various brands, some of which are better than others.
Using tinned cream of coconut, shredded coconut or coconut milk powder (Nestle's), or a bar of cream of coconut are other options. Frozen desiccated coconut often has a sweet flavour, depending on its origin, because in the West desiccated coconut is principally used in desserts. The flavour of fresh coconut is undoubtedly best, however. When buying a whole coconut, shake it to ensure that it has a little coconut water inside. This is a sign that the coconut is still fresh
When using a fresh coconut, break it with a hammer or crack it open on a hard floor. Keep a bowl handy to catch the coconut water inside. There is a superstition in Southern India that a coconut should not be broken after sundown, around 7 p.m. But at all auspicious events, a coconut is broken on the ground - the equivalent of cutting a ribbon to open an event in the Western world. After the coconut is broken, the flesh needs to be carefully separated from the shell with a strong round-ended knife. Then the dark brown skin has to be peeled off as it will not grind properly. Grating is preferable, but grinding will take a shorter time. An effective grinder should be able to grind the coconut, even if you have to cut it into small pieces first, provided a little water (Or, if the recipe demands, vinegar) is added.
A coconut-based curry cannot be stored for more than 8 hours outside a refrigerator without going rancid. In a refrigerator it keeps for up to 2 days. There is no problem in freezing such a curry”.
Other ingredients in a curry
Nuts and Seeds
Ground almonds, cashew nuts and peanuts are sometimes used in curries, not only for their thickening quality but also for their flavour. Almonds were probably introduced into curries in India by the Moghuls and are widely used in the genuine Moglai dishes, both of Delhi and the Ganges plain, In recent times almonds have become expensive in India, and since India is now a large-scale processor of raw cashew nuts imported from south-east Africa (Tanzania and Mozambique), cashews have begun to replace almonds fully or partially even in Moghlai dishes. There is a korma with pistachio nuts which almost certainly has Moghul origin.
Peanuts, which are grown widely in Gujarat, are used extensively in the cuisines of the people of the region and around Mumbai, as a flavour enhancer and thickening agent in curries.
White poppy seeds are another favourite ingredient, primarily as a thickening agent in some Moghlai and Hyderabad dishes, and in the cuisines of the Muslim communities of Mumbai and Southern India.
Mustard seeds are used as a thickener to a lesser extent. Only in a few recipes are ground mustard seeds an methi (fenugreek) seeds used for this purpose. In Bengal ground mustard seeds are used widely, primarily for flavour, but they do also provide the curry with body since they are used in large quantities.
Pumpkin and melon seeds: These are ground with a little water into a paste, and are again used both for th melange of flavours they give the curry.
Sesame seeds: Til are native to India. Ground white sesame seeds feature in Western and Southern Indian cuisine and the Muslim cooking of Mumbai, Hyderabad and South India, giving a unique flavour to the food.
The seeds are used in small quantities and therefore not as a thickening agent on their own, but with other ingredients. Sesame seeds are widely used for making sweet dishes. These are eaten more in the winter as they are believed to have heating qualities. In Maharashtra ladoos or sweet round balls of sesame and jaggery are distributed among friends and relatives on Makar Sankrant, the day the sun enters Capricorn - the beginning of the winter solstice.
Lentils
Lentils (dal) are either ground into flour or cooked separately and then puréed for use as a thickening agent.Dishes like the Parsee dhansak, the North Indian dal gosht, Hyderabadi dalcha, the Bori Muslim khichda and the Muslim haleer, are all examples of meat and dal dishes.
Recipes for dhansak and dalcha are given in Camellia’s book and there are Sindhi Curries on which is a vegetarian dal curry.
Giving colour to a curry
The ingredients that give colour to a curry are:
1 Turmeric: bright yellow.
2 Saffron: pale apricot.
4 Red chillies: reddish-brown. The variety known as Kashmiri chilli: vermilion.
5 Fresh coriander leaves, if used in quantity: green. Darkens easily with longer cooking.
6 Red tomatoes: pinkish if combined with yogurt, and reddish if used on their own.
7 Onions: deep brown if used in quantity and fried until dark brown without adding much wate
8 Coriander powder: deep brown if fried for 5-6 minutes.
9 Garam masala powder: deep brown if fried for 1 minute.
If all these are used, then the ultimate colour will depend on their proportions relative to the other used.
Souring agents
Since curry has a complex taste, and one of the constituent flavours is often a sour one, many curries contain. a souring agent which, when used in conjunction with the hotness of chillies, and sweetness of onions, yogur or coconut, gives a nice tang. Souring agents are more common among the curries of the Hindus. They are absent from Moghlai dishes, with the exception of those of the Muslims of Hyderabad which incorporate the sour taste - Hyderabadi food is a wonderful mixture of Moghlai and Deccani cuisine.
Tomatoes were brought to india by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century but began to be widely cultivated for general use only in the twentieth century. Now they are grown throughout the country all the year round. Tomatoes have become a favourite ingredient in Indian cooking for colour, flavour and the touch of sourness they give to food.
Even when ripe the Indian tomato is slightly sour in taste, compared to European or American varieties. Its acidity level is also much higher. When using tomatoes for curry-making, avoid sweeter Italian tomatoes.
Yogurt
Yogurt is always made at home in India, usually on a daily basis. Commercially made yogurt is a rarity. A little live culture is mixed into milk which has been warmed, then cooled, and left overnight. The tropical climate enables the yogurt to set easily. Often, the Indian housewife will make a curry based on yogurt which inadvertently went sour. To sour yoghurt specially for a particular dish, the procedure is as follows:
(a) use an already sour live culture to make the yogurt;
(b) use slightly more of the culture, say 2 tablespoons per 600ml (1 pint), instead of 1 tablespoon;
(c) mix the culture into the milk while the milk is still slightly warm;
(d) leave the yogurt to set in a relatively warm place. A thermos jar which has been slightly warmed by rinsing with warm water is suitable for making yogurt;
(e) use skimmed milk instead of full-fat milk.
When the yogurt begins to sour, drops of water will appear on the surface and increase as the yogurt becomes more sour. When it has reached the desired degree of sourness it is put into the refrigerator to maintain this level.
Vinegar
Vinegar in cooking is found primarily in the regions of India influenced by the Portuguese - Goa, Mangalore, Kerala - as well as in Anglo-Indian and Parsee cooking. The Indians of the West coast use a vinegar made of coconut - the closest equivalent in the West would be cider vinegar. The Parsees use molasses vinegar made from sugar cane.
Tamarind
The most popular souring agent in Southern India is the tamarind fruit, which grows on a large graceful tree.
The pods are collected, de-seeded and dried. Before cooking the acid flesh is soaked in water, and the juice is squeezed out. It is this tamarind water that is used in the curry, In some Goan and Mangalorian recipes, the tamarind flesh is ground together with spices. Tamarind can be bought in any Indian grocer's and some supermarkets.
Lime
India is the original home of both the lime and the lemon, but nowadays it is the lime that is most commonly available and used, although limes are often called lemons. Thus, a so-called fresh lemon squash would actually be based on lime juice. In Hindi the lime is called the nimbu and is used in some curry dishes. The juice of the nimbu is added only at the end of the cooking process, as it would inhibit the meat from becoming tender while cooking.
Cocum
The cocum, which grows on trees along the Western coast of India, has a deep purple flesh surroundir large seed. It imparts a pale-purplish colour to food as well as a sour taste. It is used by Sindhis in their flour curry, and by the Hindu Goans in their fish curries. It is also made into sherbets on the West coast India: these refreshing drinks are made from fruits, essences and herbs, for example, raw mango, fresh lychees, almonds and rose. Cocum has a remarkable anti-allergic action, and cocum-infused water drink, three days first thing in the morning is said to cure urticaria or hives.
Raw mango
Mangoes (kairi) grow all over India in the summer. For two to three months before that, from about mid-March, the markets are full of bright green unripe mangoes of myriad varieties. These are used to make pickles and chutneys and finely chopped as a seasoning. During the spring 'cheeks' of raw mango are put into curries and dals as souring agents. Raw mango cheeks are also sun-dried and powdered and in this state are called amchoor (camb meaning mango and choor powder). Amchoor is only used as a gamish, for sprinking on fried vegetable savouries (chaat) or dal. It is not used during cooking.
The use of spices
Curry powder in the form that it is known now in the West, was invented in Madras, to be exported to England for use by the English who had become addicted, as we have already seen, to curries. In India, spices are used in a highly individual way, and daughters learn how to use them by observing their mothers or grandmothers.
Each region of India and each sub-cuisine has its own traditional palette of spices. Professional cooks in India have a great understanding of the role, possible uses and limitations of each spice. For example, pepper is used to much better effect in Kerala and the extreme south of India where it grows, while essence of the keora flower is a prized characteristic of Lucknowi cooking.
Incidentally, contrary to a widely held belief, various forms of curry powder do feature in the traditions of Indian cooking. Throughout the Western part of Maharashtra, masala powder is ground and kept for later use, though the composition of the powder varies. The kaala masala or black masala powder used in many dishes consists of pepper, clove, cinnamon and other black spices. [Masala recipes vary from family to family and are often closely guarded secrets. AW]
The East Indian Christian communities of Mumbai and Bassein make a curry powder comprising about thirty spices, some very little known. Unlike commercial curry powder, it resolves the problem of some spices getting cooked while others remain under-cooked, because each spice is roasted separately for different requisite lengths of time before grinding. They make it just before the hot season and store it, tightly packed into long green bottles, for a whole year. For this reason the mixture is called 'bottled masala', although it is in fact a curry powder. Similarly, in March and April the Chettiars of Tamil Nadu sun-dry several spices, and onions as well, and make little marble-sized balls of curry powder rolled with oil which they also store for the entire year. These are called kaarivadagam: the addition of oil helps them to keep longer.
By and large, however, spices are used individually in Indian cooking. In previous centuries spices were prized for their preservative and medicinal qualities. But today dried spices are used principally for their taste and aroma in cooking and their digestive properties.
Grinding spices
This is a very important part of the curry-making process. If the spices are not ground properly the curry will have neither the correct texture nor taste. In the old days, every large household's cook had an assistant in the kitchen known as a masaalchi, who ground all the spice mixtures. In Indian restaurants and hotel kitchens, professional cooks guard their recipes for spice mixtures closely, putting their own proportions of the spices into grinders for apprentices to oversee.
Every home in India, however lowly, has a grinding stone. This is a piece of black granite and comes with a thick version of a rolling pin. In some parts of Southern India, the grinding stone is like a round basin with the centre scooped out and then the end of the rolling pin is used to crush the spices. A lot of pressure is required to grind the spices to a smooth, fine consistency. Most Indians will tell you there is a vast difference in the taste between spices ground on a stone and those made in an electric mixer. A small version of the stone grinderwith an electric motor is available and is principally used in Southern India to grind rice and lentils for making idlis and dosas (items in a Southern Indian breakfast) and not so much to grinding spices for curries. [The grinders are heavy to carry on our travels so online in the UK might be sensible, unless you definitely want a great South Indian souvenir! AW].
In the last decade or so, a good range of electrical kitchen gadgets such as liquidisers especially suited to the preparation of Indian food has become available in india. The blades of these machines are close to the base, which enables the spices to be ground more finely than in Western grinders. Liquidisers come with two sizes of bowl, one with a very small capacity for spices and a larger one for coconut and large quantities of ingredients. The appliances do not heat up quickly as the motors are heavy-duty and therefore the spices can be ground for 10-15 minutes without a problem.
When selecting an appliance for grinding, a coffee grinder is useful for day-to-day grinding of spices and should be kept specifically for that purpose. For what Indians call 'wet grinding, that is, items like coconut where a little liquid is added, you need to buy a medium-sized machine with blades close to the base of the machine. This also applies to red chillies or they will not be ground to a smooth paste. Soften the chilli skin by soaking in water for 30 minutes and they will grind much better. Small herb mills are fine for grinding ginger, garlic, green chilli and coriander leaves.
Spices used mainly for taste
Coriander seeds and coriander powder (dhania)
The principal spice in this category is coriander powder. This is made by grinding coriander seeeds to enhance the flavour. The seeds should be roasted on a hot tawa or griddle or frying pan without oil and ground just before use. This can be done in a dry grinder or coffee grinder kept specifically. Housewives and professional cooks who are particular about the taste of their curries, grind powder every day.
Frying the freshly ground coriander powder in oil gives the characteristic taste profile. 5 minutes cooking in hot oil over a low heat for the full flavour to be released from the spice mixture. Adding a tablespoon or two of water will not inhibit the release of flavour. Frying over a high heat means the powder will burn and become sticky more quickly, it tends to catch on the bottom of the pan unless there is a substantial amount of oil or fat, and therefore needs to be stirred continuously. If meat is being fried along with the powder, then one can stir-fry or bhuno the meat with powder for as long as 10 minutes without burning because there is moisture in the meat. This is the characteristic taste of a bhund dish.
Coriander seeds have diuretic properties. Coriander is grown all over India but Rajasthan and Central India produce the most. The Rajasthan variety, which is lighter brown in colour, is also the most flavourful with a good aroma. It is mostly this variety that is used in India to make commercial coriander powder. The coriander from around Indore in Central India has a greenish tinge and is mostly used in seed form. The coriander sold in the UK is also imported from North Africa and Eastern Europe.
Turmeric (haldi)
This is a root and is mostly used as a powder made from the dried root. Fresh turmeric root, available from December to March in India, gives an even better colour and flavour than dried. Turmeric is difficult to powder at home, and there is always a danger of buying an adulterated form in markets, so shrewd housewives buy their annual requirements before the summer and get it pounded in their presence. Turmeric has antiseptic qualities and is therefore used to marinate fish before cooking, particularly by the Hindus. In the making of curries, turmeric is used more by the Hindus than the Muslims, who avoid using it in many recipes. It sticks very easily to the bottom of the pan during frying, but needs only a few seconds of frying to release its flavour, does not burn quickly and can therefore be added at any point in the frying sequence, even if only spices are being fried, without meat, fish or vegetable. The largest turmeric production is around the town of Erode in Tamil Nadu, in Andhra and Maharashtra. That which gives the brightest hue is from the area around Allepey in Kerala.[Where we will be on our houseboat trip. AW].
The biggest turmeric market in the world is in Sangli, where the turmeric is stored in large pits in the ground.
Dried red chilli and chilli powder
These are explained in detail in a separate section. When adding chilli powder in a curry recipe, do so during the second half of the frying sequence if only spices are fried, as within a few seconds or so chilli emitspungent vapours which make you cough. Fried with meat or chicken it can comfortably be cooked nat other spices like coriander and turmeric for 10 minutes. If you are frying chilli on its own and aroma, add a little water.
Cumin seeds (jeera)
Cumin seeds are used whole or ground as powder. Again, they should be roasted very bries minute on a hot tawa or griddle and then ground into a powder to release its flavour more unpowdered jeera burns quicker than most spices, turns black quickly and becomes bitter, and should therefore be fried for less than half a minute or until you see it is turning a blackish colour, at which point add the next ingredient, be it tomato, yogurt, or any other ingredient containing moisture. This will stop the burning process.
Cumin seeds are used in the cooking of dry vegetable dishes like jeera aloo (with potatoes). Fried in a little oil and made into a wagar or seasoning, the seeds are sprinkled on top of boiled rice or dal.
Cumin is considered to be a digestive. The drink known as jeera paani or cumin water, is buse of cumin, lime juice and fresh coriander leaves. It also has 'cooling' properties.
Cinnamon and cloves (tuj/dalchini and lavang)
These spices contribute to both taste and aroma but have a specially strong impact on taste. They are used whole in some meat recipes, and along with green cardamom when boiling rice to make a simple pulao, or ground together with black cardamom and made into a garam masala powder.
Commercial garam masala powder exists but is by no means always ideal, because many manufacturers tend to skimp on using the expensive ingredients and add inessential cheaper ones to increase the volume. Many housewives prefer the flavour of home-made garam masala. [I have found this is the difference between average and startlingly good curries made at home. AW].
Cinnamon is a thinner, tan-coloured bark, while cassia is a rougher, dark brown bark. Often what is sold in the name of cinnamon is actually cassia bark, so be sure to buy a good brand of cinnamon. Cassia has a sweeter taste than cinnamon.
The whole spices can be fried for a few minutes without burning. Cinnamon can be fried for 5 minutes, and cloves for under 2 minutes if there are no other ingredients with moisture. If roasting them dry in a powdered form with other spices, allow under 2 minutes over a low heat.
It is not essential that cinnamon and cloves be fried, though this releases the flavour better into the oil. They can, however, be successfully added directly to a curry or rice mixture. Clove is a strong spice, and just 2 or 3 in a dish give a perceptible flavour. Cloves burn faster than cinnamon, and should always be put in after cinnamon.
Pepper (kali mirchi)
Also the subject of a previous Despatch. Pepper grows mainly in Kerala, It was a highly prized item in world trade as far back as the second century AD, when pepper from Malabar was exported to Rome in exchange for gold. Christopher Colombus set off on his journey of discovery in search of the source of pepper and cloves. In those days pepper was especially prized for its preservative qualities.
Peppercoms boiled in water along with Indian basil leaves (tulsi) is drunk in India as an infusion to cure a ol in the chest or asthma. Pepper is used lavishly in Kerala cooking. When frying the peppercom is always u el whole and should be fried for not more than 1 minute, if no other ingredient with moisture is present.
Mustard seeds (rai or sarson)
Mustard seeds are used whole in Southern Indian curries and vegetable dishes, almost always as the first ingredient to be fried for a few seconds in the cooking oil. Mustard seeds are the favourite spice of Per where mustard grows in abundance; the seeds are ground into a paste and used to flavour Bengal fo Mustard oil is also widely used in Bengal and Kashmir. In the Punjab, the leaves of the mustard plent me a favourite winter vegetable.
If frying mustard seeds whole, do so for 10-15 seconds when they will begin to splutter and crackle. Then add the next spice or ingredient according to the recipe. In Indian cooking the use of mustard powder or prepared mustard is insignificant, though the latter, if added, to some curry preparations could enhance the taste. So feel free to innovate.
If frying mustard seeds whole, do so for 10-15 seconds when they will begin to splutter and crackle. Then add the next spice or ingredient according to the recipe. In Indian cooking the use of mustard powder or prepared mustard is insignificant, though the latter, if added, to some curry preparations could enhance the taste. So feel free to innovate.
The most commonly used mustard seeds are black (rai), though in the north and east of the country, reddish-brown ones (sarson) are used.
Fenugreek seeds (methi)
These are usually used whole, and only in a few recipes. In Southern Indian cuisine, methi seeds are the second ingredient after mustard seeds to be put in hot oil and fried for a few seconds before the other ingredients are added. They are also used roasted and powdered along with red chilli and other spices in a condiment mix known as muligapuri, to be eaten with idli and dosas.
Poppy seeds (khus khus)
These are almost always used in a curry ground to a paste with a little water. They do not grind easily and should be lightly toasted on a griddle for 3-4 minutes, then ground in a coffee grinder with a little water added if necessary. They have a very mild flavour. Used as a coating for potatoes and fried savoury items they impart a nutty taste, as they do to curry, in which they are used as a thickening agent.
Fennel (saunf)
This sometimes forms part of garam masala powder. Fennel powder features in Kashmiri cuisine, both Hindu and Muslim, and is also used by the Mapla Muslims of Kerala. It is not essential to fry fennel powder as it is very aromatic. In Kashmiri curries, fennel powder is always used without the frying process. In Chettinad cuisine whole fennel seeds are used as one of the main spices.
Many Indian cookery books mention aniseed as a spice, but actually it is fennel that is being referred to - aniseed is not used in Indian cuisine.
Spices used mainly for aroma
It is very difficult to distinguish spices used principally for taste and those for aroma, as all spices will affect both. However, some have a marginally greater effect on taste and others on aroma, and for those who are not very familiar with spices, this distinction can help to make it easier to appreciate the role of each spice a little better. Some, like the garam masala spices, affect taste if fried in the initial mixture, but contribute to the aroma in a stronger way if sprinkled on in powder form towards the end of the cooking process. The spices which contribute more to aroma are detailed in this section.
Garam masala
As mentioned above, garam masala contributes to both flavour and aroma, but I feel the latter is predominar Garam means 'heating in this context (though in Hindi the literal translation is 'hot). Masala, of course, refer to the spices. So garam masala is a mixture of those spices which create heat in the body - cinnamon, cloves black pepper and black cardamom. Interestingly, the first two were exported to India at the time of the spice trade! Nowadays housewives making garam masala mixture sometimes include the 'cooling' green cardamom the tej patta or Indian bay leaf, and fennel (saunf). Master chefs use a wide array of spices, including dried rose petals. Every recipe for garam masala powder is different. To get the best flavour, grind a small quantity in a coffee grinder just before use.
Garam masala is used mostly with meat and to a lesser extent in poultry and rice dishes. It is rarely used in fish or vegetable dishes because its aroma is considered to be too strong for these.
Making your own garam masala
Indian housewives always buy whole garam masala spices (cinnamon sticks, cloves, peppercorns and black cardamom pods, sometimes cumin and coriander seeds), then toast them on a griddle and pound them into a powder in a mortar with a pestle. Nowadays, Indian food processors have a small attachment (like a coffee grinder) for dry-grinding small quantities of spices, so pounding is no longer necessary.
A classic garam masala would have approximately equal quantities in weight of cinnamon, cloves and black pepper, with a little black cardamom. The rest depends on individual preference. I like to add fennel seeds and a touch of cinnamon leaf.
So, if using whole spices, take 6 grams of cinnamon (this is a lot of cinnamon, which is very light), 6 grams each of cloves and pepper and 1 black cardamom (2 grams). You can add 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds and 1 cinnamon or bay leaf.
Alternatively, take 2½ teaspoons cinnamon powder, 1 teaspoon each of clove powder and black pepper and 3/4 teaspoon of fennel powder. Then grind one black cardamom and a cinnamon or bay leaf together and add this powder to the mixture.
Store garam masala in a tightly sealed bottle in the refrigerator, where it will keep for 6 months if you have used fresh spices to start with, though in terms of flavour, it is better to use it within 3 months.
Cinnamon leaf (tej or tuj patta)
Tej in Hindi means sharp and patta means leaf. So it is presumed in India that tej patta refers to the leaf with a sharp and strong flavour. But tej is actually a corruption of the word tu in Gujarati (the language used in Mumbai, India's largest spice city) which means cinnamon, so tej patta is the cinnamon-flavoured leaf with a strong and sharp flavour. Cinnamon leaf (tej or tuj patta)
Tej in Hindi means sharp and patta means leaf. So it is presumed in India that tej patta refers to the leaf with a sharp and strong flavour. But tej is actually a corruption of the word tuj in Gujarati (the language used in Mumbai, India's largest spice city) which means cinnamon, so tej patta is the cinnamon-flavoured leaf from a tree which is similar to the cinnamon tree.
Cinnamon is part of the same botanical family Lauraceae as the Mediterranean bay tree (the Laurus nobilis) but true cinnamon is Cinnamomum zeylenicum; cassia, which is similar in flavour to cinnamon, is Cinnamomum aromaticum; and the tej patta leaf is Cinnamomum tamala. It grows in north-east India, and in Kerala.
Large black cardamom
These are 6-8 cm, the size of the green cardamom, only used in Indian curries, grown in north-east India and Sikkim. It has a strong aroma, the flavour being in its seeds. It is used in small quantities and should form part of any recipe for garam masala powder. If used whole remove from the pot before serving.
Green cardamom (elaichi powder)
Green cardamom, apart from having a unique aroma, also contributes to flavour. Avoid using white cardamom which is a bleached version of the green variety and has less flavour. Powder made from the whole gre cardamom, sprinkled at the end of the cooking process on a delicate lamb or mutton dish just a few mes before serving, gives a wonderful aroma (the dish should be kept covered). This can be done even if we or crushed cardamoms have already been used in the cooking, because by the end, when a number of s s have been used, no single aroma will predominate.
Cardamom in crushed form is also used in sweet dishes like shrikand (flavoured hung yogurt), and in cooling drinks like the almond-flavoured thandai. Cardamom has cooling properties even though some housewives put it in their garam masala.
Nutmeg (jaiphal)
Nutmeg originates from the Moluccas in Indonesia and in earlier times was exported to india. Today it is grown in Kerala.
Nutmeg is used sparingly in indian cooking in both curies and sweet dishes. Always used in its powdered form, it is normally added during the cooking process, and is not fried along with the main spices. Try putting jaiphal powder on puréed spinach - it transforms the dish.
Mace Powder (javitri)
Mace is the net-like covering of nutmeg. Like cardamom, powdered mace gives a wonderful aroma when sprinkled on meat dishes towards the end of cooking, and on pulao dishes in which rice is cooked along with the other main ingredient, for example lamb or mixed vegetables, it is a favourite condiment among the Muslim court cooks of Lucknow, who use it during the cooking of hot kormas as well as sprinkling it on the top when the dish is almost ready. It is important to keep the lid on, so that the aroma is incorporated in the dish, aided by the heat within.
Asafoetida (hing)
This is a seasoning used primarily as an anti-flatulent, and has a strong aroma. It is a resin from the plant Ferula asafoetadia, imported mainly from Iran. Minute quantities are used in cooking. It also replaces onion in Jain cooking.
Star aniseed (chakraphool or badian)
This is native to China and is not commonly used in Indian cooking. Its widest use is in Kashmir and Chettinad cooking - the Chettiar community of the south-east coast of India traded with China and South West /cia (or many hundreds of years. It is also incorporated in the east Indian bottled masala, and in a few Goan dishes.
Saffron (kesar)
Saffron has a delicate fragrance, and is the most expensive spice in the world. It is the stigma of a fo the crocus family which originated in west Asia and grows in Kashmir and Turkey, and in Mediterrane countries - the largest quantity now comes from Spain. The use of saffron is very much part of ind especially in Moghlai dishes since it was a favourite ingredient in the Moghul courts. It is now pop. for biryanis, pulaos, kesari chicken (a creamy saffron curry dish) and desserts such as kesari kulfi comes in strands which need to be soaked in a little warm water or milk to infuse. It also gives c yellow dye which imparts a pale yellow hue to white rice or a milk-based dessert. It loses its flavour fast and is best stored tightly sealed in a refrigerator. [Saffron tends to be a North Indian ingredient. AW].
Powdered rose petals (gulab)
Powdered rose petals are used for their aroma and marinade qualities when cooking meat dishes. This tradition can be seen today in the Lucknowi court dishes, particularly in light coloured delicate kormas such as the white korma. The Indian rose is small with a double row of petals, and has a much more intense fragrance than Western roses. The best-quality Indian roses for culinary purposes are the small ones (gulabs) from the Udaipur region (where they were specially cultivated to make a rose liqueur called Gulab), from Mysore and near Kanaug in North India. [Another predominantly North Indian flavour. AW].
The rose petals are sun-dried and then powdered for use in cooking. Gulab has cooling properties, and is also astringent and anti-inflammatory. Rose essence is used in making sherbets. Rose water is used for sprinkling, after cooking, on biryanis and pulaos, and also for soaking saffron.
Screwpine flower essence (Keora essence)
Pandanus odoratissimus is a yellow flower from the screwpine family, with a very strong, sweet aroma. The male flowers are valued for their fragrance. It grows in Orissa and to a lesser degree in Kerala. Keora (sometimes spelt as Kewda) attar and Keora water are made using an extraction of this flower. Keora oil is believed to be a stimulant.
Keora attar is made for culinary purposes in Lucknow, and just a drop diluted in a little water before using is enough to flavour 1 kg (2¼lb) of meat. A more diluted version of this is Keora water. Lucknow cooks use it in biryanis, kebabs and kormas, and are now being imitated by Muslim cooks all over India.
Herbs and fresh spices
The term hara masala, meaning literally green spices, refers to fresh ginger, garlic, green chillies, fresh conander leaves, curry leaves, fenugreek leaves, mint, lime, spring onions and any other herbs, such as fresh dill. Most curries will contain hara masala in one form or another. In the vegetable markets there are vendors who specialise only in the sale of these herbs.
Almost all curry recipes indude ginger and garlic. The traditional method is to chop them finely and fry them along with the onions. They are usually used together, often in almost equal quantities. Someone once explained to me that this is because, while ginger tends to raise blood pressure, garlic is good for keeping it low, and so both are used to maintain an even keel. I do not know how much credence can be given to this theory, but there it is.
Professional restaurant cooks now make a purée of equal quantities of ginger and garlic either together or separately, and this can be stored in a refrigerator (covered, please remember) for several days. Housewives are increasingly beginning to do the same for the sake of convenience.
There are two varieties of garlic in India which I have not seen anywhere else. One is called taaza lasan (fresh garlic) and is a plant about 17.5cm (7in) high with a single garlic clove at the tip of its root. Very popular in Mumbai in the winter, it is used by the Sindhis to flavour fish dishes, by the Parsees in scrambled egg, a in mincemeat by the Boris. It is the young shoots of the normal garlic plant grown in sandy soil. Another form of garlic is a tiny bead-like pod which the vegetable sellers say is good for the heart! [Local varieties seem to vary slightly from north to south. The garlic I have used seems to be much smaller than its Mediterranean counterpart. AW].
Ginger is almost always used fresh - it keeps well for a couple of months, particularly in a cold place. Powdered ginger is used mostly in Kashmir and in chaat preparations in North India.
Fresh corlander leaves are used both as an ingredient at the beginning of cooking and at the end as a decorative and aromatic gamish. They are also one of the main Ingredients in a green curry, Coriander leaves, min, ginger, lime juice and sugar blended together in a mixer makes a delicious fresh green chutney.
Mint is used in cooking particularly in making hansak and biryani, but is added towards the end in order to retain the flavour. Mint should not be fried with the masala as it turns black quite quickly and will give a blackish colour to the curry.
Curry leaf is a herb used only in Southern and Western coast cooking of India from Mumbai down to Kerala, though it is absent in Goan cooking. It is very fragrant and can be fried in the initial stages or put in at the simmering stage. Added at the final stage of a curry, it will retain maximum flavour, but it needs to cook for at least 5 minutes. It is used in dry dishes, dals, khadis, in yogurt and vegetable dishes, in meat curries and in some fish curries of Kerala and Madras. When dried, the curry leaves have very little flavour.
Curry leaf is from the same botanical family as the neem tree, the leaves of which have anti-bacterial properties, and is used as a natural pesticide.
Fenugreek (methi) leaves are used only in Indian cooking. There are two varieties of methi - the si one, about 7.5cm (3in) high with tiny bud-like leaves, has a more delicate flavour but has a very short se z0 m the summer. The larger methi leaf is about 25cm (10in) high and is available throughout the year. It is easy to grow from seed. The small methi is actually the young shoots of the larger methi, but grown in sandy soil. It has a far more intense and fragrant flavour and is available only in Mumbai and Wester India. Methi leaves have a unique flavour with a slightly bitter tinge and are an acquired taste. A favourite Indian dish is methi aloo, or potatoes made in quite dry karai flavoured with methi. Methi leaves are used throughout India. The Punjabis put it in many dishes, including Chicken Makhani, the Parsees use it in hansak, and the favourite Sindhi style of preparing fish is with fresh single cloved garlic (they call it thoom) and methi leaves.
Methi is also sold dried, in packets known as kasuri methi, in most Indian grocery shops. It is quite strong in flavour and only a pinch should be used.
Dill (sooda) is used to flavour spinach and other leafy green vegetables, and dhansak. The Sindhis have a green spinach dish known as sai bhaji and also make a dill-flavoured rice, for which the recipe is also given in this book (see page 173).
Chillies
It is important to understand the use of chillies in the making of curries, since they are an important ingredient and their use is limited in the West. Chillies are becoming increasingly popular in some parts of America however, largely because of the influence of Mexican cuisine, in which a variety of chillies are used.
In Indian cooking two kinds of chilli are used - the green variety which is used fresh and the red, used in dried form. The varieties of green chilli differ in their size (length) and pungency. Therefore, quantities of green chillies in a recipe are only indicative. If a curry is meant to be pungent the recipe will say so, and if the particular chillies you are using are not very hot, you should increase the number, and vice versa.
Chillies are always most pungent when raw, and mellow when fried or braised. Therefore, though the recipes may appear to contain many chillies, the finished dishes will not be as hot as they first appeared. Chillies are a valuable source of vitamin C and are good for digestion. In India they are eaten raw, as in a cachumber salad or a fresh green chutney, as well as cooked, and are included in almost all savoury preparations.
Red chillies are sometimes used in addition to green chillies in curries, for their hot taste and to give a reddish colour. On the western and southern coasts of India the skin of the red chilli is ground together with coconut to give the curry texture.
The correct use of red chillies is vital if one wants to make gourmet-style curries. The Indian housewife cooks in the culinary style of her own region and when shopping buys the locally available chilli, without perhaps being aware of its origin. It was only when I began to cook the recipes that I had gathered from different parts of India in my kitchen in Mumbai that I realised that the original taste was missing and that this difference was due to the variation in chillies used elsewhere in the country. But cookery books, restaurants and home cooks in India rarely specify the use of different chillies in the different regional recipes.
The only exception is the so-called Kashmiri chilli which is often mentioned because in recent years it has become popular as the vanety that gives bright red colour and at the same time is mildly hot in taste. I say 'so-called' because when I tried to trace the origin of the Kashmiri chilli in the wholesale chilli markets in India, I found that Kashmir itself did not export the quantities of Kashmiri chillies being sold everywhere, and a similar variety was being cultivated in northern Karnataka, the region east of Goa, and in Andhra, and was widely sold all over India as Kashmiri chilli!
So, if substituting the Kashmiri chilli, look for the type that is the length of a finger and gives more bright red colour than 'bite’. The New Mexico chilli is a good substitute, though its powder or purée does not have the bright colour of the Indian Kashmiri type. [I think it worth pointing out that within Mexico there are many chilli varieties and these have very different heat and flavour. I tend to use a variety of chillies from the hot-ring IB inducing bird’s eyes, tiddly but eye watering, through to the fruity Scotch Bonnet and the simple Kenyan-grown green chilli. I also love the flaked dried Chipotle. AW].
India is the largest world producer of chillies, with annual production in the order of 80,000 tonnes: only about 25,000 tonnes are exported. There is a growing export trade of spice oils and oleoresins (essential extracts) of chillies for the bulk food business, for which chillies with the best colour are used. Chillies are grown throughout the country for local use, but for cash crops the largest producers are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu (the Madras variety), Andhra (the Guntur variety being the most pungent and therefore largely used for commercially sold red chilli powder), Karnataka (the Bedgi and Kashmiri variety) and Rajasthan.
Kashmir grows its bright red and fragrant chillies largely for home consumption, as the hilly terrain makes it commercially unviable to transport it.
Goa also grows its own large-size chilli, which is ideal for the Goa curry, but even the Goans have developed a fascination for using the Kashmiri variety. The gourmets of Northern India use a bright yellow dried chilli grown around the Sonepat area in Punjab for their white or yellow curry dishes.
Recipes indicate whether green chillies are to be used whole, slit or chopped, as the manner of cutting the chilli affects the pungency of the curry. A slit chilli imparts some pungency to the curry, the whole chilli much less.
Some dishes call for broken-up red chilli, others for it to be ground into a paste with a little water or vinegar. while in other recipes only red chilli powder is used. The stalks of chillies are always removed before use.
To achieve the bright colour effect of red chilli powder with a less hot taste, it can be mixed with paprika Similarly, to reduce the pungency of red or green chillies, de-seed them before using. Remember to do this under running water, using gloves if your hands are sensitive, and to wash your hands thoroughly with scap immediately afterwards.
Hints and short cuts to curry making
1 Cut and prepare all the ingredients before you begin to cook. in Indian food particularly, there are so many ingredients that it is useful if they can be kept ready to use. If you have a large herb and spice collection, take out the ones needed for the dish in question and keep them handy.
2 If you are cooking for a party you can cook the curry and the dal a day ahead, though the dal should not be seasoned until shorty before serving. The vegetables can be cut and kept aside, a day in advance, but ideal should be cooked not more than a few hours beforehand. The same applies to the raita, for which the yogur should be fresh. The bread dough for the rotis can be made a day ahead. The rotis themselves can be made a couple of hours ahead, spread with a little butter and wrapped in kitchen foil, then reheated in an oven is. before serving. The chutney can be made a day ahead and stored in the refrigerator, though tomato chutney can be kept for a week. The cachumber should be made just about an hour before the party, and the papadams cooked.
3 Curries of meat and chicken can be successfully frozen, but the texture of cooked fish suffers a little. Cooked lentils, chickpeas and vegetables freeze well.
4 If the curry has become too salty, add pieces of potato, or a piece of dough which you must remove before serving. The potatoes and dough will absorb the liquid and then you can top up with a cup of plain water which will dilute the saltiness.
5 If the curry is too liquid, boil uncovered (keep your extractor hood on) for a few minutes.”
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And taste, taste, taste.
The above captures the philosophy behind Indian food and helps understand how spices work.
Below is a little detail on The cuisine of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, taken from ‘India’ by Pushpesh Pant.
The food of Kerala
“Legend has it that the land of Kerala, in the southwest of the country, emerged out of the sea when the warrior-sage Parashuram flung in his battle-axe, displacing the water.
Kerala is referred to as 'God's own country' because of its astounding natural beauty and exceptional fertility. The landscape is extremely verdant, the backwaters reach deep inland and a multitude of coconut trees sway gently in the breeze. Tea gardens and coffee plantations stretch out for miles in the highlands, as do the bountiful gardens of spices. Kerala has been famous for thousands of years for the quality of its spices.
It was an important centre on the spice route that connected Arabia with southeast Asia. Sailors from China and the Persian Gulf also visited regularly and left their influences.
Kerala is where both Islam and Christianity came to India, and is also home to a type of Ayurveda which is quite distinct from the Ayurveda practised inthe north of India. The food in Kerala shows the influence of this variety of cultures, fused into a unique identity by Ayurveda. Fish figures prominently in the daily diet, and the staples are rice and tapioca. Beef is commonly eaten by the non-Hindu community.
The Namboodiri community in Kerala is strictly vegetarian and avoids garlic. A traditional Nambodari thoran, a dry dish of finely chopped vegetables, is Muttokos Thoran - Kerala Stir-fried Cabbage with Coconut.
The Muslims of Kerala claim descent from Arab traders and have a different style of cuisine. The Arab influence is easily discernible in a number of their meat and wheat porridge dishes. The bread they eat is a flat, than chapati made with a boiled mash of rice, baked on a griddle and dipped in coconut milk. [North Kerala food differs from South Kerala food - AW].
Keralan Christians are mostly non-vegetarian. A favourite dish is Erachi Verthathu Rachathu (Lamb Cooked with Ground Coconut) which contains onions, tomatoes and chillies with spicy ground coconut paste.
The Keralan Appam is perhaps the most beautiful of Indian breads. These delicate rice pancakes made with coconut milk are cooked over a hot griddle and form a delicate lace-like pattern at the edges while remaining soft and spongy in the centre. When well made, appam blossoms like a white lotus bud. Some types of batter incorporate toddy, an alcoholic coconut drink, and are fermented overnight. In other varieties, the batter is steamed in a banana leaf parcel with jackfruit, jaggery (palm sugar) and coconut.
Kerala has an abundance of fish, both from the sea and fresh waters.
However, it is the karimeen, the pearl-spot fish, that is most prized. An inhabitant of shallow brackish waters, it can be cooked in a spicy marinade, wrapped in banana leaves, cooked on a griddle, or fried encrusted with coconut, garlic and chillies. It is difficult to decide which recipe is the most delicious, but a firm favourite is Karimeen Polichattu (Pearl Fish Pan Grilled in Banana Leaf) in which the pearl spot fish is marinated, wrapped in a banana leaf and cooked over a griddle.
Puttu is a very unusual staple. Powdered rice mixed with grated coconut is steamed in bamboo or copper tubes to make a 'bread' that is usually eaten with a lentil curry. It has the texture of a idli but is less fluffy, and a single helping is as filling as a plateful of rice.
Prathaman is the name given to Keralan sweets based on milk or coconut milk. They can contain fruits such as bananas and jackfruits, fried in ghee, or even moong beans, coconut and jaggery (palm sugar). Cardamom and ginger powder are used to enhance flavour, while fried cashew nuts, raisins and coconut enrich the taste.
Kadalaparippu Payasam (Chana Dal Dessert) is a typical Keralan dessert, a creamy sweet porridge made from chana dal, coconut cream and ground cardamom, which is then garnished with browned grated coconut, raisins and cashew nuts.
The food of Tamil Nadu
This is the homeland of the Tamils, a people who can lay claim to a civilization that is the oldest in India. There was a time when the domain of the Tamil rulers extended from the banks of the River Ganges to the Indian Ocean.
Tamil Nadu is known the world over for its majestic temples with soaring shikhars (towers) and intricate stone carvings. The Brihadishvara Temple in Thanjavur, the temple city of Madurai, and the exquisite shore temple at Mamallapuram are all testimony to the people's architectural genius.
The food in the region has remained true to its roots. The staples are vegetarian and heavily reliant on rice. A common meal, eaten off plantain leaves, would contain rice, vegetables, curd and a slice of pickle, along with Rasam, a tamarind dal flavoured with seeds; Sambhar a vegetable dal; and Nariyal ki Chutney, a coconut chutney. Tamarind and asafoetida are used as souring agents, while mustard seeds and curry leaves are common.
- Many eateries in Tamil Nadu thrive on their tiffn food, such as idli which are steamed dumplings made from lentils or rice, Dosa which are thin rice pancakes, and Vada, which are deep-fried lentil-based patties that come in countless variations.
The word 'tiffin' dates back to the Raj, but the tradition of taking tiffin - a light 'meal between meals' often eaten at midday - existed long before the arrival of the Europeans, as the midday heat turned a heavy lunch into an unappetizing proposition. Dosa and idli, served with chutneys, are not just tiffin, but are also eaten a main dish.
Idli are an ancient Indian food and were first recorded in a tenth-century story in which a lady offers an idli to a monk asking for alms. Idli made with lentil flour and spiced with pepper and asafoetida are also mentioned in the Manasollasa, an encyclopaedic work written in the twelfth century which discusses, among many topics, contemporary culinary habits.
This prototype idli was made without rice and was fried, not steamed. The steaming method used today seems to have been introduced from Indonesia, where a similar dish exists.
There is an onion version, another that is butter roasted, as well as a spongy dosa served with chutney. Restaurants specializing in dosa take pride in making them paper-thin, and bringing them to the table shaped into a cone. Today, there are also non-vegetarian dosa made with chicken or lamb, or even seafood.
Vada are arguably the oldest snack in India, and are especially popular in south India. They are eaten with sambhar and chutney as a light meal or at breakfast. There are many variations (see chapter 3): some are highly spiced with green chillies, curry leaves and pepper, while others are soaked in yoghurt.
- In January the Hindu festival of Makar Sankranti is celebrated all over India in a variety of ways. In Tamil Nadu this is the time for Pongal, the winter solstice celebrations. Cows are garlanded with mango leaves and a pot of rice is put on the fire and allowed to boil over, symbolizing plenty and prosperity in the household. The porridge-like breakfast dish Venu Pongal is spiced with cumin, pepper, ginger and asafoetida.
Most of the inhabitants of Tamil Nadu are vegetarian. Although the non-Brahmin communities, particularly those of Chettinadu in the south, are not averse to eating meat. Their repertoire makes uninhibited use of non-vegetarian ingredients and shows the influence of Andhra cuisine, from where they are thought to have emigrated.
No meal in Tamil Nadu is complete unless complemented by two or three flavoursome chutneys. These are not seen as mere accompaniments, but as important side dishes with a distinct personality. Coconut chutney is ubiquitous and invariably served with idli, dosa and vada. Tomato and garlic versions are also very popular.
Coffee is an integral part of dining in Tamil Nadu. In common with the rest of India and the world, purists take theirs unadulterated by sugar or milk and in thimble-sized espresso portions.
A more traditional drink is made from freshly roasted and ground coffee beans mixed with chicory, diluted with a boiling mix of milk and water, and sweetened generously”.
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I am looking forward to South Indian breakfasts, onion utthappam and other delicious treats in store on the tour.
It might be an idea to bring a notebook for your tasting notes and recipes.