Where Do You Store Your Masalas?

I have been eyeballing this pricy Tablefare SpiceCare Interlocking spice storage system for a while, but haven't found any in depth unaffiliated reviews of the product. I asked about it on my favorite foodie website, Chowhound, but no one responded to my query. It looks great, though. I am afraid it will cause fumbling and I will have to unlock a lot of stuff all at once to get out a few spices. The SpiceCare thingy was recommended by Chef Bosco Pereira on twitter (@Chef_Bosco), so that's how I found out about it, and I trust what Chef Bosco says a lot. (His tweet soliloquies on South and South East Asian food are awesome. His food-knowledge is as vast as the Seven Seas!) But I'd still like to read some feedback on the product before investing in it.

In my daily cooking, I usually cook the typical dishes of my husband's particular community. For those dishes, I keep the fast moving standard every-dish spices in a masala dabba.  Spices I use less frequently are in clear plastic jars with lids (the little jars are about 16 oz in size, I'd say). They are just all stuffed in the cupboard. There are some I keep at the front of the cupboard, but I step up on a step-stool to dig around for others. I have a friend who keeps all of her spices in a clear plastic jars but keeps the jars in clear plastic stackable storage drawers so the spices are easy to see and take out. Awesome idea! But never got around to doing that. I should really do that, I suppose.

The spices I purchase usually come in large plastic baggies. Here is what I do with the plastic spice baggies: If it is a fast moving spice for me like red chile powder or cumin, I pour some in a plastic jar, some in the masala dabba cup, and then use the tiny bit left over in the baggie first. If it is a very slow moving spice, I pour it into the plastic container, and I toss out the few tablespoons which are left over at the bottom because I know it will go stale before I use it all. It is a waste, I know, but I buy the spices cheaply at the Indian market, so no worries. Before I started tossing them out, I kept the left over amount in its baggie closed with a rubber band, but it would just sit in my cupboard for ages and I would end up throwing it away anyway. For Shan masalas, I mostly use only a couple of teaspoons at a time, so I keep them in the boxes in which they come. For rice and chapati ata, I have them in giant clear plastic locking storage boxes, and for daals, I have them in one drawer in medium sized lockable clear plastic bins.

What about you? If you are a spicy home cook, how do you store your masalas? Any recommendations?

Myths and Misconceptions That Americans Have about Desi Food

In the interest of promoting enjoyment of desi cuisines among my fellow Americans, I would like to discuss some misconceived ideas that some times crop up among non-desi Americans regarding desi food.

Indian food is healthy
Most non-desi Americans don't really even consider other desi nations in a culinary manner, they only focus on India. One of our stereotypes about Indian food is that it is very healthy (another reason that we goray log tend to have our racist, ridiculous, self-contradictory stereotypes about South Asians: we often think Indians are all skinny). Indian food IS healthy. Indian food is also unhealthy. There are too many factors at play in any cuisine to categorize it as healthy or unhealthy, especially the cuisines of India and the rest of South Asia. A home made stir fry type vegetable dish is healthy. A samosa or a gulab jaman, not so healthy. Rich, oily, meat and gravy dishes in desi cuisines are not so healthy. Neither is a dish in which all of the vegetables have been briefly deep fried before being added to a gravy. But considering that one may be eating a small ladel of such a dish with healthy boiled rice or whole-wheat flat bread, along with a stir-fried vegetable dish or a boiled lentil dish and some freshly cut vegetables, a balance exists. Many desis do eat too many carbs, especially deep fried carby foods. So do Americans. Carby, rich foods that sustained our ancestors through a day of manual work are not necessary any more. Although our lifestyles have become less active, we still eat as if we were working in a physical capacity all day. We don't burn off the calories we take in. Sound familiar? That a region has healthy as well as unhealthy foods should be obvious. Some non-desi people who are only familiar with desi cuisine through restaurant offerings may think that desi cuisine is filled with ghee, cream, and coconut milk. That is not true either. Home cooked desi 'main dishes' tend to be significantly lighter than what is found in South Asian restaurants. But I think that since Americans have our stereotype about these skinny, healthy Indians, we can even feel disappointed or duped to find that many desi foods are rich or prepared using unhealthy techniques and ingredients. Anyhow, desi food is not entirely healthy or unhealthy. We had our false notions of desi cuisine let down. But it was our own stereotypes that let us down, not the desi food itself.

India is a vegetarian country
This misconception is also related to the above two stereotypes. Vegetarian food is stereotyped as being healthy, so since Indian food is supposedly vegetarian, Indian food is healthy. Since Indian food is healthy, Indians are skinny. The dominoes of stereotypes fall down, clanging against one and other. Okay, there are many vegetarian Indians. However, most Indians are not vegetarians. Certain communities of Indians are associated with being vegetarian. For example, many Gujarati Hindus and especially Jains, Tamil Hindus of certain specific communities (like Iyers), and so on tend to be strict vegetarians. Non-Hindu Indians eat meat. There are a lot of them (+/-20% of the total population). Many, many Hindus eat meat. Some Hindus go through periods of being more religious, and give up meat for this, just like some Americans also go through phases of stronger religiosity. In some regions of India, even Brahmin food is non-vegetarian. Some regions are known for a broadly meat and fish based cuisine. Bengali food as well as the food of Kerala is mainly non-vegetarian. And on and on. Quite simply, India is a place with a wide variety of vegetarian foods, and some cuisines within India are largely vegetarian. However, India is not really a vegetarian country.

I would like to take a moment to address a common myth that I hear Indians or other non-Pakistanis repeat about Pakistani cuisine: Pakistanis only eat meat. This is so untrue. Most of the typical North Indian vegetable standards are eaten in Pakistan, too, with regional variation on exactly how they are prepared. A "proper" Pakistani meal would have a meat dish plus a daal and a vegetable served with rice and chapatti, plus some yoghurt, pickles, possibly a kasaundi (type of pickle) and some fresh salad vegetables layed out on a plate. The meat dish would be the "star" of the table, but the other dishes would be necessary to make the meal well-rounded and complete. Also, many of the "pure" veg dishes of North India are also iconic dishes of Pakistan: vegetarian chaats, dahi baray, karhi pakora, and so on. Although one does find dosai made by Pakistanis of South Indian origin, especially in Karachi, the dosa has not taken over Pakistan as a light meal or snack as it has in North India. But generally speaking, whatever meat and veg. dishes one finds North Indians eating, one will find Pakistanis eating. So it is totally untrue that Pakistanis don't consume vegetables.

South Asian food is spicy
South Asian food can be spicy. Chile heat levels vary again from region to region, family to family, and even between individuals. Non-desi Americans expect that all Indian food should be spicy and chile hot. They feel that milder Indian food is being served to them at restaurants as an adaptation of Indian food cooked to suit the American palate. This is partially true. Some non-desi Americans are grateful for this because they cannot tolerate spicy foods, so they appreciate the adaptation. However, many non-desi Americans do like to eat spicy food. They feel that being served mild food is an insult to their ability to stomach "authentic" desi atomic chile heat. They believe the restaurants are duping them. Okay, it is true that many Indian or Indo-Pak restos that cater to a non-desi clientele cook milder food. However, it is simply untrue that all desi food is fiery hot. Some foods are known to be hot. Some foods are commonly eaten mildly spiced or spiceless on purpose because that is how they are served (like a simple khichri or a daily daal). I recall reading recipe reviews from goras in which they complained that the original Indian recipe for a daily type daal was "bland" or "not spicy enough." Some particular daal dishes are cooked with a lot of chiles and spices. However, often a daily daal is very mild. It is simply boiled and has a light tempering that may include a few dried or fresh chiles, but the dish itself is not supposed to blow your head off. Some desis do like very hot foods and cannot stomach chile-less foods. However, many desis feel that a dish being overly spicy and hot (as well as oily) is a marker of it being poorly cooked. Low quality restaurants serve oily, fiery food for undiscerning customers. Being delicately seasoned is a sign of refinement. "Delicately seasoned" is a subjective description, as to an American person who cannot tolerate any chiles, a "delicately seasoned" desi dish may still be too hot and require copious glasses of water to quench the burning sensation caused by said dish.  Anyhow, my recipes on this blog are probably not spicy enough for chile-heads. The red chile powder and green chile amount can be increased to taste. But Americans shouldn't just assume that desi food has to burn off the tastebuds to be "authentic" or enjoyable.

A side note: I have read on food oriented forums and websites that American goras think that Pakistani food is chile-heat hotter than Indian food. This is not true. What I think is that many "Indian"-labeled  restaurants in the US are serving a less spicy, creamy restaurant genre of food loosely based on authentic Punjabi and Mughlai cuisine, particularly the non-regional-specialty restaurants that target a multi-ethnic (here meaning not just desi) clientele. Regional-specialty Indian restaurants, which mainly target an Indian clientele and are not widely popular among non-desi Americans, use a more "normal" chile heat level, and I am not referring to these types of Indian restaurants here. Pakistani restaurants may keep some of these restaurant-genre Indian items on their menu (jalfrezi, chicken tikka masala, etc). However, in the US I have noticed that restaurants that label themselves as "Pakistani"are often serving more homestyle desi type foods. "Indian" labeled restaurants are more widely popular in the US, and Pakistani restaurants are more likely targeting a Pakistani clientele. Be aware that any "Indian" restaurant can be owned by actual Indians, as well as Pakistanis, desi origin East Africans, Bangladeshis or whoever else. I mean restaurants that are promoted as Pakistani, and not "Indian"-labeled. Anyhow, since these restaurants are serving Southern Pakistani home style cuisine, they are using "normal" amounts of chiles and are not adapting the chile heat for the non-desi customers. So when goras are familliar with a typical generic Punjabi-Mughlai inspired Indian restaurant, which sets the parameters for what they know as Indian food, they must not compare this to the authentic, unadapted Pakistani food. In my hometown, many of the Indian origin people who I know joke that the only desi restaurant that serves "real Indian food" is the Pakistani restaurant. That is because the Pakistani restaurant is serving cream-less homestyle food which very much overlaps with what North Indians eat. So they feel it is much more like "real Indian food" than any of the creamy faux Punjabi-Mughlai "Indian" places. Anyhow, it is not true that "Pakistani food is spicier than Indian food." This is just a misconception based on what is available to us goras at restaurants.

South Asian food is oily
See, I told you the stereotypes we Americans have can co-exist even though they contradict each other. Among the gora's battery of stereotypes about desi food are that it is both healthy AND oily! Non-desi people who delve into authentic desi cooking and look at recipes made by and for desis and not oil-shy, Pam spraying Americans, are often wary of deep fried items, and shocked to find that traditional meat plus gravy recipes can call for 1/4 cup to even 1 cup of oil (like many 'Muslim' recipes). One has to look at it this way: the oil is not to be consumed by one person. The amount of oil is used for a dish meant to feed a large family. The cooking process in many desi cuisines requires some short and long term browning in oil, and reducing the moisture of ingredients by frying in oil. This requires a lot of oil to be done properly (although there are low-fat techniques to use as an alternative), and unlike frying techniques in which the foods are removed from the oil, the oil in these desi dishes is not removed and one adds more ingredients to this oil stage by stage. One can opt to pour off the oil at the end of cooking, or try to get less oil on the serving spoon when ladeling food from dish to plate. I have a friend who drops a dry paper towel on top of a finished dish to absorb some of the oil. One can opt to eat less of these oily meat dishes and go for more vegetables. There are ways to get around the oil. Some regional South Asian food is not particularly oily. However, foods from these regions are not widely available or known to Americans. So not ALL desi foods are oily.

Desi food is too salty
A desi "main dish" is rarely meant to be consumed without rice or bread. The desi dish is conceptualized as dish plus accompanying carb: wet dish with rice or flat bread, dryer dish with flat bread, fancy dish with special naan or kulcha, etc. Since the dish is meant to be mixed with a quantity of carbs, the dish must be highly salted or when it is combined with the carb it will taste under-seasoned. So yes, desi food is salty, but only if you are eating it the wrong way.

A common mistake in desi food consumption
Do not eat a rice dish with a piece of flatbread. Do not mix daal into your biriani. I recall reading a local review of a new restaurant in which the non-desi reviewer said that he mixed his daal into his biriani and mopped it up with his naan. He can eat it that way if he wants to, I guess. But biriani is meant to be eaten alone or with a bit of yoghurt...with some exceptions like a squeeze of lemon juice to lift a dull biriani, or a small bowl of mirch ka saalan in a Hyderabad resto, but I digress. Don't mix daal into your biriani at the Indian resto, O goray doston. It isn't mean to be eaten that way. And choose rice OR bread as your accompanyment. Ne'er the twain shall meet on the plate of the savvy.

I suggest interested readers also have a look at this post, which further discusses regionality among desi food and how that affects non-desis or non-cooking desis who are married to desi men and who would like to learn to cook their husband's regional cuisine.

Pressure Cookers: A desi secret

I own and use an Indian stainless steel Hawkins brand pressure cooker (pictured above...though that isn't the one in my kitchen). The gori wife life comes with a learning curve. Since learning to cook desi, there are so many amazing foods, ingredients, and cooking tools that I have come to use quite regularly but had no clue about before. Pressure cookers aren't completely unheard of in the average American kitchen, but they are definately uncommon. However, the pressure cooker is an extremely common cooking vessel in the desi kitchen. Not all desis use them, for various reasons; "all the taste goes," "not traditional way to make X," or "pressure cookers are so lower middle class" are some reasons I have heard for the anti-pressure cooker crowd. However, I love mine and find that is it ever a useful thing to own. I'd like to talk a little bit about using pressure cookers.

First of all, they are very convenient. You can cook daals and meat in a matter of a few whistles (seeTiyan, plural of seeTi in Urdu/Hindi). Whistles? Why do Indian English language cookbooks and recipes refer to whistles? "Cook for 3 whistles." What the heck is a whistle? Well, to know you would have to watch a traditional pressure cooker in action. You add the food and water, you seal the lid, and turn on the flame. The pressure builds, then releases. To release the pressure, steam comes out of the pressure cooker's whistle (regulator). Two to three whistles for most daals, 5 whistles for goat or beef. Like so. I have an Indian pressure cooker. It is traditional. But I have heard that in Amreeka you can get modren pressure cookers that have no seetis. When I relocate to Amreeka, I will have to get one. For now, I am stuck on my seetis. So, you know how you have to simmer beef for 6-8 hours to get it nicely tender? You can pressure cook it for 5 whistles and in about 20 minutes your beef is done. Cooking fuel is expensive in the des for average families, so people save money on cooking gas by using pressure cookers to reduce simmering time. Pressure cookers are economically sound, and good for the environment since they lessen fuel consumption.

There are some downsides to pressure cookers. I love the way large legumes like chickpeas, rajma, and black chickpeas come out in the pressure cooker. They get such a tender texture that allows these legumes to grab on to flavors so well. However, I don't like the end result of how small sized daal comes out. I mean the types of daal that are cooked to a liquidy consistency and are not meant to remain whole. Somehow the pressure cooker makes the liquidy daal fluffy. I don't like the texture. So in my kitchen, I only pressure cook large sized daals which are supposed to remain whole. Secondly, though it is a great meat tenderizer, for me it ruins the taste and texture of beef and goat. The meat also comes out puffy and fluffy. It isn't horrible or anything, but I can always detect pressure cooked meat, and prefer slow simmered meat. I do occasionally resort to pressure cooking red meats as a time saver only. Chicken and fish are a no-no for the pressure cooker, as they would just be obliterated, unless the chicken where you live is quite tough. I do use the pressure cooker to tenderize chicken in specific dishes, though.

After the pressure cooker has done its job, you still have to wait for the pressure created vacuum seal of the lid to release or "fall in." This adds to your cooking time. Some people advise running the pressure cooker under cold water to release the lid. But actually, waiting for the lid to fall in is part of the cooking time of many lentils, so if you release the lid early, the lentils may not be fully cooked in the center. So it is best to wait for the lid to fall in on its own.

The pressure cooker is a necessity in "mehnati" or arduous dishes, like daal makhani. Without the pressure cooker, one would have to babysit this slow simmering daal for 4-5 hours, stirring and mashing away, and adding more and more water as needed. But the pressure cooker reduces your cooking time to 15 minutes of allowing the pot to boil, then waiting for the whistles, and another 10 minutes or so of waiting for the lid. You can't beat that.

I also make stocks in the pressure cooker. For chicken stock that would normally take over an hour, I allow the magic of the pressure cooker to pressurize all of the great flavor out of my stock cuts in around 15 minutes.

You can also use the pressure cooker for some special dishes. For a Lahori style chargha (marinated, cooked, then deep fried Lahore style crispy chicken---recipe coming soon), you can tenderize the chicken so beautifully by giving it one whistle in the pressure cooker, allowing it to cool, and then deep frying. This yields absolutely amazing results.

I know some people who use the pressure cooker for everything. Everything! A friend once told me that people are so stuck on pressure cookers in her part of India, that even their pudding (payasam---South Indian kheer) is pink because apparently milk turns pink in the pressure cooker. Many desi cooks would be lost without it.

Everyone whose family uses pressure cookers had stories of a forgetful auntie who left the pressure cooker unattended and the dang thing exploded, leaving tamaatar saalan stains on the ceiling. So, one should learn from these stories to never leave the pressure cooker unattended and to pay attention to the whistles.

Another note on the small daals: sometimes as they liquify, a tiny piece gets stuck where the steam is supposed to come out, blocking it. This will cause your steam release to spew an ugly yellow daal mess out of the whistle. I have only ever had this happen with daals, but theoretically, any small piece of something could cause the blockage.

I can't wait to use the new modern pressure cookers with their safety features and double seals. But for now, I stick to my old Hawkins quite happily. I advise all people who regularly cook desi foods to invest in one! Luckily mine was cheap over here in Dubai (and it came with a free idli tray!) but I have heard that they can be costly further away from the des.

Still so much to learn

Whenever my mother in-law comes to visit, I am always in awe of how much more I have to learn about desi cooking. My MIL came to our house for the birth of my second daughter to snuggle the new baby and also to help out with the cooking and all. This time she made a delicious chicken dopyaaza "istew" twice. I really liked it. She wrote down the recipe for me, but I am going to cook it myself and try it out before I post it.

Today our housekeeper made khatti daal and I made bhuna gosht (recipe here on blog). We are going to have it with white rice and brown Arabic flatbread. We will also have a "Punjabi salaad," which is what the housekeeper calls a plate of sliced salad vegetables such as cucumbers, daikon radish (mooli), carrots, and tomatos. I like to sprinkle this with some lemon juice and a dash of chaat masala, but my husband prefers it plain. Plus I am lazy. So I usually serve it plain. With a daal, I usually put a chutney or two on the table. Tonight it is a Lebanese chili chutney from the local grocery deli, and some Mitchell's brand mango kasaundi. So that is our dinner. Oh, and there is some left over soya ki sabzi, which in this case is dill cooked with potatoes in a dry masala. The housekeeper made it yesterday.

My MIL tells me that people from her region in U.P./Lucknow usually serve one or two dishes, but set the table with a large variety of chutneys to eat with rice or take a nibble of while eating the main dishes. This is a good idea because it makes the table spread seem more abundant even when you have only cooked the bare minimum of dishes. She says that when she moved to Punjab after her marriage, her Punjabi neighbor would tease her by saying that all she served was chutneys and raitas. I happen to like the idea and I copy it myself.

Do you know what daal is?

My exposure to South Asian food before I become a Muslim was limited to occasional family dinners at the local Star of India Palace type place. I knew NOTHING about South Asian food. I learnt a lot about South Asian cooking after marriage. I think when you are female and in an intermarriage, you get a lot of pressure to learn the cooking of your husband's background. Luckily, my husband eats a lot of different stuff from all over. And luckily I happen to love Pakistani food. So we eat a good variety of international dishes at home. But I have non-Pakistani girl friends married to desi guys who will ONLY eat Pakistani food, even when they go out to restaurants. Anyway, I wanted to learn South Asian cooking because I liked all of the foods I tasted after I accepted Islam and met a lot of desi Muslims, and also after I married a South Asian origin Muslim guy. So I learned to cook desi. Is this a big shock?

Somehow, I seem to have the same conversation with Pakistani Auntie-types. Often the line of questions starts out with "Do you like Pakistani food," or more often "Can you eat spicy food?" "Yes," is my answer. "Can you cook any Pakistani dishes?" "Yes." "What dishes can you cook?" "Hmmm, a lot of them." "Can you make biriani?" "Yes." Actually, I make several types of biriani. Sometimes I get a test question: "How do you make X?" So I have to give a quick recipe for kofta or whatever. I guess I should be more understanding as to why Auntie-types might be incredulous about my cooking skills. I mean, gori cooks desi? Not so common, I guess. I am no star chef, but I am not bad either. Yet it is really hard for them to believe that a gori can cook desi.

Once I was at this dinner party and I had gone through this line of questioning with the hostess. I told her I could cook a lot of desi food. I was using food name terms in Urdu and all. Then, minutes later, she asked me if I knew what daal was. "Do you know what daal is?" She said. After I just told her that I could cook most Pakistani dishes. Sigh. "Jee nahin, daal kya hoti hai?" I mean, "Yes, I know what daal is." She proceeded to tell me that something was wrong with her paalak daal. I asked her what was wrong. "I just don't know, I think I put too much salt." I advised her to add in some lemon juice, and she could perhaps add in some potatoes to suck up the salt, and then remove them before serving the dish. She just thought I was nuts. Later, I tasted her daal. Guess what was wrong with it? She had obviously burned the bottom of the pot, the daal had a strong burnt flavor with an attempt to veil it with a heavy dose of lemon juice. Yuck. How could she not realize that this was the problem? If I were her, I wouldn't have even served that burnt dish. She had lots of other dishes set out anyhow. Anyway, I am no expert, but I just wish people would believe it when I say I can cook a fair bit of Pakistani stuff.

Is it really that hard to believe that a gori can cook desi?

Mah-e-Ramazaan ka pakwaan at Chez Gori

I try to produce healthy and hearty meals during Ramazan. We break our fast with 3-4 dried dates, milk, and water. Often, we have a cup of wholesome soup. We pray, then shortly after, we have a normal meal. I make sure that this meal is well balanced, including a veggie, meat, and carb. We then have a snack of fruit at around 10 pm, before we sleep. I occasionally go on a mad gulab jamun consumption spree and pack back 6 or more of the little suckers. Ramazan blood sugar fluctuations throw my self control out of the window. But I usually attempt to limit the sweets. For breakfast, I have cereal and a banana. My husband has cereal, but occasionally he makes himself a fried egg and eats this with toast or a roghni roti or paratha. He dines on this breakfast more often during the end of Ramazan.

This is the healthy way. This is the way to eat during Ramazan when you want to maintain your stamina and focus on ibaadat and not on the food.

But culturally, Ramazan IS all about the food in many ways.

Ramazan is a time for a breakfast or sehri that is as big as a dinner. Sehri might be parathas and eggs, and also include sweets. Doodh jalebi is a special one in my husband's house. Iftaar starts with a date washed down with rose syrup milk---Rooh Afzah is the syrup of choice to lift the Rooh, or the spirit! Then come the Unidentified Frying Objects: UFOs. Typical UFOs are samosas, pakoras, and kachoris...there might be some dahi bhalle or chaat, too. All these things all together all at once is okay. Why not? Eat as much as you can, then go pray on a stomach filled with greasy fried carbs. Try not to pass wind as you bend into sujood now!

The real meal will be later. Perhaps 9 or 10 pm, maybe later than that. Only crazy goras eat at 6 or 7 pm. Dinner could even be midnight. The closer to bedtime, the better. If you eat very late, you might get to skip sehri and just wake up for fajr namaz. This meal will be heavy and will be topped off with a sweet. Muzzafar, kheer, sevaiyan, shahi tukray...or any number of sweets...YUM! Since you have eaten so much fried stuff just a few hours before in the blood sugar spike fest called iftaar, you won't have too much room for the dinner, so be sure not to eat too much or you won't have space for the sweet.

All of this is fun, but it involves a lot of negatives: it is stressful on the person who has to cook it all at odd hours, it causes heart burn, gas, and smelly burps, and in terms of keeping you pumped up for ibaadat, you are running on the steam of fat and processed carbs, so you aren't getting a balanced diet even if there are some veggies hidden within that coat of pakora batter.

I know, I am such a killjoy!

What I do to honor my husband's Ramazan cultural traditions and foods is this: we have a UFO night at least twice during Ramazan. Our dinner is just pakoras and one other UFO, perhaps samosay or dahi bhallay. That way it is something special, something to relish. The rest of the time, we eat relatively healthfully. Our own family tradition is the Ramazan soup. Okay, soup isn't as fun as a pakora, I know. I know. Like I said, I am a killjoy.

Karhi Pakora: Can you dig it?

Everyone likes kababs. Naans are pretty internationally palatable. But there are some Indo-Pak dishes that may fit into the category of "acquired taste" for foreigners like gori wives. How 'bout some maghaz curry? That would be brain---they say eating it will build brain power. Or some pungent mixed pickle to scrape up with your delicious paratha? Hot, oily, sour, red, filled with unrecognizable preserved slivers of curious vegetables, desi achaars are not for every gora. I happen to like much of the "weirder" stuff...food being weird is subjective of course. I just mean stuff that might seem weird to the goras when they first have it. One dish which I think could be a challenge is also one of my favorites. Karhi pakora. It is SOOOO easy to make. But it is hot and sour and should ideally contain fresh curry leaves. These features make it fall into the "weird stuff" category. Anyway, here is my recipe:

The wet part:
1 cup older live yoghurt (the older it is, the more sour it will be)
5 cups water (add more later if it looks too thick for your taste once it boils)
1/2 cup chickpea flour (besan)

Mix these together with a whisk. If for some reason the besan goes lumpy, give the whole thing a whiz in the blender. You could alternatively pour the mixture through a strainer. Whatever works for you. The purpose of the besan is to prevent to yoghurt from curdling when cooked, which would be a distaster.

The seasonings:
2-3 tbs oil
1 tsp whole cumin seeds
3-4 whole red chilies
1/2 tsp to 1 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp cumin powder
10 fenugreek seeds (methi daane)
1 heaping tsp turmeric powder (haldi)
1 heaping tsp dried mango powder (amchoor)
10 fresh curry leaves
1 onion chopped, small but not fine
pinch garam masala

fresh cilantro and chopped green chillies for garnish
lots of salt

The pakore:
You can use any recipe. I cheated this time and used the National Pakora mix doctored up with an extra splash of salt, some green onions, green chilies, and cilantro added in. Your recipe should yield a heavier pakora. If your pakore come out too light and airy, they will break apart in the karhi gravy. For the Nat'l Pakora Mix, I used 1 cup of water, not 1 and a half. One and a half cups of water would be good for the light tempura style veg pakoras, but will cause pakora break up in karhi gravy.

What to do: Have your yoghurt mix ready. Heat oil in deep pot. Add in whole cumin, whole dried red chilies, curry leaves, and fenugreek seeds, and let sizzle for a moment. Stir in your cumin and chili powder. Before this starts to burn, pour in your yoghurt mix. Now add in the rest of the seasonings and mix well (except the garnish). Allow to boil, then turn on low, cook until the onions are done and the gravy has thickened. It should be soupy but not runny. Taste for salt. For some reason, the besan flour sucks up all of the salt, so I always find that I have to add salt to achieve the correct saltiness. In the meanwhile, fry up your pakoras and set them aside. You could also use stale leftover from the night before pakoras...it is a good way to use up leftover plain pakoras. I usually make the pakoras for karhi a little large in size, though. Anyhow, about 10-15 minutes before serving, stick the pakoras in the karhi gravy and let them settle in and soften. At serving time, garnish with cilantro and chopped green chilies. Eat this dish with plain white rice, chappatis, or just eat it by itself. It is up to you. This stuff is highly addictive. It is heavy, so I would serve it with a veg dish or a small lentil made into a very thin daal, or possibly with fish. It kind of functions as a meat dish since it is so heavy, actually.

If you google this dish, you will find lots of recipes. Some recipes call for buttermilk instead of yoghurt, which I hear is the preferred dairy base for kadhi in the villages of Punjab. In Gujarat, it is made thin and has added sugar or jaggery. In Hyderbad, the gravy contains tomatoes, so the end result is pinkish curry. Some people don't add curry leaves, some must have mustard seeds (rai), some recipes instruct you to add the seasonings (tarka/baghaar) to the cooked curry at the end, etc., etc.  So this is yet another dish which you might have to tweak to get a certain style that will suit yourself or your family. I happen to like my own hot and extra sour recipe. Happy cooking!

Good cookbooks for beginner gori wives and other faux desi-chefs

So gori marries Pakistani ... there are a lot of online resources for her to use for recipes. But she doesn't have the desi cooking basics down to execute the online recipes because the sites are generally meant for people who grew up with desi cooking and typically know how to achieve a perfect pot of basmati rice, have an idea of where to begin with caramelizing onions, and understand what garam masala is.

What do you do if you don't know all of this stuff? Where do you even start? I learned from a few cookbooks that I highly recommend:

1. Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking

This book will teach you all of the basics. Sahni tells you the secrets of achieving separated kernals of fluffy, aromatic basmati rice. She explains how to properly caramelize onions, an essential technique in North Indian-Pakistani cooking. She tells you the ins and outs of South Asian vegetables, and offers good substitutions and tips for preparing these in the North American context. She also lets you know which recipes freeze well. This book will arm you with great basic recipes. However, for those looking to cook authentic North Indian Muslim / Pakistani dishes, Sahni does not offer useful recipes. Sahni's "Mughlai" recipes (recipes brought to India by the Muslim invasions and refined in India) are what would be served at Punjabi / Mughlai restaurants ... you've had this cuisine at your local Star of India or India Palace. The recipes are tasty. But these dishes with cream and almonds and so forth are not what your desi Muslim in-laws eat at home. Once you have mastered the basics, know how to "bhuna the pyaaz," how to get tamarind water from the dried clumps in the package, know how to make a "baghaar" or "tarka" from Sahni's book, you can get your authentic Indian Muslim / Pakistani recipes online or from a Pakistani cookbook. See some of the sites in my side bar. However, the veg, daal and snack dishes eaten by North Indians like Sahni and eaten by Pakistanis from a Hindustani or Punjabi background will be similar, so you can use all of those recipes to impress.

2. Madhur Jaffrey's An Invitation to Indian Cooking

This book is a classic must-have. Madhur Jaffrey moved to the US not knowing where to begin with the replication of the foods of her childhood home. She documents the knowledge she gained on her home cookery learning journey in this book. Though Jaffrey is from an Indian Hindu Delhi family, the recipes in this book are basically the exact cuisine that my husband, a Pakistani "Urdu speaking" origin guy grew up with. Jaffrey's tips for the North American cooking environment are useful, and the recipes are punctuated pre-emptive "dos and don'ts" to assist you in avoiding screw ups. Actually, I love all of Madhur Jaffrey's cookbooks, and her A Taste of India (see below) and the classic Far Eastern Cookery (not South Asian so I didn't review it here, but great for East Asian food lovers) are both practically falling apart since I have used them so much.

3. Madhur Jaffrey's A Taste of India

In the blog post Gori Cooks Desi: My Notes for the Gori , I describe the importance of understanding that desi food is very regional. In this book, you get a real sense of the regionality of Indian cooking. You come to understand which region is famous for certain vegetables, which region's cooks are heavier handed with specific seasonings, and so forth. The book has a U.P. as well was Punjab / Dehli section, which has recipes that cross over to Pakistani cooking. There are also Hyderbadi Muslim recipes in the Hyderbad / Andhra section. I emphasize knowing your husband's family background and the foods associated with that background. At the same time, I love a lot of different South Asian foods, and this book helped me get to know them.

4. Vicky Bhogal's Cooking Like Mummyji

Vicky Bhogal is a British Indian who learned to cook the Sikh Panjabi food of her dear old mummyji. She shares mummyji's recipes and tips in this excellent, easy book. The food of the Punjabi Sikhs is basically the same as general Pakistani fare, plus the constraints of cooking desi in the British context parallel those of the North American context, so you get a lot of useful short cuts and tips as well. The desi names of foods have some "Indianisms" so you may wonder why Bhogal calls sabzi "sabji" ... don't worry about all of that. The recipes are the same as what your typical diasporic Pakistanis are using, even though the pronunciation of certain terms is different.

My own tips for the gori:

Once you have the basics down, you can use and adapt the recipes you see on Pakistani websites online, as well as Shan Masala recipes. None of the books I mention contain beef nehari or haleem recipes, or other specialties of North Indian Muslims or Pakistanis, or Pakistani regional specialties like chappli kebab, Lahori fish fry, Lahori chargha, etc. But you will get all of the bare bone basics, from chappati making to making and storing your own garlic-ginger paste, from the books above. Then haleem and nehari making and all the rest will seem like a cinch.

Gori cooks desi: My notes for the gori

It is hard to learn to cook a cuisine that you didn't grow up with. I am a foodie at heart and I love trying new things. Enjoying desi food took away some of the difficulty in actually learning to prepare desi dishes. I think as a gori, if you are open to desi flavors, you can become a successful desi cook.

I learned by sheer trial and error. I made a lot of mistakes. I questioned the aunties. I tried to learn the names of all of the foods and find out how to make them. Authentic South Asian foods are very different from what is served in the average American Star of India restaurant with its creamy dishes like the ubiquitous saag paneer and so forth. It was in peoples' homes that I got exposure to "real" South Asian food. I read a lot of Indian cookbooks. Unfortunately, there simply aren't very many Pakistani cookbooks. There were certainly none available to me when I was learning. Luckily, North Indian cuisine overlaps a lot with Pakistani cuisine due to the obvious shared geography and history and all. Now we have so much more on the web. But nothing beats a good, detailed cookbook.

So, a gori marries a desi. She tries new desi foods and wants to replicate those foods at home. She wants her husband to say that she is a good cook. Not in a "surrendered wife" way. Just cuz it's nice when someone likes your food, especially if that someone is a loved one. Where should said gori start? First of all, from our typical knowledge base goris only know the desi nations, maybe not much more than that. We do not know about the never ending diversity of people in South Asia. I know a gori-wife friend who wanted to surprise her husband by learning to cook Pakistani foods. She took an cookbook of Indian curry recipes from the library---700 Yummy Curries or some such title. Her husband is from a place near to Peshawar. She surprised him with a chicken in coconut milk dish filled with mustard seeds and curry leaves. It didn't go over well. Why not? Typical Pathan cooking doesn't contain coconut milk, curry leaves, or mustard seeds. The food was just as alien to my friend's husband as it was to her. He was actually grossed out by the curry leaves. She was crushed. Where did it go wrong? Well, you may be asking, what the heck is a Pathan? Her husband was one and she didn't know that. In South Asia, communities are divided into regional ethnic groups, castes, and so forth. These identities are paramount to people. Each group has its own unique customs, often its own regional language, and most importantly for the gori wife: its own distinct foods.

If two Pakistanis intermarry, say the husband is Punjabi, and the wife is from an Indian Gujarati origin family, if the family follows a traditional structure, then the wife will have to learn the ins and outs of her husband's family cooking. She may cook some of her Gujarati dishes sometimes, but she must pick up the recipes of her husband's community. That is just the way it is. So, if you are a gori wife and you want to impress your dear husband with your cooking skills, you must know what community your husband is from. You must know the standard recipes of that community, and if possible, the specifics of his family's recipes.

My own husband is pretty broad minded and likes a lot of different foods. I cook a lot of New American, Italian, Cantonese, Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, Korean, South Indian, whatever at home. He eats it all, and has international favorites. He loves Korean barbecue, he savors a good steak. But he loves recipes from his particular community, and also from his family. So I have learned those as well.

So, the first step a gori should take is to learn what her husband's family background is, and what repercussions that has on the style of desi cooking she will learn.

My husband's family is what in Pakistan is known as "Urdu speaking," "Hindustani," or "muhajir." Both of his parents were born in India and emigrated to Pakistan when they were young. If you know your husband is "Urdu speaking," don't leave it at that. Where in India are his family's roots? That is an important question that will affect the cooking you aim to learn. His family could be from Bhopal, Hyderabad, Delhi, or any of a million places...each with special recipes. My husband's family's roots are from the general U.P. area, specifically Dehli, Dehra Doon, and Lucknow. This has huge implications on the way his family cooks and eats. His family settled in Punjab in Pakistan. Punjabi cuisine is similar...it all seems the same at first to us goray---but it is distinct. For example, some Pakistani favorites of my husband's family are made with a yoghurt based gravy instead of a Punjabi style tomato gravy. There are foods that my husband's family prefers to eat with rice, whereas people from the Punjab would have these foods with whole wheat flat bread---though my husband's family usually has both rice and flat bread at every meal. I could go on an on. Anyhow, if you were raised knowing all of this stuff, great. But it is mind boggling for a neophyte gori wife. Give yourself time to research. Don't be afraid to ask people for recipes and request that they specify their community. It is normal for desis to know each others' communities when they interact. In terms of what is available to you, most North Indian style cookbooks are suitable for both U.P. and Punjabi recipes. Most online Pakistani recipe sources also cater to the U.P. emigrant or Punjabi style---what is thought of as "standard Pakistani food" are the foods of these two communities. Shan Masala caters to that generic style as well. But if your husband's community is from Hyderabad, India, or he is a Pathan, or a Memon, or whatever, you will have to find out the culinary nuances of his particular community and may have a more difficult time with recipe sources. Don't worry, there is so much out there on the net these days.

I personally don't appreciate a picky man---hopefully your guy is satisfied with whatever you put forth on the table, even better for you if he gets in the kitchen himself. But come on goris, you know you want to learn to cook desi and get stuff right. So here I am presenting my humble advice on how to learn to cook in a way that honors your husband's family tradition.