Tips on Indian Cooking

The first question most of my students ask me is whether it is difficult to learn. My answer is - it is not difficult to learn, it only takes a little time, just like any new skill. Once you learn the basics, you can experiment, add a little more of this or less of that, add a new ingredient, and you have a dish which suits your taste.

The first thing to note is that most of Indian cooking is done on a low to medium flame, cooking slowly, giving the spices time to release their flavour and aroma into the dish being cooked. The problem here in Shanghai is that, Chinese cooking being done on high heat, the burners are not really suited for the low heat - food tends to burn if left for a long time. To prevent this, when you are cooking, you may need to turn the heat off, when adding spices to the oil in the pan, wait a few seconds and start the flame again. This is a little irritating at times, but necessary to see that the end result is good.

Second question I get is - what kind of cookware to use ? Indian cooking is preferably done in heavy - duty vessels - not the light, non stick version which we get here - they tend to burn - a cast iron wok is very useful, you can find them in most supermarkets or even in the chinese stores. Cast iron retains heat and helps cook food well. The important thing is that the base of the vessel is thick, the ASD brand cookware is good, though a little more expensive.

Cooking oil - sunflower oil or corn oil is fine, in India we do use peanut oil - but the peanut oil here is slightly more smelly and tends to have an aftertaste which is not desirable. Soya bean oil too has a slight smell, which might over power the spices used in the dish - Sunflower or corn oil are better options, both for the curries, as well as deep frying.

In future posts I shall discuss about different spices used in Indian cooking.