|
Below, you'll find extensive information on leading
asia carrera articles and products to help you on your way
to success.
Cooking Indian Food At Home - Where To Start?
By Liz Canham, Tue Jan 10th
If you read my article, Curry - A Journey, published on theCurry page of this site, you'll know that my first experiencesof the dish were of the generic variety which the Britishinvariably cooked and ate when living abroad a few decades ago.You'll also know that I then discovered "real" Indian cookeryand decided that as I couldn't afford to eat out that much, Ineeded to learn how to cook the stuff myself. My first stop then, was a local bookshop, where the choice ofbooks on Indian cookery was somewhat limited. However, I strucklucky and discovered a book called Indian Cookery by MadhurJaffrey - what a find. Written in simple language but withlovely descriptive text and recommendations on what to servewith what, it was just what I had been looking for. There was a stumbling block, however, which was the endless listof spices, seasonings and flavourings in the front of the book.I didn't know where to start - I'd heard of quite a lot of them,having watched a few TV programmes on Indian cooking but, "help"I thought, "buying that many all at once is going to cost afortune". If you're thinking the same, don't panic. Check inyour store cupboard. You probably already have some of the itemsyou will need. For example, look for black peppercorns, bayleaves, chilli powder (if you're already a fan of chilli concarne), ground ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon if you bakecakes or apple pies. Maybe you'll find mustard seeds if you doyour own pickling and sesame seeds if you make rolls or cookChinese food. That only leaves a few basic ingredients whichappear in a lot of Indian recipes - cumin, coriander, turmericand cardamom. Often you need ground cumin and coriander but ifyou buy the whole spices, you can grind them as necessary (andthey keep longer that way too).
The
other thing I did was to choose a fairly simple recipe tostart with and I just bought the spices I needed for that. Thenext time I want to cook an Indian meal, I chose another recipewith similar ingredients so I had to just buy a couple morethings. Soon enough I built up a whole store cupboard of thethings I needed and it didn't have had such a drastic effect onmy wallet. Then there was no stopping me - I even know some recipes byheart now and you can do the same if you want to. You don't need special equipment for Indian cookery, although Iwouldn't be without my electric coffee grinder (to grind spices)and it's nice (but not necessary) to have the traditional dishesto serve your meal in. Other than that, you need a bit ofpatience and it's fun to cook with a friend so that you canshare the chopping and grinding or have someone read the recipeout to you step by step so you don't go wrong in the middle. The flavours are great, a curry evening is really sociable, sogo on, give it a try. Liz Canham: As well as a love of Asian cooking and travel as you can see inher Asian Food and Cookery and Travellers' Tales websites, Liz seeks tohelp newcomers to the world of internet marketing with tools,tips and training from her Liz-e-Biz.com website. About the author:Liz Canham: As well as a love of Asian cooking and travel as you can see inher Asian Food andCookery and Travellers'Tales websites, Liz seeks to help newcomers to the world ofinternet marketing with tools, tips and training from her Liz-e-Biz.com website.
|
