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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

5 Lessons To Take Away From East Indian Cooking

by

The Propa Eats Team
2113 days ago
20190508

#1 Chunkay

When you fry spices and aro­mat­ics like gar­lic, gin­ger and onion, their flavour per­me­ates the oil and al­lows it to eas­i­ly be trans­ferred to dish­es. This is a com­mon tech­nique for chokas, dhals and cur­ries. Most like­ly this came from the In­di­an tech­nique of ‘tad­ka’ or, in Eng­lish, ‘tem­per­ing’ where­by spices are roast­ed in oil or ghee to have their oils re­leased. This method is al­so called chounk or bagar. Ei­ther way, this mag­i­cal tech­nique does not have to be lim­it­ed to In­di­an cui­sine. Chunkay can be used for pas­ta sauces, stews and soups, ei­ther as a cook­ing com­po­nent or fin­ish­ing oil.

#2 Spice Mix­ing

Most peo­ple for­get that cur­ry pow­der is, in re­al­i­ty, a com­bi­na­tion of spices—this in it­self makes it a bril­liant blend of com­plex flavours. Through­out In­di­an cook­ing, spices are paired in both sweet and savoury dish­es. Whether it be adding garam masala and fenu­greek to cur­ry for a deep­er ef­fect or, in­tro­duc­ing car­damom in­to desserts, it’s no se­cret that In­di­an cui­sine mas­ter­ful­ly in­cor­po­rates spice blend­ing. Don’t be afraid to mix your own sea­son­ing blends or, to add ad­di­tion­al spices to pre-pack­aged sea­son­ings. Al­so, re­mem­ber, there’s more to spices in desserts than just cin­na­mon.

#3 Beau­ty of Roast­ing

Fire-roast­ing veg­eta­bles for side-dish­es is a com­mon prac­tice in East In­di­an cui­sine. Of course, mod­ern times have led many peo­ple to roast in the oven or over their stove­tops how­ev­er, the smoky, charred ef­fect is still there. Apart from cook­ing the veg­eta­bles for chokas, this method al­lows a dif­fer­ent di­men­sion of flavour and tex­ture to be in­tro­duced to the veg­etable. Roast­ing meat be­fore a stew or cur­ry al­so im­parts a smoky flavour and crisp tex­ture to the meat.

#4 Veg­eta­bles Can Eas­i­ly Be A Meal

Most per­sons are used to the com­mon for­mu­la of a meal: meat, veg­eta­bles and a carb. How­ev­er, many times in In­di­an cui­sine, veg­eta­bles and roti or dhal and rice are the on­ly things on the plate. In­di­an veg­etable side dish­es like bha­gi, fried ochro, pump­kin talka­ri and roast­ed baigan cho­ka are com­mon­ly the main star of a dish. They are so suf­fi­cient­ly tasty that no oth­er el­e­ment is need­ed.

#5 Condi­ments Are Key

Condi­ments in In­di­an cui­sine are care­ful­ly pre­pared, boom­ing with flavour and well-bal­anced. From raw pom­me­cythere chut­neys to man­go am­char and pick­led kuchela, pur­pose­ful in­gre­di­ents and time are put in­to mak­ing the per­fect condi­ment for cur­ries, pholouries and ka­chouris. The world of a dif­fer­ence is tast­ed when you know and can taste the care and labour of love in­to some­thing as sim­ple as a condi­ment.


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