I guess I wasn’t settled in yet because I had to make another dal. That, and/or I didn’t want to spend any money and this is a ridiculously inexpensive dish. Or maybe I just wanted to review yet another cookbook, and that only happens one recipe at a time.
“My Indian Kitchen” by Hari Nayak – This one is beautiful. It’s a bit strange because it’s published in Singapore and there’s a bit of sloppy editing work. I don’t think it’s a lost-in-translation issue as I think the book is only in English, and I’m not even sure if it’s exactly the same version published in Singapore and Japan, but some things it really get right that a lot of North American cookbooks don’t is the stunning amount of colour photos of almost every dish. Turns out that costs A LOT of money and many cookbooks forgo the pricey printing of visuals in favour of a larger paycheck for the author or editor or publisher or whoever deserves it down the accounting foodchain.
But “My Indian Kitchen” by Hari Nayak is as example of pure beauty. Nothing was skimped on here. There’s a multi-page intro from Nayak explaining his background growing up in Udupi in Southern India, studying hotel and restaurant management there before moving to the US and attending culinary school. Then there’s his “growing up in India” food background – what is southern Indian food anyway? Idli, dosa, and sambhars to start, but Nayak also writes about being influenced by his travels throughout the rest of India. Streetfood from Mumbai to Delhi, chaats, vada, and kaati. I thought I knew a lot of Indian foods, but this book showed me lovingly that I was only just beginning.
Then there are two entire pages on wine pairings, and two entire pages on Nayak’s family food traditions – how a meal is served, eating seasonally (a green mango tree in the backyard meant chutney, the rainy season meant hot fritters and chai, and masala fried fish with steamed rice and freshly grated coconut). He talks about the importance of the meal, the customs of sitting together as a family, the art of folding food between the fingertips or forming a four-finger spoon with his right hand depending on the amount of sauce or variety of dishes on his plate. Bread, rice, and meals that ranged from simple dals and rice to elaborate feasts with more dishes than I could make in a week. He even talks about “curry” – the British bastardization of a blend of spices that has come to somehow mean only one particular flavour for most of the world – but he does it not in a condescending way, but a way that makes it obvious he’s happy that a love of Indian food in general is spreading, aka diplomatically.
Then there’s meal planning. He gives optional menus divided into simple vegetarian or non-vegetarian meals and more complex party menus. But the most impressive feature is probably the “techniques section”. “Sauce tips”, “sautéing”, deep-frying”, roasting and grinding of spices”, “Browning”, “steaming”, tempering”, and “roasting” all get their own side boxes with lengthy but not overly-wordy explanations (AND three photos each). He’s not being an academic about it, this book isn’t for the connoisseur. Anyone can pick up this book and both start salivating and say, “Yes, I think I can make some of these recipes.”
Then there’s the equipment and ingredients section, which is pretty typical of an Indian cookbook. Things like the different chili peppers and spices you’ve maybe never heard of have photos when that would be helpful (for chilies this is VERY helpful, as “long, red” or simply “green” are terms I hate). There are pictures of fresh curry leaves (“Oh! As in not dried. I suppose that must exist somewhere that isn’t here in Montreal” – me), mace slivers (not just a powder for pumpkin pie), whole tamarind pods, and then there are the spice blends. God I love this part. It’s not just “curry” or one general recipe for “garam masala”, which just means spice blend anyway. Every Indian home will have their little box of about 6 main spices that they roast and grind differently for each recipe, and fresh daily. Do you think an Indian family in India actually buys those pre-ground boxes of “Indian spices” – chaat masala, panch phoran, tandoori blend, etc? Well, actually they may, but it’s a recent, sad development if they do. My former roommates did out of lack of culinary ability and time. They were engineers, not cooks, and they’d grown up to be engineers…not cooks.
Back to the spice blends. Panch Phoran (Indian 5-spice – like Chinese…but different spices, so you can’t replace it), a general grilling and roasting rub, a red masala paste, a Dhaba spice blend, a Vindaloo curry paste, and the popular garam masalas and chaat masalas, all with tips on how to use them, where to find the spices, and they’re simple. No more than a few steps each.
God the pictures are the selling point. How to cut open an avocado and scoop out the flesh, how to make a green mango pickle in a gorgeous mason jar, and then recipes…
The variety, the colour, the flavours. Yes there’s sweet mango chutney, but there’s also pineapple and beet raita (a tongue-cooling yogurt side dish), some fusion shrimp bruschetta and fish fingers, pomegranate and mint potato salad (the best potluck potato salad, selon moi – plus a mess-free way of removing the pomegranate seeds). Then there are actual beautiful lentil recipes. Not just a few shafted ones at the end of the book that some North American vegetarian might enjoy while the rest of the continent thumbs their way through looking for the butter chicken recipe. Black-eyed peas and mushrooms are seductive, and if a book can make red bean curry something enticing with just 8 or 9 little threads of cilantro, then I know there’s some love put into it. Tamarind rice, so many beautiful biryanis, a lot of coconut milk, non-intimidating chicken dishes with, yes, recipes a mile long, but also easy-to-understand instructions. You want to cook from this book. It’s not for the coffee table.
So I did. And I started simple with Yellow Mung Beans with Spinach (Dal Palak). The complete recipe is available on his website! 2nd from the top. The eggplant dip I will try today.
I’m a bad recipe follower when I’m missing an ingredient or am slightly allergic. For example, I used almond milk instead of coconut milk and shallots instead of red onion. I used fresh ginger, and white sesame seeds instead of black. I didn’t have spinach, which is why that showed up in the other dal I made instead since I was inspired by this recipe. But I did make the homemade garam masala, which is pretty essential to the recipe. The almond milk is completely different than coconut – a huge disservice to the recipe – but still worked alright. The sign of a very, very good recipe. To be fair, though, if you don’t like dals you may not like this. It’s SO flavourful from all the freshly ground spices, but only a tiny bit sweet from the onions, and mostly just nutty and wholesome. And if you use a different kind of lentil you’ll probably need to cook the dish a lot longer and add more water accordingly.
I garnished with sprouts because I didn’t have the cilantro leaves…So basically I didn’t make this recipe. Ah well.
Oh, and Nayak doesn’t give the recipe for his garam masala online, but since I can give that legally as long as I change the cooking isntructions, here it is:
2 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp black peppercorns
1/2-inch (1.25 cm!! The recipe gives metric!) cinnamon stick
10 green cardamom pods
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp fennel seeds
5 bay leaves
Normally you would toast the spices one by one in a small frying pan (without oil), but here Nayak says to just toast them all together over medium heat in a medium frying pan for 1-2 minutes. The key is to let them cool before grinding if you’re using an electric grinder, I think, or you’ll end up with some humidity in your spice powder. Then you’ll never get the grinder clean, and the powder won’t have as long a shelf life if it’s not completely dry. If you’re grinding in a mortar and pestle this is less important, but you won’t end up with as fine a grind. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. It’s individual preference. AND you won’t have to wait patiently for the spices to cool.
Make sure to store the powder in an airtight container (an empty spice container is perfect). And it should last 4-6 weeks, but ideally you want to make this blend fresh each time you need it. Ideally. Not a lot of people actually do that, though. Don’t feel bad. The recipe can’t see you.
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