Madhur Jaffrey, an accidental ambassador of Indian food, began her career as an actor. Although she has written more than a dozen cookbooks, she still thinks of herself as an actor first. Taking a culinary detour out of sheer necessity and nostalgia, she learned to cook from her mother’s letter-written recipes. These recipes, honed and adapted over the years to suit the availability of ingredients and open Indian cuisine to the western world, crown her as a champion of home cooks. She has thought about all the questions, quandaries and qualms that arise when dinner time is looming, a pot sits empty on the stove and brain freeze strikes.
Here's a knowledge nugget from World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking, one of her cookbooks, “What is the correct proportion of rice to water? Disregard the proportion on top of rice packages. They suggest far more water than rice ever needs. Instead, follow the recipes in this chapter carefully, as the amount of water will vary depending upon the type of rice and whether it has been washed and soaked. For long grain Carolina rice, you certainly do not need more than 1 ½ cups of liquid for every cup of rice. If rice has been soaked, you can use even 1 1/3 cups of liquid. Brown rice is an exception. For that you should use 2 cups of rice of water for every cup of rice.”
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After giving detailed and specific instructions for how to sprout mung beans in the same book, she declares, “However, since I do not believe in losing sleep over bean sprouts, I give the beans a good soaking before I retire and another when I get up in the morning. As a result, not all my sprouts are perfect. Some actually look a bit stunted. That does not bother me.”
MJ’s Roasted Cauliflower with Punjabi Seasonings is a particular hit in my house. The cauliflower florets are seasoned with ginger, spiced with coriander and cumin powder and graced with a cumin-y tadka. Here’s what MJ says about the twist she gave this popular recipe of North India, “I wanted to simplify a cauliflower dish that I love, where I fry the cauliflower until it is lightly browned, and then sauté it with spices, such as ginger, coriander and cumin. After many tries, here is the beautiful result. I marinate florets of cauliflower with all the seasonings and then just roast them in a hot oven.”
I have adapted this recipe to include potatoes and tomatoes, Aloo Gobi’s traditional ingredients.
Aloo Gobi is a simple, mostly dry, North Indian sabji (means vegetable, cooked or raw) roasted to a dark brown perfection with spices and seasoned with onion, ginger, garlic in a variety of combinations. Aloo means potatoes and Gobi means cauliflower in Hindi, the national language of India. A specialty of Aloo Gobi is its versatility and ability to be jazzed up or dressed down as per occasion. Paired with roti, it's a happily greeted weeknight entrée or served with puri, a fitting member of a wedding menu.
The skill in preparing Aloo Gobi boils down to how well you cook the potatoes and cauliflower. Both should maintain their shape but still be cooked through and pierce-able with no resistance. No al dente business here, anything less than 100% cooked is equated with absence of cooking chops in Indian households. And this phenomenon should occur with limited water and oil, which takes some jugglery in the stove-top version.
Some recipes pan-fry potatoes and cauliflower in oil before putting the final dish together, while others cook all the ingredients together with water. Here one needs to be mindful of the quantity of water and also keep a hawk’s eye to prevent the vegetables from getting mushy. And some other recipes pan roast the vegetables and cook the seasoning base (tomatoes and/or onions with ginger, garlic and spices) separately and combine both at the end. I semi-cook potato pieces (immersed in water) at a high setting in the microwave and cook cauliflower in a lid-covered pan (cauliflower cooks in its own moisture, triggered by salt). Once the cauliflower florets lose their raw vibe, I pour in the microwaved potatoes and cook them together to arrive at the same level of doneness.
MJ bypasses this song and dance with a no-fuss, no-babysitting-required technique. She marinates the cauliflower with spices and plops it in the oven to result in a superior vegetable texture that mimics deep-frying.
RECIPE - OVEN-ROASTED ALOO GOBI
Ingredients
2 cups red or Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces 1” x 1”
3 cups cauliflower florets about 2” x 1.5”
1 heaping cup Roma tomatoes cut into 1” pieces
1.5 teaspoons peeled, grated ginger
2.5 teaspoons coriander powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon red chile powder
¾ teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lime juice
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Ingredients for the tadka, aka oil seasoning
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
Chopped cilantro for garnish (optional)
Serves 2-4 people
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.
Mix 2 cups potatoes, 3 cups cauliflower florets, 1 cup tomatoes, 1.5 teaspoons grated ginger, 1 tablespoon lime juice, 2.5 teaspoons coriander powder, 1 teaspoon cumin powder, 1 teaspoon red chile powder, ¾ teaspoon turmeric powder and 1 teaspoon salt in a big bowl. Make sure the bowl is wide enough so that the vegetables are not crowding each other. A smallish bowl will not allow for an even distribution of dry spices and you may see lumps of spices sticking to some pieces, like in the image below.
Potatoes, cauliflower, tomatoes ready for marination
Add 3 tablespoons vegetable oil to this mixture, stir lightly with a steel spoon to prevent the cauliflower pieces from breaking. Instead of mixing, I toss the bowl several times with a light jerk similar to a winnowing basket. Cover with a lid and set aside to marinate for 30 minutes.
Heat the 3 tablespoons oil in a small saucepan on medium heat. Wait for 1.5 - 2 minutes for the oil to heat up. To test if the oil is hot enough, add a cumin seed and check. If the seed hits the oil and starts sizzling, the oil is ready. Add the rest of the ½ teaspoon cumin seeds. Once the seeds stop popping, turn the heat off and pour this seasoned oil over the vegetable mixture. Mix well with a light hand.
Layer the vegetables on a large sheet pan in a single layer.
Juices secreted in 30 minutes of marination
Place the sheet pan in the 425-degree hot oven in the center rack. After 15 minutes stir the vegetables and rotate the sheet pan from front to back. Slide it back in the oven for another 15 minutes.
Take the sheet pan out of the oven carefully and pour the Aloo Gobi in a serving dish. Garnish with chopped cilantro.
Glories of sheet pan cooking
RECIPE - CUCUMBER RAITA
Enjoyed in North, South as well as West India, yogurt-based salads are called raitas. Often raita is served as a cool antidote against a spicy meat dish like biryani or for kids to tide over a hot and spicy meal. Raita is also a great escort for dry curries.
Ingredients
½ cup peeled and finely diced cucumber (1/4” x ¼”)
¾ cup plain yogurt
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cumin powder
Cilantro for garnish (optional)
Method
Mix ½ cup peeled and diced cucumbers, ¾ cup plain yogurt, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon cumin powder and cilantro in a bowl.
You can make raita with tomatoes, grated carrots, chopped spinach, diced onions, boiled potatoes … you get the drift!
PUT THE MEAL TOGETHER
Heat the store-bought naan or paratha according to instructions on the package. Serve with aloo gobi and raita. I use Deep (plain) parathas.
Store-bought parathas
The aloo gobi will continue to taste great for 2-3 days stored in the refrigerator.
Tadka is the foundational cooking technique of Indian food. In its clothing, language, customs, rituals and food, India, as you know, is heterogeneity personified. One sees diversity of food not only in every state but every few kilometers. But this basic technique of flavoring food remains similar in most of the country. Tadka also known as baghaar, chaunk, fodni is seasoned oil and a way to build a layer of flavor even before adding main ingredients. It is prepared by heating, preferably, a neutral oil and adding whole spices to it. The hot oil unlocks the magic kingdom of spices, which release their flavors into the oil, which, in turn, is ready to infuse those flavors into whatever follows, be it dal, vegetables or alliums. The typical tadka spices are mustard and cumin seeds but they need not be. Cloves, black peppers, star anise, cinnamon, fenugreek seeds, bay leaf make a spectacular tadka. The beauty of tadka is it can start or end a recipe. In the beginning, it functions as a flavor builder and if added at the end, it performs the role of a finishing oil or a garnish.
Here’s how tadka is supremely talented and versatile -
Replace olive oil with tadka (fenugreek seeds work the best) to stack another layer of flavor in a salad dressing
Season a simple green salad with tadka, lime juice and salt
Pour black mustard seeds tadka over nachos
Finish tomato soup or pot of beans with cumin seeds tadka
Begin a pot of kidney beans with cinnamon and cloves tadka, roast the alliums in this tadka
CHRONOLOGY OF STEPS
Heat the oven
Cut cauliflower, potatoes, tomato and peel the ginger
Marinate them
Peel and cut the cucumbers
Make the tadka and pour on the marinated vegetables
Place the marinated vegetables in the pre-heated oven
Prepare the raita
Once the vegetables are done, heat the naan
Serve
SHOPPING LIST
After my last post about Savory, Gluten-free Mung Bean Pancakes, someone asked me about where to get whole mung beans. I get mine from an Indian or Asian grocery store, though I am very happy to report that they are now available in the beans section of general grocery stores too. And, of course, on Amazon.
Now I’m going to add a shopping list at the bottom of every post for specialized ingredients -
Naan is nowadays available in all grocery stores in the Bakery section. Deep parathas (in variety of flavors) are sold in the frozen section of Asian grocery stores.
If you are buying the above spices for the first time, buy in small quantity and store them in the fridge to prolong their life. I would recommend using up these spices within three months for maximum flavor.
This recipe and procedure is game changer for me, Annada! I used frozen mixed veggies and diced potatoes, kasthuri methi and followed your guidance. The texture was perfect, so much better than pan frying! So simple to make and quite tasty.
Love the ease of this recipe. It’s so easy to get it right.
This recipe and procedure is game changer for me, Annada! I used frozen mixed veggies and diced potatoes, kasthuri methi and followed your guidance. The texture was perfect, so much better than pan frying! So simple to make and quite tasty.