Indian as Apple Pie

[Anupy] On today's show, I'll take you inside my home kitchen in Chicago and introduce you to the basics of Indian spices.

I'll show you, step by step, how to make an entire Indian meal quickly and easily.

All that and more coming up on Indian As Apple Pie.

I'm Anupy Singla, cookbook author and journalist.

I was born in North India and raised in Pennsylvania, with a foot in both cultures.

Growing up in suburban Philadelphia, I learned English from "Sesame Street," and Indian cooking from my grandfather.

Homemade Indian food always brought our family together.

It's why I'm so passionate about preserving our culture and recipes, so that everyone can learn how to make delicious Indian food at home.

This is "Indian as Apple Pie."

[announcer] This program is made possible by... Leysin American School hosts summer camps for students of all ages in scenic Switzerland.

Golden country Oriental food.

BMO Bank.

Al Sahara.

Handmade rugs.

When it comes to Indian cuisine, I always like to say it's not just about the slicing and dicing.

It truly is about the spicing.

And at the heart of every dish in our cuisine are spices.

They are layered, and they're layered, and they're layered again to give you this deep, complex, delicious flavor profile.

Oh my gosh, my mouth is already watering.

With a little guidance, I believe anybody can achieve this, and I want to help you learn how to do this.

We're going to teach you in this episode exactly which basic spices to use and the order in which to add them.

When I teach people how to make Indian food, I start with something that's not even a spice.

I start with our spice box.

It's called a masala dabba.

"Dabba" in Hindi means "box."

Masala is a mixture of spices.

Why do I start with this box, or this round container?

I've had this one for 30 years, and you can tell I have.

It's really worn.

Well, it's because it makes doling out spices so incredibly easy.

There's no small lids for those individual compartments for a good reason.

It's so that you can get in there and dole your spices out really quickly.

I've got some mustard seed, black mustard seed, I should say, some cumin seed, turmeric powder, garam masala, which is a blend.

It's the most popular North Indian spice blend out there.

I've got some coriander powder, red chili powder, and salt in the middle.

The key is, while there are tens and thousands of spices out there, these are your main, key, top ingredients that you're going to reach for whenever you're cooking Indian food.

And this spice box, this masala dabba, makes it so incredibly easy.

I'm going to show you in my next dish how to put together a very simple, almost like a stir fry.

It's called a subzi, but it's potatoes and eggplant, aloo baingan, using these key spices.

So, we talked about spices.

And now we're going to talk about cooking.

We're here to cook.

And I'm going to teach you the first dish that was taught to me by my own grandfather.

He was raised in a little, tiny village in Punjab, India.

And when he visited us as we were growing up in Pennsylvania, he taught me how to cook.

And I'm so, so glad that he did.

This is an eggplant and potato dish.

The first thing we're going to do is look for a beautiful eggplant medium size or so.

And we're going to cut the top.

And here's something that he always said.

He said, "Anupy, do not lose that top woody end "because the eggplant that's in there is so delicious."

So, I was taught to cook with this.

So, we're just going to keep it traditionally.

Throw it out if you want to.

But I'd say in memory of my grandfather, BabaJi, as we used to call him, just keep the top of your eggplant.

And then we'll just cut this down.

We want the chop on this to be really rough.

I call it almost like a country style.

Very chunky.

So now we're going to go ahead and take a look at our potato.

Right.

Just a regular russet potato.

I love russet potato.

You could use any potato if you want, but I love the starchiness of it in this dish.

It holds up really well.

It does not break down and dissolve very quickly.

And we're really going to just peel it.

I'm going to chop it up.

Again, a rough chop.

We want to keep that chop, or that dice, large, because we want this to be really chunky, and we want the ingredients to cook, but we don't want them to dissolve with all of the high heat that we're going to be using for this dish.

We tend, in Indian cuisine, to use yellow onions.

White onions are a little bit sweeter.

Red onions are delicious as well.

But in this dish, I really do like the yellow onion.

And again, remember rough chop.

Let's take our tomato and give it another chop too.

Now, for ingredients that you might not be as familiar with: ginger.

We're going to use garlic as well.

That's a little more common.

But the ginger is really important in Indian cuisine.

Really healthy for you.

The way I peel ginger is by using a paring knife.

What I do want to talk about a little bit is, and I don't know if you can see all the moisture coming off that ginger.

My hands are soaked with it.

That's the kind of ginger that you want.

This is a dry dish.

Sabzis are really cooked with the moisture of the vegetables themselves.

So, if you get dried out ginger, you're really not starting from a good spot.

We want all that beautiful moisture from our ginger.

Because this dish is country style, and I want it to be chunky, I'm going to go ahead and just kind of matchstick it.

So, giving me beautiful chunks of ginger.

You can just cut that in half or thirds.

Now we're going to go to our garlic, maybe three pieces or so.

Smash it down with my chef's knife.

Remember, keep that blade facing away.

We're just going to smash it down.

Let's go ahead and mince this garlic beautifully.

So, we've got all of these flavor bombs.

And that's how I refer to these ingredients.

Now comes an opportunity for some heat by adding chilies, green chilies, to add some heat.

So, these are Thai chilies.

We also use serranos.

And for this dish, I just want a really nice finely, thinly minced chili because I want to add my flavor.

I don't want to necessarily bite into it when I'm eating.

So, let's grab a bowl for the chili.

And we are going to set it aside.

So, we've got all of our ingredients, and now we're ready to cook it all up.

We've got our oil in the hot pan.

We're going to now add some ghee.

Ghee is a clarified butter.

So just about a tablespoon here.

What's special about clarified butter?

Well, the idea is now we've made this butter high smoke point.

We've made it so that we can put it into this hot pan, add our spices in without burning it.

Let's grab another spoon so we get this all out.

I want all the ingredients in here.

I used a mix of oil and ghee.

You could use just oil, just ghee, whatever you like.

It's about two tablespoons in there.

And as this warms, we're going to reach for our spices.

That is the key.

We're going to start with a pinch of hing.

What's hing?

It's not completely needed, but it's asafoetida.

Next, we're going to go ahead and reach for our spice box.

I like to actually grab it and have it right above our dish.

So, about a teaspoon of the cumin seeds, and then half a teaspoon of turmeric powder.

Now that we've got this beautiful color, now we've got the garlic going in and the ginger.

And now let's get the potato in.

The potato is going to take the longest to cook.

I've already drained the water away.

But you want to be a little careful.

It's still moist.

This is a dry dish, but that added little, tiny layer of moisture on the potato allows you to add just enough moisture to kind of pull off all of the ginger and garlic from the bottom of this pan.

At this point, we're just going to let it cook for about a minute, minute and a half.

Now let's go reach for the onion because the onion, it's going to take a little bit longer to cook than some of the other ingredients.

And we want it to get some brown on, and that is just by getting it into the pan and letting it cook down a touch.

So as everything cooks down beautifully, I can smell it coming off the pan.

It just smells so flavorful and delicious.

And let's go ahead and take our first opportunity to add a little bit of heat.

I took my spoon and just kind of got it in there because it had a little ghee on it.

I just want to use up all the ingredients if I can.

I don't want to waste anything at all.

And now we'll go ahead and reach for our eggplant to get that in as well.

That's our main show-stopping ingredient.

So, we just want to get that all in there.

And actually, that works out perfectly.

And now we're going to use my spatula.

This is an Indian rice spatula.

Very traditional.

If you grew up in an Indian household, you'd always have this at the ready.

The spatula is really nice and flat, so it lets me get really under my ingredients and give them a beautiful stir.

And we're going to get the tomato in to add a little bit more moisture, and then a few other spice blends.

Now let's finish spicing the dish.

I'm going to reach for my masala dabba again.

About two teaspoons of coriander powder.

What's amazing about that spice, it comes from coriander seed, which grows up to become cilantro, the herb.

But if you use the seeds and you grind them down, you get this powder.

It's so beautifully lemony and just grassy and delicious.

Very light.

So, it lends this extra taste profile.

And then we want to go to our first and only blend in this recipe, a garam masala.

"Garam" means "warm."

Masala is a mixture of spices.

And we're going to have about two teaspoons.

Maybe just a little bit more in there.

And then this red chili powder, which is like a cayenne pepper, is going to give us a little extra heat.

If you don't want that heat, just leave it out.

No big deal at all.

I think I might need just a touch of water, so I'm going to go ahead and grab just a little bit about two tablespoons.

And now let's salt it.

About two teaspoons of salt will do it.

Let's give it a stir.

Turn the heat way, way down very low.

And then we want to grab our lid and let it sit for about 10 to 13 minutes.

All of it's going to pull together into this delicious, delicious dish.

Let's go ahead and take a look.

We've got all that moisture coming off the pan and the lid.

And then let's just grab a small piece of onion and taste it for flavor.

Mmm.

That is so delicious.

It is so balanced.

Spicy, but not too spicy.

Just the perfect blend of spices.

The potatoes are cooked beautifully.

There's a level of crunchiness to that onion, but it's not too crunchy, right?

It's just that balance is what we're looking for.

And now we're going to finish our dish off with the cilantro.

So, we've got the cilantro in.

I'm going to put the lid back on.

I'm going to turn the heat off, but I'm going to leave this pan on the same burner, so it just sits until we're ready to eat.

I want to take you into one of my favorite spots in my kitchen.

It's right behind this door.

Check it out.

It's my own Indian spice bazaar.

The smell is just absolutely beautiful.

I just love it.

There's a couple things to keep in mind.

I like to put all my spices in glass jars because they stay fresher.

Plastic, well, we find that spices tend to eat through some plastic, so if you can avoid it, that's great.

Another thing is, we like to have our spices whole so that we can roast them and grind them if we want.

They just stay fresher that way.

So, I take a little bit at a time.

I'll roast it, I'll grind it, I'll serve it.

I've got a lot of spices that are useful, especially for Punjabi cooking.

We've got some dried fenugreek leaves, which is common in all of the dishes that we make.

We've got green cardamom pods that are beautiful for biryanis.

I have some dried pomegranate seeds up top and to the right.

That is a perfect way to add tartness to a chana masala or a chickpea curry.

Now, I don't want you to feel intimidated at all.

Don't worry, you don't need all these spices right now.

We will get you there eventually.

For now, just keep in mind you need two to three to four key Indian spices to make Indian food successfully in your own kitchen.

If you've ever eaten at an Indian restaurant, then you know yogurts are a big thing.

But even yogurt is perfectly spiced in Indian cuisine.

We're going to make what's called a raita.

One thing to keep in mind is our yogurts are very specialized.

They're called dahi in Hindi.

You can go to an Indian grocery store and buy it, or you can actually even make your own, which I've done today.

It is a little more tart than the yogurt that you would find at a mainstream grocery store.

But if you don't have an Indian grocer nearby, or if you don't want to make it, no worries.

Just go ahead and buy a plain unsweetened yogurt and use that in its place.

So, what we're going to do as well is we're going to spice it just right by roasting our cumin seed.

I'm going to show you how to do that as well.

I'm going to come over here and grab a pan.

Turn my stove on.

The pan, and this is critical, there's nothing in it.

So, there's no oil.

There's no water.

It's completely dry.

We're going to let it warm up.

I always like to say, this is the way you get double duty from all your spices.

So, I know you buy all these expensive spices.

You think you're not going to use them up?

You are.

Now that the pan is warm, I'll go ahead and put some cumin seed in here.

Remember, it works best to do this with a whole spice.

We're pulling those essential oils out of the spice, which just makes it incredibly aromatic and delicious, and really transforms it into a completely whole different spice.

But we're going to just continue to watch it.

It'll take a total of two to three minutes.

As these cook, you'll see the moment that you know they're actually ready is when they just start to turn reddish brown and you start to smell this beautiful, warm aroma.

Just smells like every holiday put together.

It's just so warm and inviting.

So here we go.

We're at that moment, and you can see lots of beautiful brown or reddish brown tones.

And that's it.

We want to turn that stove off, because if we went any longer, we would probably burn them.

So now what we want to do to prevent them from overcooking is put them on a cool plate, or put them into a cool mortar and pestle, and we're going to just basically let that sit for about 15 minutes to cool down, and then we're going to grind it down.

It'll be ready for our yogurt.

I love this part.

The smell, the aroma, is so intoxicating.

It's so delicious already.

You can't go wrong.

And let's just take a quick... Mmm, that is so amazing.

And if you look in there, it's dark, it's beautiful.

It's completely different than that raw unroasted cumin seed.

So now this cumin seed is ready for us.

We're going wait just a minute and get our yogurt prepared.

About two cups are going to go into the bowl.

I like it smoother.

So, I always like to take a whisk and just give it a stir.

If you want to add a little bit of milk in there, you can, add any sort of liquid, even just a little bit of water.

That's all it took.

And now we're going to do like we always do in anything Indian, we're going to spice it.

Remember, not a lot of heat, just a touch of heat, but a ton of amazing flavor.

Just two key spices.

One, you've got, salt.

That's simple, right?

So, we'll just go ahead and salt it.

Maybe about a quarter teaspoon.

And then, because I do like layers of heat-- Remember, we're Punjabi from the north part of India, where we love flavor and we love heat.

We've got a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper just kind of going in.

And I like that too, because it makes it look so pretty with that red color.

And then grab as much as you would like of that cumin powder.

The roasted cumin.

I like a lot, so I'm just going to be really generous with it.

We'll save the rest for later for another batch, and give that amazing mix of spices and yogurt a stir.

Let's go ahead and taste this as well.

Mmm.

Wow.

Every time I taste that, I'm so surprised by how amazingly good that is.

And it's really just from that cumin seed that's been roasted.

Just that freshness popping right off that yogurt.

And then we've got the little subtle nod to the spicy with the red chili powder.

And that salt just finishes everything off.

Just a great way to cool everything down when we go to eat later.

Whenever we eat Indian food, we also include a side salad because we want the crunch.

So, I want to show you a classic take.

And there's so many out there, but this one's really special.

It's called kachumber.

Kachumber is essentially an Indian version of salsa.

So, you take tomato, cucumber, onion, you chop it up, everything is pretty much the same size.

And we're going to put some lemon juice in there and some spices and show you how you're going to pull it all together.

And the key is when you're eating your food, you have that crunch along with it.

And that is the beauty of Indian food and an Indian meal is you have all those different textures.

And that's what this salad actually does and adds to your meal.

Now let's go ahead and throw the tomato in here.

I have these small cucumbers.

I love them because they're so nice and sweet.

No reason to get rid of the skin on these.

If you use a larger cucumber and you feel like you have to peel it, not a worry.

Go ahead and do that.

But we'll just go ahead and chop these up.

I'll add the cucumber to our tomato... ...then chop up a small onion.

We're doing the same thing we did earlier, adding a Thai chili.

I've got three.

And we're just going to really get in there.

And look how beautifully thinly sliced we've got it.

Let's go ahead and hit this now with a little bit of cilantro, sitting in this cup with a little bit of water at the end.

We want to use the stems.

They're really nice and soft and beautiful.

This is a little extra flavor.

So, we want to spice it.

So, a little bit of regular salt.

About half a teaspoon.

Not much.

And again, we're going to hit it with some red chili powder.

Just a little bit more heat.

This is actually a black salt.

I know it's kind of counterintuitive.

It looks pink, right?

They call it black salt because when it gets wet, it gets a little dark.

But it's just a great way to add another layer of flavor.

We call it the umami of Indian cuisine.

Umami just basically means like, that extra elevated taste.

And what it does is, it's got like, a sulfuric sort of tang.

It adds pop to anything cold.

It's like a cold salad, or maybe even a yogurt.

Next, I'll slice up a lemon and use a fork to simply juice it over the top of our salad.

Let's give this a beautiful stir.

And I guarantee this is going to become your new favorite salad here on out.

After all that cooking, we now get to plate and eat.

And I wanted to plate our food today kind of traditionally in a thali.

A thali is a traditional stainless-steel plate separated by compartments.

But why would you separate your food by compartments?

Well, so that you keep the freshness of it, and it doesn't mix until you're ready when you eat it, to actually mix it.

So, I filled our thali with lots of delicious goodies that we made today, including the yogurt.

We've got the salad here.

We've got something that we love to have on the side, Indian pickle.

It's called an achaar.

We'll teach you how to make that down the line.

We've also got some fresh chilies, and we've got some basmati rice.

And here's our dish, our eggplant and potatoes, that we made earlier.

You can see how soft and delicious all of this came together.

It looks so amazing.

With Indian food, you like to have all these amazing taste profiles and textures at the same time on one spoon.

So, we'll take a little bit of basmati rice.

We'll pull it over here to mix it with our sabzi, our eggplant and our potatoes.

We want to cool it down with a little bit of our yogurt.

A tiny bit of a achaar.

Not much, just a little bit.

And then some salad.

And that's going to be a lot of different tastes just pulling together.

All on one spoon.

And it's so delicious.

I hope you enjoyed learning how to make a little bit of Indian food in your own kitchen, and seeing how easy it can be, and how we just kind of layer spices, often using the same ones in various dishes, just swapping out the main ingredient, and creating all these different things in one plate.

[Anupy] I'm all about making Indian cuisine more accessible.

Visit Indianasapplepie.com for more healthy, flavorful recipes, cooking tips, and much more, all rooted in tradition and simplified for our busy lives.

[announcer] This program is made possible by... Leysin American School hosts summer camps for students of all ages in scenic Switzerland.

Golden country Oriental food.

BMO Bank.

Al Sahara.

Handmade rugs.