thecookscottage

How to make Ginger Paste

It has taken me years to organise myself in the kitchen. It was a place I faffed around in, as they say here. A place to relax and produce something of note in a leisurely way, once in a while.
Organisation was for my work. There every detail was worked out in the mind ahead of time. No computer needed thank you. My training in film was more like disaster management and it came in handy for daily work where nothing could be taken for granted.
Then, on the home front, it became necessary to come up with something edible twice a day. What had changed ? Additions to the family, whose hungry cries brooked no delay in coming up with the goods.
Suddenly I needed to make something that was quick, simple and tasty. Or we could be sitting there at the table till kingdom come, waiting for a couple of morsels to be swallowed. Have you encountered mutiny of this kind? Gandhian in a way.  Very non-violent but  oh so silent and stubborn. Small jaws clenched and stuck out in defiance. No food would enter that mouth !
New strategies had to be thought of immediately. I had to regroup my forces. My house needed to be put in order.
This required some of the lengthy processes of Indian cooking to be cut down. Obligatory ingredients had to be at hand and prepared for use.  Ginger, Garlic, Chillies and Coriander.  Essential and impossible to stock fresh every day.  Their keeping qualities were limited and preparation required the patience of an elephant.
I was not willing to give up taste and quality in the need for speed. So- no ready made bottled ginger garlic paste. Uncompromising you might say.
As a result the following shorthand measures, taught to me by more practical friends , came to my rescue.  You can cut at least five minutes of preparation time by having this in your freezer.
Buy ginger by the pound. Peel it roughly, chop into large bits and pop it in the blender. Blend till it becomes a rough paste.

Now spoon it into ice cube trays, with a lid if possible, and freeze. You are now set -to add  a cube of ginger to dal instantly or to any other dish that requires it and you'd have saved  yourself much washing up as well. Even if its hairy ginger, like this lot, it will still taste good and definitely better than the  ginger paste you get bottled which tastes of....nothing.

Fishy Business - An illustrated glossary of Indian Fish -2. Pomfret

Pomfret is the party fish in this part of the world. If fish is served, at a lunch or dinner occasion, it has got to be pomfret. No Parsi wedding is complete without it . Pomfret takes pride of place on the menu and justifiably so. It has a delicate flavour, a central bone and is not too fishy.

When eating sea food I am almost spineless. Which means I don't like to fish the bones out of my mouth and prefer something not too spiky. Most Bengalis are adept at separating the bones from the flesh, even while chewing, a talent which I envy. It enables them to enjoy even the boniest of fish. They also crunch up fish skeletons with alacrity. Many sea food lovers would choke over lesser carcasses. I am told that Bengalis attribute their highly developed intellect (ahem) to their fish intake, which is pretty steep when compared to other communities .

Sadly, the price of silver pomfret has gone through the roof and it has become a delicacy for the wrong reasons. The fish monger slices each piece of fish like a diamond cutter works on each facet of a gem. Slowly and deliberately, setting each precious chip aside however microscopic.

Pomfret is also known as Butterfish, and is available throughout India, perhaps to a greater degree in Maharashtra. The three varieties are :

Silver Pomfret

Silver Pomfret (Pampus argenteus) is known as Vichuda or Paplet in Gujerati, Saranga, Chandava, Papleet or Paplet in Marathi, Pomfret or Chandi in Bengali, Chandee or Ghia in Oriya, Chanduva or Nallachanduva in Telugu , Karuvaval in Tamil, Avoli, Velluvolli , Velutha Avoli in Malayalam, Manji or Thondrette in Kannada,Surangat in Konkani, Silver Pomfet or white pomfret in the UK, Palometon platero in Spain, Lowandg in Indonesia and Ilak in the Phillipines.

White Pomfret
Pampus chinensis (Chinese pomfret)
which is often known by the same common name as the silver pomfret in different regions of India though it is not as widespread,

Black Pomfret

and Black Pomfret , Parastromateus niger which is known as Halwa in Hindi, Marathi and Gujerati , Karauthakoli or Karuvolli or Vellavoli in Malayalam, Karuvavalor, Vavval, or Vellaivaval in Tamil, Thellachanduva or Nallachanduva in Telegu, Thondrotte in Kannada, Slade or Butterfish in Australia, Palometa Negra in Spain, Black Pompano, Black Pomfret or Sweep in the U.S, Castoline Noire in France, Gebel in Indonesia, Kuro-Aji-Modoki in Japanese and, what do you know, Doggie in Australia

Of the three species the Silver pomfret is most common. Black pomfret is also widespread and Chinese pomfret, though familiar on the East coast, is rare on the West coast and not as readily available as the other two. Pomfret is fished extensively in the Arabian Sea from September to January and the season is at its height from October to the end of the year.
I like to bake pomfret as it retains its flavour and does not fall apart. Here is a recipe which always turns out well.

Baked Masala Pomfret Packets

To serve 4

Ingredients:

4 small silver pomfret about 6" in length and about 300-400 gms each. Fillet , wash and clean,without removing the skin.
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp haldi / turmeric

1/2 coconut grated.
1-4 green chillies minced.
2 inches ginger peeled and roughly chopped
8 cloves garlic.
1 cup chopped coriander leaves
1 tsp jeera /cumin powder
2 tsp dhania/ coriander powder
1 tbsp lime juice
1/2 piece of gur / jaggery or 1/2 tsp of brown sugar.

Foil

Make a mixture of the salt, pepper,chilli powder and turmeric and rub on the insides of the fillets. In a blender, grind all the other ingredients into a smooth paste . Place a fillet of pomfret on a piece of foil. Spread a generous amount of paste on it. Cover with the top fillet. Wrap into a neat parcel leaving a tiny pocket of air on top and place on a baking dish. Do the same with the other 3 pomfrets.
Heat oven to 400 degrees. When hot, place dish with fish inside and cook for 15-20 minutes till the flesh is white and flakes when tested with a fork.
Remove and serve hot with chapathies or rice. This is also delicious with crusty bread and a tomato salad.

(If you can get hold of some banana leaves you could use them instead of foil . If wrapped in banana leaves, steam the parcels in a covered steamer on the stove top for half a hour.)

7/20/2006

Fishy Business- An illustrated glossary of Indian Fish - 1. Bombay Duck

Moving home means major upheaval in India. More so when the move is from one state to another.  Beside the usual challenges one has to face, like packing and unpacking, finding an appropriate place for everything, setting up the kitchen from scratch, finding new schools, and new doctors and dentists and friends, there is one more important, basic necessity: acquiring a quick knowledge of the local language in order to feed one's family.

I mean, try finding the word for nutmeg in Chennai, red snapper in Cochin, lotus seeds in Calcutta, or bottle gourd in Chandigarh. You would have to be a walking Tower of Babel.

Many Indian cookbooks give a cursory nod in the direction of this problem by adding a glossary of ingredients in different languages at the end of the book. Most prove to be vastly inadequate, if not entirely misleading. And let me tell you from experience, a spice by any other name does not taste as sweet. In fact, it can be positively ghastly.

Supermarkets, where one can identify everything by sight, do not exist in many towns and cities. One has to depend on the small, but well stocked, general store, where everything is out of sight and will be produced if asked for by the right name. So this knowledge of the local name for ingredients becomes critical.

My biggest problem has been with fish. In the early days of my cooking years it was easy enough when I walked through the 5.a.m. catch at Sassoon Docks in Bombay, picking up a kilo or more of prawns from a mound here, and a couple of pomfret from another mound there. The fisherwomen selling the fish had no weighing scales, and it was all an approximate amount, with prices negotiated on the spot. They found it quite amusing to sell small quantities to me, being more used to the wholesale buyers who generally came each morning and bid for one fisherman's entire catch.
I did not always know the name of the fish, and learned about the taste and the way it could be cooked through sheer trial and error. Some years later we moved to London and I had no idea what to ask the fishmonger. A fish that tastes like pomfret? The closest thing to surmai (by then, already my favourite fish)? By the time I got to know my fish facts we were in Delhi or some other part of India, where the process began all over again.
A moveable feast is not as easy as it sounds.
For all those who have suffered from life on the move, or even for those who travel for pleasure and would like to know what to ask for, or what sea creature they are about to ingest, here is the first in a 10-part series of an illustrated glossary of some of the commercial fish of India.

Bombay Duck all in a Row

I must begin with Bombay Duck, which, with its overbite, is possibly one of the most determinedly ugly fish ever seen. Commonly known as Bombil in Marathi and Oriya, Bamalohor and Nehare in Bengali, Bumla and Gulchi in Gujerati, Coco-mottah in Telegu,Vanharavasi in Tamil, it is also known by different names in other countries. Bumalo in Spain, Bumblim in Portugal, Bummalo in Germany, Tenaga-mizutengu in Japanese and Bombay Duck in most other European and Scandinavian countries.

This fish constitutes a major part of the total catch in India, and most of it comes from the Konkan Coast of Maharashtra, Gujerat and Saurashtra. Bombay Duck or Harpodon nehereus is also caught in substantial quantities in the Bengal estuaries and on the Andhra and Orissa coastlines in Masulipatnam and Jaffrabad. Some of it is sold fresh, but, as it is a very soft fish, it is susceptible to spoilage, so much of it is sun dried. A common sight in all fishing villages along the Maharashtrian coast are the ropes strung on bamboo poles where they are hung by the teeth. The familiar smell of drying fish follows you when walking on the beaches along the western coast.

Its somewhat misleading name is supposed to have come from the fact that the dried fish was carried, in the days of yore, by the Bombay Mail train and stank its way through the entire journey, gaining the train and its goods some notoriety. Dak being the Hindi word for Mail, Bombay Dak (i.e. Duck) became the name of the fish.

Dried Bombay Duck for Sale

It is such a favourite amongst Maharashtrians that one well known Maharashtrian cricketer was named Bombay Duck for his seven test zeroes against Australia. Bombay duck is very popular among the CKP community. I am grateful to Deepa Chitre for the following recipe, which is a customary way to cook this fish.

Ingredients
8-10 fresh Bombil ( Bombay Duck (), cleaned and cut into 2 inch pieces,
6 medium size potatoes, preferably round in shape,
3 tablespoons garlic paste
1 tablespoons red chili powder,
1/2 tbsp haldi (turmeric)
1 tablespoon salt
5-6 tbsp finely chopped coriander leaves,
4-5 chopped green chilies (to taste),
5 tbsp fresh coconut grated,
4-5 tbsp oil

Thoroughly wash the slices of Bombay Duck in running water. Clean and scrub the potatoes(they will be used with the skin).
Dry the fish and coat the slices with a mixture of garlic paste, chili powder, haldi and salt.
Cut the potatoes into thin slices. Coat with haldi, chili powder, salt, coriander leaves, green chilies and grated coconut.
Put together the potatoes and Bombay Duck, and let the mixture marinate for 1 hour.
Heat oil in a thick bottomed vessel , or kadhai. Add the potatoes and fish and let it all cook on a low flame. Initially toss the mixture (instead of stirring), to ensure that the oil spreads through the entire mixture. (The pieces of fish break very easily if stirred.)
Cover and cook till the potatoes are done. Staunchly resist the temptation to open the lid and stir.

While serving take care that the fish pieces do not break.
Serve hot. Do not reheat.

Next fish online:
Pomfret

Ref:Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2006.FishBase.
World Wide Web electronic publication.
www.fishbase.org, version (05/2006).

How to make Khoya

Boiling down milk

Milk based sweets are the most popular kind of dessert in Indian cuisine, several of which require the use of khowa/khoya. Here is how to make it.

Ingredients:

• 5 litres full cream buffalo milk

Take a thick bottomed pan or a kadhai , the bottom half of a pressure cooker or something like a Le Creuset casserole. Pour in the milk and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to low and continue to cook, stirring every 5 minutes to mix any solids accumulated at the bottom of the pan.Do not let the solids burn. Keep cooking and stirring till the milk gets a really thick consistency.This will take a couple of hours.

Ready Khoya

Patience is the key to khoya.(If it was possible I'd say set up some kind of mixing machine going like an icecream maker. This is an idea for some inventor.Any takers?*) Let the khoya cool. Keep refrigerated and use within 2 days.

(5 litres of milk makes approximately 1 kilo of khoya)

*Ooops.There is already a manufacturer of a khoya making mixer out there....

Garam garam Canteen chai

Canteen Chai

It is not coffee but Chai, that provides that kick start to the human heart  in the Indian subcontinent.

What is life without a cup of morning tea, the auld chhota hazri?

A bloke called Sir Reginald Bennett , once started the Imperial Poona Yacht Club at Oxford, while an undergraduate in 1930.Their speciality was racing backwards .(which is neither here nor there) However. I have no idea what it had to do with Poona nor the  relevance of the intriguing club motto -Chhota hazri, which Bennett, who was a renowned epicure ,translated as: "There is nothing worse than a continental breakfast." 

Actually Chhota Hazri means a little brekker of tea and biscuits, usually served in the bedroom,in a propah tea set dedicated to the purpose. This which was followed somewhat later by a pucca larger breakfast.

Well, even if we are no longer sahibs and memsahibs, nobody should have to face the world without that cup of chai.It straightens the shoulders, it gives a spring to a flagging step and it is what I miss most from those old days as a film maker.

The ' habit' began at the Film Institute Canteen where we gathered, as soon as it opened, to quaff tiny glasses of tea, brewed so strong, it lifted even the laziest of aspiring directors off the chairs and got them moving to class. This was the only canteen I have ever seen with a full length mirror installed. Fixed to a wall at the far end this enabled our  neophyte actors and actresses to check their carriage, their muscles, their smiles, their clothes , for all of 20 yards.Imagine, if you will , Mithun, (da),Shabana,(bi) and several others walking that imaginary ramp, the aisle between two lines of painted blue tables, upto the mirror. What can I say. It enlivened our days.

Boiled to Blithereens

After tea dust was boiled with water, milk was added to it and reboiled till the mixture got the colour of dark camel and tasted distinctly of horse leather. I can't figure out why.There were rumours that tea dust was mixed with leather shavings for colour but I cannot verify this.

In any case it was not possible to do any shooting, or editing, or anything without copious cups of this chai. Boiled till every bit of tannin had been wrung out of the CTC ( crush tear curl , a process after which the tea is named), it provided succour to any despairing creative soul struck, again and again, by the terrible certitude  that, on a film shooting, anything that could go wrong, would go wrong .

It is pretty much the same situation in any other office, site, factory, you name the place or the work and it won't carry on without that cuppa.

Now it is surprising to hear that the Tea Board of India is planning a campaign to promote tea among the younger generation whom they think are changing habits  and attitudes to 'the cup that cheers'.

Are they really that threatened by Barista and Cafe Coffee Day, the two large chains who have grown at an astonishing pace to become the haunt of choice for young people? I was under the impression the tables at these coffee shops were full, more because young people need a place to hang out, than for the taste of their coffee.

The Tea Board thinks differently. Apparently they plan to appoint an advertising agency to get the message that tea is contemporary, wholesome and healthy, across to a nationwide  audience of young consumers.It is said that they want tea to be declared a 'national drink' and they want the Union Commerce ministry to fund the exercise.

Somehow I cannot believe that coffee is more popular than tea, except in the South where a true blue filter coffee can outtaste any Columbian , Sumatran or Blue Mountain bean. And  is definitely not to be turned down in favour of chai.

But...the rest of India.I mean, begin a chain of trendy Chai shops and see what happens.

Meanwhile you make your own Canteen Chai

For each cup, measure out one half milk and one half water into a pan. Add 2 teaspoons of sugar per cup. Bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and add 1 teaspoon of CTC tea per cup to the mixture. Boil on a slow fire  till the right colour is obtained. It should be a medium saturated brown and should not be at all transparent.Remove and strain into a glass or mug.

For adrak chai/ Ginger tea add  3 slices of fresh ginger, at the start .Strain out with tea leaves at the end.

For masala chai /Masala Tea add a pinch of  the following  ground mixed masala  to the water and milk in the beginning.

• 1 tsp soont (dried ginger powder) If this is not available add a few slices of fresh ginger to the water.
• 1 tsp  lavang /cloves
• 1 tsp elaichi / cardomom
• 1 " piece of cinnamon.

Grind all together in a coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle.Reduce the amount if the taste is too strong for you.

Top Ten Indian Cookbooks.

Not much has changed since Apicius. Most cookbooks are still handwritten notes and even though fairly generic, many women still guard their recipes like gold. Till recently, few Indian women, especially in small towns, would willingly share their recipes .To get the exact ingredients of a dal makhani in North India was a task that required sleuthing skills and Holmesian questioning.There was always the option of catching the cook behind the memsahibs back and grilling him.

It sounds so Victorian but in a sense it was. Women were not encouraged to work outside , and their only realm of influence was the home . Socially acceptable work was running a boutique or a school in the home. Beyond that there were few ways in which a woman could give reign to her imagination or creativity.Where many women were so much more ambitious and smarter than their husbands , food was often a weapon of oneupmanship.Recipes were guarded like gold.

Old recipe books  whether of Roman or Eastern origin gave the ingredients but never exact amounts. Much was left to the imagination.Great cooks were celebrated and feted and the feasts they prepared were talked about long after.

Now with the huge number of cookbooks available it is pretty tough to select ones that will be really useful to the average cook. Sadly some of the best Indian cook books look like nothing on earth...no appetizing pictures, bad typefaces and cheap paper as well as indiscriminate copy editing with ingredients missing or instructions misplaced. So they need imagination and determination to cull the best recipes from them.

Others look so good it seems unbelievable that the recipes are generically bad; they are compilations of recipes picked out from here and there with photographs bought from photo agencies that often have nothing to do with the given recipe.

Years of coming up with awful food productions have helped me to make a list of pretty decent cook books. I have tried to keep the variety of Indian cuisine in mind and have listed as many books giving recipes from different regions as possible . As usual there are so many books about Tandoori and North Indian food which has become popular the world over. The real gold lies between the covers of those unassuming little books with authentic home cooking written by some dedicated housewife. Sumaithu Paar was originally a three volume tome written by Mrs Ammal as a labour of love. Every Tamilian bride got one set much as 'The Joy of Cooking' as become a must have on every American brides gift list.

This list threatened to become the Top Twenty... but I restrained myself.And cheated a bit. Note 2 a and b.

1.Indian Cooking;Madhur Jaffrey. Publishers: Barron's Educational Series; Expanded edition (September, 1995) ISBN: 0812065484 Written in a way that can be understood by everyone, with authentic home cooking recipes, this is a good introduction to North Indian cooking .

2. a. 500 Easy Recipes.A New Approach.Narayani V. Nayak . Published 1965.  Reprinted 1978. Great Saraswat recipes. Much better than the famous 'Rasa Chandrika' . I will be bringing out a new book with all her wonderful recipes later this year.Please check with me to order advance copies around January 2007.

2.b Moti Mahal -Tandoori Trails- Monish Gujral. Roli Books . ISBN 8174363165.From the original Moti Mahal in Old Delhi, an interesting background to the pioneers of popul ar tandoori cooking .North Indian

3.The Complete Vegetable Cook Book- Vasantha Moorthy .A guide to Cooking Vegetables in over 300 Ways.UBS Publishers ISBN 81-7476-009-1  An excellent book with a home cooked  South Indian flavour.

4. The best of Sumaithu Paar:The Classic guide to Tamil Cuisine.Meenakshi Ammal.New Delhi. Viking 2001.ISBN 0670 049  .A selection from the original volumes.

5. Dakshin.Chandra Padmanabhan.Publishers: Periplus Editions. ISBN 9625935274

6. Life and Food in Bengal-Chitrita Banerji. Reprint. New Delhi. Penguin 2005.ISBN 013032739

7.Annapurna-Mangla Barve. Maharashtrian Cooking . Mumbai . Publishers: Asoka Kesava Kothavale : Majestik Prakasaha, 1992. This has been a best seller in Marathi and might be available in English soon.

8.Jamva Chaloji- Katy Dalal .Parsi delicacies for all Occasions.Publishers.Vakils, Feffer and Simons Ltd. Bombay. ISBN 81-87111-06-2 A bit on the rich side but worth trying.

9.Wazwaan-Traditional Kashmiri Cuisine.The Waza brothers. Publishers:Roli Books. ISBN 81-7436-171-5 . Fabulous Kashmiri food written out fairly well. Just cut down on the amounts of ghee and oil specified.

10.Cooking Delights of the Maharajas-Exotic Dishes from the Princely House of Sailana- Digvijaya Singh. Publishers:Vakils, Feffer and Simons. 10th ed. 2002.Mumbai . ISBN 81-87111-14-3 .You might have to work out what some phrases mean, as the language is not very clear, but the recipes are superb.

P.S.Please note comments and links below  from Lindy at Toast to get copies from other booksellers.

P.P.S.Other readers favourites with links also mentioned iin the comments section.

How to make Paneer/ Cottage Cheese

Home made paneer / cottage cheese is so different from what you buy outside. I am always a bit concerned that shop bought paneer has something added as a thickener. Blotting paper ? That used to be a favourite thickener for kulfi /boiled down milk icecream, or so I was told several years ago.

In any case, if not for reasons of strange additives, then for reasons of taste, you should try making your own paneer for just once in your life. One good reason to do so, in India, is that you can then eat it without cooking . Sliced wafer thin, topped with lettuce or cucumber, with salt and pepper or chaat masala it makes a mouthwatering and healthy sandwich or veggie burger.

Milk products are a haven for bacteria especially here where we get raw milk. Our milk man, who owned a large herd of buffaloes, was known for increasing the daily yield by the simple method of adding water from the garden tap.
He is now our local corporator.

I don't know if this proves anything about milk or corporators but at least he insists on giving all visitors a cup of tea to drink before which he will not attend to any complaints or requests.

Another story about adulterated milk is the one about tankers of milk making their way from farm to city, stopping enroute to be topped up with water and soap suds (of a particular brand of soap, which I shall not name) that had the right milky colour.
A friend who distributes rennit and yeasts to produce different types of yogurt and cheese can keep an evening going with his tales of dastardly deeds done to milk in India and it will make you swear off raw milk forever, unless you have a stomach made of iron, one that will not turn easily.

Okay, so the main issue here is that most commercially made paneer is formed at a degree below boiling point and is therefore bacterially suspect. Not only that, covered as it is with fine muslin, soaked in heaven knows what water, to keep it damp, about which flies hover and dive bomb.....need I say more?

So are you are now ready to try your hand at making paneer at home? If so this is what you do: Get your paneer making tools together.

• Large stainless steel pan


• Slotted spoon


• Paneer strainer


• Measuring cup

Squeeze two lemons and keep the juice ready.Take one litre of cow's or buffalo's milk. Heat is till it boils. Turn the heat to low and let it simmer for 5 minutes.

Very slowly start pouring the lime juice into the simmering milk while stirring it in at very leisurely pace with a slotted spoon.

The milk will start to seperate. Continue to stir very gently while adding the lime juice.

The curds should now form a large mass.When it does so, stop stirring and take the pan off the heat.

Let the curds sink to the bottom of the pan. Then pour off the whey into another pan. Keep aside for other uses *( see below).

Turn the curds into a paneer maker or a sieve and let stand without pressing till water is further released from the curds.

Cut the curds to release any extra liquid and let stand till well formed.

The top of the paneer should remain wet not dry. 1 litre of milk makes about 250 gms of paneer.

The paneer can now be used to cook , grill or fry.It can also be used as is, in salads, sandwiches, toppings or in a cheesecake.By the way paneer made from buffaloes milk is white and that made from cows milk is a pale creamy yellow.Homemade paneer must be refrigerated and used within 3 days . If you intend to use it later, keep it covered with water, like tofu, in the fridge, till you are ready to use it which should not be more than 5 days after making in any case.

*The whey of the paneer is full of nutrients and can be added to wheat flour when kneading it for chapathies.This makes the chapathies very soft.It can also be added to the gravy if you are making paneer curry or to any other curry to add flavour.

(Thanks to Leela for her expertise generously shared with me. She began making superb Gouda, Edam, Cheddar and several other cheeses in Pune long before anybody else did. Sadly she is too busy with her environment camps and Eco-Park to do that anymore and we now look to Amul for a new range of cheeses.)

I used cubes of this cheese, well salted,to make Melissa's yummy Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Spicy Feta -Olive Salad . It was nothing like Feta but tasted good nevertheless.

How to make Ghee/ Clarified Butter

In one scintillating chapter of his book "It must've been something I ate", Jeffrey Steingarten writes about the qualities that both monosodium glutamate and tomato ketchup have. They enhance the inherent taste of foods they are added to because of synergy, not any definable chemical composition. They are 'Umami ' substances....which is Japanese for deliciousness. An omelette becomes an epiphany, a sweet corn chicken soup an elixir.

Just like ghee.. Add a dollop to any dal and savour the difference. Cook anything vegetable in it and the veggie goes from ordinary to extraordinary in one giant leap.

All these taste 'enhancers' are terrifically NO-NO. Ghee is a saturated fat made from cream or butter. In these health concious days it is not very popular in the average kitchen. I tend to cook in vegetable oil and add a half teaspoon of ghee at the end with the tarka/ seasoning. That way you get the taste without the harm.

In any case I have always felt ghee has a healing character. There are various reasons for this. It's efficacy in a severe viral gastroenteritis case. Frying anar dana / dried pomegranate seeds in a teaspoon of ghee and using it as a medicine helped enormously. Jeera/ cumin seed sauteed in ghee with a tablepoon of rice and then cooked for half an hour in plenty of water to make a kanji/ broth is another excellent food for convalescents.

How to make Real Ghee: Boil full cream milk and leave it to cool. Any cream present gathers on the top when cooled and can be skimmed off easily , especially if you refrigerate it for a day before doing this. Collect the cream in a bowl over the course of a week. A spoonful of yogurt helps to keep the cream fine without letting it get mouldy.

When you have collected enough cream which can be anything from 100 to 500 gms, heat a kadhai and add the cream. Let it melt on low heat. It will foam initially and then settle down. Continue to cook  on low heat for 45 minutes, till all the solids have sunk to the bottom of the kadhai. Drain off the liquid part. Strain though a cloth or stainless steel mesh strainer. After a while, when cold it becomes white in colour and solid. There is no need to refrigerate the ghee.

To cut the whole process short you can make ghee from bought unsalted butter as well. Follow the same method as above.

Know your Onions

If you don't know how to brown onions you will never get the authentic taste of Indian food.All the cook books say ' Saute  onions till lightly golden' or even 'pink'. Forget it. Eat onions thus made and in no time at all you will feel like a bloated buoy floating on a wild wild sea.

Here is how to go about it.The first thing is to take a heavy bottomed pan. Stainless steel is  not the best for this.An aluminium or thick cast iron kadhai or wok shaped pan is the best. Heat it well and add the onions dry. NO OIL!

Let the onions sweat on a medium fire till very soft and mushy and brown. Stir from time to time.This will take all of 15 minutes and there is no way you can rush this process unless you add a lot of oil.To get really caramelised they will take 30 minutes.Then they get a wonderful rich taste and colour which forms the basis of a good curry.

(If you must have oil or ghee (clarified butter) you can use a tablespoon or two for up to 4 large onions.)

To speed up cooking time get going with all the other preparations- chopping the other vegetables, marinating or browning the meat, making the ginger garlic paste or any other paste required, getting the masalas together and so on while the onions get brown.