Entice With Spice. Shubhra Ramineni

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СКАЧАТЬ your dish and they are unsightly.

      ▶ When adding liquid ingredients or ingredients that have a lot of moisture in them to hot oil, be careful of splatters. Food such as onions, tomatoes, washed and drained rice, washed fresh coriander leaves or curry leaves will cause the oil to splatter. Do not stand too close or bend close to the pan when adding these ingredients to the hot oil.

      ▶ When roasting or tempering (frying in oil) mustard seeds, do not lower your face near the pan because the hot mustard seeds may pop out of the pan and can hit your face or eyes. To be on the safe side, you can use a splatter screen especially if you think the oil has been overheated.

      ▶ For quicker cooking times, the best flavor and their beautiful deep red color, always use fully ripe, soft, red tomatoes. In the cooking process, tomato skins usually separate from the flesh. For better presentation, I often remove the loose tomato skins before serving the dish.

      ▶ You will notice that I use onions a lot in my cooking, and in different recipes, they are cooked to different degrees of doneness. I cook with yellow onions simply because they are readily available, well-priced and give good flavor to the dishes. However, based on your personal preference, you may use either yellow, white or red onions. There are different stages of cooking onions, from becoming translucent to a golden brown, brown, dark brown and finally to the point of caramelizing them, when the natural sugars cook and lend a sweet taste. When sautéing onions to make a masala, it is important to brown them until golden so they do not give a raw onion taste to the final dish. Always cut or shred onions just before you are ready to cook them so they do not sit for a while and start smelling off.

      ▶ I have provided measurements in both American and metric units. Measurements do not have to be exact so do not stress about measuring ingredients precisely. Just try to get them close to the indicated amount especially when making rice dishes and dough for the breads. Do note that the metric measurements are rounded off so you can easily measure the ingredients. Also, note that I use a standard 250-milliliter equivalent when using cup measurements.

      ▶ My cooking times are based on using heavy cookware on a gas stove. Light cookware can be used and is beneficial in the sense the food will cook faster. However, you have to keep a sharp eye on it and stir the food more frequently because it can easily burn.

      ▶ If the recipe calls for a nonstick skillet but you prefer to use a skillet without a nonstick surface, simply add an additional tablespoon of oil and stir the food more frequently. If your skillet is not heavy-bottomed, you may also need to lower the heat to keep the food from burning. If I do not specify in a recipe that a nonstick skillet should be used, such as when roasting or tempering spices, then you can use either a non-stick or stainless-steel (or other metal) skillet without increasing amount of the oil, if any, that is called for.

      ▶ I use plain iodized table salt in all of my recipes. You may adjust the salt to taste by adding a bit more or less than the amount indicated in each recipe. You may also use kosher salt or sea salt if you prefer. Both are coarser than table salt so you will need to add a bit more that what is indicated in the recipes for equal seasoning. Finely ground sea salt can be used in equal amounts to that of table salt.

      ▶ You can control the fiery spice level in dishes by decreasing or increasing the amount of ground red pepper (cayenne), dried red chili peppers or fresh green chili peppers used in the recipes. In general, the spice level in the recipes is moderate.

      ▶ If you make a recipe that calls for deep frying, you can save the oil to use again but it is generally not recommended to use oil for deep frying more than twice because the smoking point is altered and harmful gases are released. After the first use, I just leave the oil in the wok, cover the wok and store it in an unwarmed oven until I am ready to use again. Before heating the oil again, if you see too many burnt particles in the bottom of the wok, you can strain them out with a slotted spoon. When you are ready to discard the oil, first let it cool. Then pour it into a sealed non-recyclable container and throw it in the trash. Do not pour the oil down the sink, as it may clog it.

      Basic Techniques

      If you run across a recipe and wonder how to cut a carrot into matchsticks, deal with a whole garlic bulb, roast spices or even the difference between cubing, dicing, chopping and mincing, this section is the place to find the answers! The basic methods that follow are what I personally use. Although if you run across another technique that you prefer that gives the same results, feel free to use that.

      Cutting Matchsticks

      Vegetables such as carrots and potatoes are commonly cut into thin strips called matchsticks but usually not as thin as an actual matchstick! This cut is also known as “julienne.” The vegetable is first cut into thin slices and then the slices are cut across to the desired length resulting in a short or long “matchstick.” I like to use this attractive cut when preparing the carrots for Vegetable Rice Pilaf (page 75) and Vegetables in Coconut Curry (page 122).

      1 Cut off the both ends of the carrot and discard.

      2 Peel off the outer skin, discard and wash the carrot with cold water.

      3 Cut the carrot in half crosswise to make it an easier size to work with.

      4 Cut each half lengthwise down the middle.

      5 Cut each piece in half lengthwise again. For the thicker part of a carrot, you might want to make another lengthwise cut to create strips of even size.

      6 Stack the strips and cut them crosswise into approximately 2 inch (5 cm) long matchsticks.

       Cutting a Carrot into Matchsticks

       1 Peel away skin and discard. Wash the carrot.

       2 Cut in half crosswise and then cut again lengthwise down the middle.

       3 Line up the strips and cut into match-sticks.

Cutting Half Moons

      Sometimes I specify a “half moon” cut for onions which is a semi-circle. This can be done by slicing an onion crosswise into rings and then cut the rings in half to create half moons.

      Cubes and Dicing

      Cubing means to cut into desired-size cubes—the standard size being ½ inch (1.25 cm) or larger. Meats, fruits, cheese and vegetables such as potatoes can be cubed. It is okay if all of the cubes are not exact squares or if they have some rounded sides but try to cut almost equal-size pieces so that the food cooks at an even rate. When a recipe calls for an ingredient to be diced, cut it into small cubes or “dice” that are approximately ¼ inch (6 mm) or smaller.

      1 To cube a potato (or other food), cut it crosswise into ½ inch (1.25 cm) thick or larger circles for cubes or about ¼ inch (6 mm) thick circles or smaller for dice.

      2 Work with 1 circle at a time. Lay it flat and cut it across into ½ inch (1.25 cm) strips (or whatever size cube or dice you will be making).

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