The lowly loli: an ancient Sindhi breakfast

July 13, 2013August 6, 2014Aneela Mirchandani Breakfast, Flat breads, Sindhi food Tags: food, how to make loli, how to make sindhi loli, indian food, indian recipes, koki, masala koki, masala loli, sindhi koki, sindhi loli, vegetarian 4 Comments

During my mother’s childhood in Sindh, her breakfast every single morning was loli. It was the cornflakes of her day.

What is a loli? It is a whole wheat flat bread (roti) with spices, basically — but here is the interesting thing — it belongs more to the pie crust family than the bread family. The reason I say that is that it employs a twist in its mixing. Instead of adding water first and then fat, the fat is added in first; combined thoroughly with the flour to make sort of breadcrumb-sized balls, then just enough water is put in, just enough to combine. No kneading necessary, just a coming together.

No kneading — hence, not bread, in short. Gluten is not developed.

If you think of the way pie crust is made, it shares its basic method with the loli. Fat is cut into the dry flour, thereby creating pellets of floury fat, then water is added just enough to make it combine into a ball. Then it is rolled out, and the result is a rough, uneven circle, that cracks in various places, but holds together enough to lift carefully from place to place. This method results in a flaky pastry that does not exhibit the stretchy integrity of bread or roti, where the gluten does a lot of the work.

Lolis are similarly flaky, except of course they are spicy, not sweet. So let’s get started. This amount makes enough breakfast for two.

Step 1: Dry mixture

Spices for loli: onion, chili, cilantro

Chop finely a third of a medium red or yellow onion; two serrano chilies; a third of a cup of cilantro. Add to this 3/4 cup whole wheat flour (I use King Arthur’s premium whole wheat) and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Stir with your fingers, taking care to break up the onion bits into its layers.

Step 2: Fat

Loli flour with spices and oil rubbed in

In the old days, one added ghee; I have to admit I use pure olive oil or other cooking oil now. Add about two tablespoons oil to the flour and stir nicely with your fingers, until you get a breadcrumb texture.

Step 3: Water

Loli dough, combined

Add two tablespoons of hot water (why hot? I don’t know. I do as I’m told). Combine it gently with the flour, not to knead (see above) but just to bring it into a ball.

Step 4: Roll

Take about a tennis ball sized amount: there should be about two tennis balls in the dough that you made. Flatten with your fingers into a circle, either by patting, or by rolling out. The circle will be about a quarter to an eighth inch thick and crack in various places, but try to hold it together. Make diagonal lines on it with a knife to get it to cook on the inside.

Step 5: Cook

Cooking loli – first flip

Heat a griddle or tawa on medium high heat. When hot, slap the loli on. Wait one minute, then flip.

Cooking loli – second flip

Wait another minute, and flip again. Wait another minute, spread some ghee and oil on the surface, and flip again.

Cooking loli — third flip

Wait another minute or thirty seconds, spread another few drops of ghee or oil on the surface, and flip one last time. Thirty seconds or a minute more and you are done.

My rough and rustic loli

Have it with some nice hot sweet tea.
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I have a bitter and prickly friend…

July 11, 2013November 19, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Squashes and gourds Tags: food, fried karela, indian food, indian recipes, karela, vegan, vegetarian 2 Comments

…that I would like you to meet. It goes by many names — bitter gourd; bitter melon; karela in Hindi; ku gua in Chinese; but more properly, it is known as Momordica charantia. I know, Dear Reader, that you don’t appreciate my bitter and prickly friend. I apologize if you are one of the handful who do appreciate the karela (Hi Rashmi!) but I can probably count the lot of you in Roman numerals that I’m actually quite weak in.

But I’m about to tell you that if you enjoy the occasional hoppy beer; if you don’t freak out about some frisee in your salad; or like some strongly brewed coffee, or better still, your shot of espresso; and who besides my seven-year-old doesn’t like dark chocolate? — you will probably enjoy the Momordica. Plus, its got some major diabetes-fighting skills.

Karela is an oblong, prickly, warty fruit of a vine that originated in India, from the same family as the various melons, pumpkins, squashes and cucumbers. The resemblance in looks to the rest of its cousins is clear, but the taste, I believe, is rather unique. It is picked and eaten while it is still green. For years I assiduously peeled and seeded the gourd before preparing it, but lately I realized that both the peel and the seeds are edible, and in fact, in this preparation, the seeds add a welcome crunch. I’m all for cutting out steps from food preparation, so now when I prepare karela, I rinse them, slice them, and I’m good to go.

There are many preparations of the karela that add spices and tang to mitigate the bitterness. This method utilizes another trick — it crisps them up. At some point I will write up other, more complicated recipes for bitter gourd, but this is the simplest, and very, very addictive.

Step 1: slicing.

Rinse, dry and de-stem the bitter gourds. I used three of the smaller Indian variety. With a sharp knife, slice them up into eighth of an inch slices, peel, seeds and all. Don’t worry if you lose a few seeds while slicing. It is more important to keep an even thickness of slice than to get it to be exactly an eighth or a quarter of an inch wide, so that they all cook evenly.

Step 2: saute.

Heat a couple tablespoons of oil in a wide, non-stick pan. A crepe pan, or dosa pan, if you have such, would be ideal. If not, any Calphalon will do. When the oil shimmers, lay out the slices in a single layer, like so:

At this point, lightly salt around the slices, and wait for about 10 minutes, motionless. Oh — you can move, but keep the slices motionless. You might press down on one or two of the recalcitrant slices to ensure touch-age.

Step 3: flip.

As for when to flip the slices over, I would say this — be fearless, and have patience. You might see some start to brown at the bottom. Peek at a couple if you like. At any rate wait ten minutes on medium-high heat. Use a spatula and a fork, one in each hand (the fork to give you leverage), and start flipping. Drop a few more drops of oil on the pan and swirl around. Sprinkle some salt on this side as well. Be conservative, you can always salt more later. Let them cook another five minutes.

Step 4: Remove and add spice.

At this point, most of the slice will be done and crisped up. Remove them into a plate, and toss with a few sprinkles of red chili powder. If you want to do like the street vendors in India do, make cones of newspaper, throw the karela in it, sprinkle the red chili on, and give it a few hearty shakes while holding the flaps closed. Enjoy.

Sweet and sour pigeon peas — tuar dal

July 10, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Pigeon peas (tuar dal), Sindhi food Tags: food, indian food, indian recipes, toor dal, tuar dal, vegan, vegetarian Leave a comment

Here is one reason to relish your pigeon peas — it is the first legume to have its genome completely sequenced! Now isn’t that appetizing! Here is the other reason — they are delicious.

Pigeon peas are known as tuar dal or toor dal in India, where they are used from south to north, from east to west. When mature, the full lentil looks like a dried beige pea. But the way they are used normally is after having the outer husk removed, and split into halves, so they look like little yellow half-spheres. This, by they way, is how most dals (lentils) are commonly eaten — husk removed and split into halves.

In my family we had soupy tuar dal with rice at least once a week. Its deep musky flavor seems to take very well to some added sweetness and tang. Of course that means the holy pairing of jaggery and tamarind. I could go into a deep digression about each of those, but suffice it to say that you can use brown sugar instead of jaggery, and lemon instead of tamarind; let’s stay on our musky subject of the day, people — tuar dal. Eyes on the ball now.

Step 1: soak and boil.

I started with 3/4 cup of the stuff. Work night dinner means I don’t have the luxury to allow it to soak for a couple hours; so I rinse, and soak in near-boiling water for just about fifteen minutes, and see the volume double. I learned this trick from Madhur Jaffrey and it has served me well.

Now, time to boil it. Half a teaspoon of turmeric goes into a pressure cooker, the rinsed and drained tuar dal goes in next, and 3 cups of water. Cover the pressure cooker and let it come to a boil; turn it down and cook, pressurized, for twenty minutes. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, a regular saucepan will do, but the time stretches to an hour and a half. Leave the lid open in this case, at first, because as it first comes to a boil, the lentils will spew like a volcano, and leave watery lava all over your burner.

Once this is done, add salt to taste, half a teaspoon of tamarind paste, and a small piece of jaggery. If you don’t have tamarind use lemon juice, and if you don’t have jaggery use a teaspoon of sugar. Leave the dal uncovered on a low simmer while you prepare the seasoning, stirring occasionally.

Step 2: Seasonings

For the fat in this dal, I used one tablespoon of ghee. There are a few dishes where I opt for ghee instead of oil because of the the lusciousness it gives the result. Butter is a substitute, but I have never tried it.

For the seasonings, I used asafetida, red chili powder, cumin seeds, mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds, in that order.

The seasoning of lentils, known in central India as vaghar, and in the north as tadka, takes some special sequencing. Use a small but thick-bottomed pan to heat the fat in. First, the asafetida can go in pretty quickly, as soon as the fat heats up a little. It will foam in seconds. Now put in half a teaspoon of red chili powder.

Then, in a few seconds, a teaspoon of cumin seeds. They will also sizzle in seconds. Wait a few seconds and put in a teaspoon of mustard seeds. Now, wait.

Wait.

Wait about 30 seconds. The seeds will first make sizzling sounds, then each little ball will pop and you will start to hear popping sounds. At this point, put in one teaspoon of fenugreek seeds.

A note on fenugreek seeds. If they saute long enough to turn dark brown, they will be hard and bitter. So to avoid that, they go in last and cook the least in the hot oil. Of course if they do turn bitter, some simmering in soupy stuff will resolve that problem, so no harm done; but we try to avoid them turning bitter at all.

Step 3: Aromatics

In a few seconds the fenugreek will sizzle as well; now put in and inch of ginger, minced thusly:

…and 2 green chilies, stems removed, and sliced through (if you have curry leaves, use about 6 of them):

Wait till they sizzle, and the chilies show blisters, then empty the entire thing into the dal.

Allow the dal to still simmer on for a few minutes for the flavors to meld.

Step 4: Garnish

Garnish with a handful of chopped cilantro and stir. Have it mixed with rice and perhaps a fried or grilled vegetable on the side.

Efficient butternut-tomato soup

July 9, 2013November 11, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Californian food, Soups, Squashes and gourds Tags: food, Recipes, vegan, vegetarian 1 Comment

A quick and easy soup that can be done quickly for a weeknight dinner but does not sacrifice flavor at all. This amount of soup was enough for four as a soup course, or for two as dinner.

Step 1: Squash.

Start with about half a medium butternut squash. Or you could go with pumpkin, but as you can see, I went with butternut. Put some water on the dish and stick it in the microwave for 5 minutes.

Step 2: Deseed and peel.

The squash comes out softened and partially cooked, as seen above. Cut in half across, it becomes very easy to deseed with a scoop-shaped spoon, as pictured below. As far as the seeds go, I like to chomp on a few of them as they are, the shell and the pith notwithstanding.

The peel easily pares off with a sharp paring knife. Chop up the flesh into cubes and have it ready to go into the soup.

Step 3: Aromatics.

I used an inch-long piece of ginger and chopped it into thin strips thusly.

Now, heat about three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a pot and saute the ginger strips, along with one bay leaf, for a few minutes.

Step 4: Broth and everything else

Throw in the squash, along with one chopped tomato. I used an orange tomato, not in order to match the squash, but just because that’s all I had. Also put in 3 cups of chicken broth, some salt to taste, and bring to a boil.

Keep it at a healthy simmer for about fifteen minutes.

Step 5: Soupify and correct seasoning.

Now, the soup is ready for its journey through the blender. Pull out the bay leaf first of course! Once smooth, you have the choice to strain it. We did, but used a strainer with rather large holes, to make it easier on ourselves. Return the soup to the pot, and check for salt, and also sweetness. I found the squash I used somewhat lacking in sweetness, and added a few squirts of balsamic vinegar to complement it. Heat it through, mix it, and serve.

The welcome home salad

July 8, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Basic methods, Garden cuisine, Salads Tags: food, garden salad, lettuce, Recipes, vegan, vegetarian Leave a comment

What better way to end a trip — come home to a garden with lettuce spilling out of its borders, waiting to be picked. I picked some of the arugula and some frisee and made a giant salad, which was definitely a relief after airport food. The standard dressing I use is the epitome of simple, but there is a technique to it, so file this under ‘basic methods’.

Step 1: Salt

Salt the greens lightly, and toss it around with your fingers. You could use tongs but there is no implement quite as blunt, rubbery, strong, and with as fine control as your fingers.

Step 2: Oil.

Pour some good, green-tinged xtra virgin olive oil around on the greens. How much? Well, just like distance can be measured in light-years, I can tell you the amount of oil in seconds — for a big bowl of greens, squirt oil for around ten seconds. Once again, toss with your fingers. What this step does is coat the greens with the oil, and thereby, the grains of salt are trapped under the sheen of oil, and the seasoning has been captured; and will not easily slip off the greens into a super-seasoned pool in the bottom of the bowl.

Step 3: Vinegar.

I used balsamic. Sprinkle about five seconds (half of the oil) of balsamic vinegar on the greens and toss with your fingers. Considering that the oil is already coating the leaves, the vinegar will bead up on them (oil and vinegar don’t mix), and create little bursts of flavor.

Step 4: Accessorize.

Scoop the greens into bowls and add your choice of toppings. We used one avocado, cubed; and cherry tomatoes, halved. Please do halve them; the juicy insides absorb flavors better than the plastic peel on the outside; and when you’ve got good olive oil and good balsamic, that is a good thing. Place them on the bed of greens.

Hat tip: Nick Stellino, the TV chef.

Stemming the tide of mustard greens

July 2, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Garden cuisine, Pasta and pasta sauces, Punjabi food, Vegetables Tags: food, indian food, indian recipes, pasta, vegan, vegetarian 1 Comment

When we first brought our mustard seedlings home, they were petite and unassuming. Planted them in the ground, and given San Francisco’s freakishly warm weather, we soon had curly monsters threatening to swamp the house. Naturally we set about consuming them as fast as we could.

Mustards after a lot of rampaging

Harvested an entire meal’s amount to make Punjab’s famous ‘sarson ka saag’, which means ‘greenish pulpy thing made out of mustard’. It was good, but made not a whit of difference in the amount of curly monsters in the garden.

Soon we were eating sarson ka rice, sarson ka pasta, sarson ka…everything.

On the way, I learnt an important lesson about cooking mustard greens that the Punjabi chefs learnt thousands of years ago. Unless you cook and puree the mustards, the curls in the leaves — which are quite tough, by the way — will interlock and will not separate, and you either get a mouthful of mustards all clumped together, or you get none at all. Pureeing after cooking makes them luscious and even. So here is the basic technique for the Punjabi sarson ka saag, and then my other variations.

Sarson ka saag

Step 1: is the most important:boil and puree.

synthesis pancakes and welcome home salad 004

Mustard greens washed and chopped

Rinse, roughly chop a bunch of mustard greens. Put them in a pot with a quarter cup water, salt, half an onion, roughly chopped, two green chilies, roughly chopped, and a quarter cup chopped cilantro. Bring to a boil, cover, simmer and cook for about fifteen minutes, or until the mustards are no longer bright green. Cool for a few minutes and puree in a blender, although there is no need to make it completely smooth.

Step 2: Seasoning

I couldn’t tell you if every villager in Punjab uses this set of seasonings, but this is what I used, and it was good. I heated two tablespoons of ghee in a small thick bottomed pan on medium-high. Then put in a teaspoon of cumin seeds and 3-4 cloves of garlic, minced. Also half a teaspoon or more of red chili powder. Once they sizzle and the garlic looks cooked (not browned), put in two tablespoons of besan (chickpea flour) and stir. I think the more typical ingredient here is cornmeal so if you have that, use a quarter cup of that instead. Allow the besan (or cornmeal) to roast in the oil for a few minutes. Then empty the seasoning into the mustard puree and stir.

sarson ka saag

Step 3: Simmer a little longer

Check for salt and add more if needed. Simmer a little longer to meld the flavors and fully cook the besan. Sprinkle some lemon juice over the top (inauthentic ingredient alert). Serve with roti/chapati.

Sarson ka pasta…bucatini with mustard greens

Step 1: boil and puree

Here I boiled the greens with just a quarter onion and some salt. After about fifteen minutes of simmering, I roughly pureed them in a blender. Keep it aside.

Step 2: Seasonings

For the oil, I used about four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Heat it in a large pan on medium. Without waiting for it to heat, put in four large cloves of garlic, minced; three anchovies from a jar; and a few sprinkles of cracked red pepper. The anchovies, as they cook, will melt into the sauce, and add a delicious umami, proteiny flavor. Wait till they sizzle; break up the anchovies with a wooden spoon; then empty the pureed greens into it. Simmer gently, stirring, for a few minutes

Step 3: Pasta

Meanwhile, get a big pot of salted water to boil; once it boils, put in half a pound of bucatini (this is enough for a dinner for two). Wait till it is almost done to al dente, then fish out the pasta with a pasta spoon and put it into the greens along with a few good sized ladles of the pasta water. Use your judgment here — if the greens aren’t saucy enough, add a little more pasta water. Stir nicely to break up the clumps of mustards to combine with the pasta water and turn it into a sauce. Remember the sauce has to coat the pasta, not remain in clumps at the bottom. Stir to cover the pasta with the greens, cover the pot and simmer for just a minute or two. Turn off heat; pour some fresh XVOO on the top, and parmesan shavings if you like, and serve.

This makes a wonderfully light green sauce for the pasta that looks as nutritious as it, in reality, is.

Seeking the heart of fiddlehead ferns

July 1, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Californian food, Vegetables Tags: californian food, food, indian food, indian recipes, vegan, vegetarian 2 Comments

If anyone ever asks me why this blog is called the ‘odd’ pantry — it is named so for vegetables like fiddlehead ferns. When one first encounters them on the grocery shelves one isn’t even really sure what kingdom of life they belong to. They could be worms — no, more like caterpillars — or maggots — curled up. They could be giant microbes, like the spirogyra we learned about in school. They might be seaweed. Have a look:

Are we really supposed to eat that thing?

Fiddlehead ferns are the baby fronds of various types of ferns. They are harvested wild, not cultivated, which explains their rarity on the shelves. But when you happen to see them, grab some, because they are full of fiber, omega-3’s, potassium, and so forth. I believe the fiddleheads one sees in California are the ostrich ferns.

To clean them, soak them in warm water for a few minutes to shake the dirt off, rinse, and do this again. I don’t think you can get all the brown off (at least I wasn’t able to), but not all the brown stuff is dirt. Do snip off the brown tips of the stems.

Having never tried them before, I had to guess about their taste and how to cook them.

First, I tried a method very much like in this recipe. Good, but the fiddleheads don’t seem to char very easily; and, they have a slippery and chunky texture which needed a stronger set of seasonings to stand up to it, I thought.

So second, I tried a different method, which I thought was better.

Step 1:

Cut them up in about half inch sized lengths.

Step 2: Saute

Heat about 2 tablespoons of oil in a pan on medium high. When it shimmers, put in mustard seeds; wait till they pop, then put in the fiddleheads. Stir. They will go from looking like this:

to looking like this in a few minutes of medium high sauteing.

At this point, I threw in some onions. This time I cut them in thin strips, by first halving the onion, giving it one cross cut from root end to stem end, and then slicing it as narrowly as I can. Put them into the pan and stir for a minute.

Then it is time for half a teaspoon turmeric, red chili powder, and the salt.

Now the problem with the slippery texture of the fiddleheads is that spices don’t stick to it. So, we need glue in the dish, that the spices will combine with, and that will stick to the ferns. What ingredient is a good glue? Hmm…I used sesame seeds, ground up, about a third of a cup (super useful to keep a coffee grinder around, just for spices; takes just a minute for jobs of this sort).

Step 3: Braise.

Stir the sesame seed paste with the fiddleheads, add a half a cup of water, and there — we have the glue that we wanted. One teaspoon of tamarind paste goes in. Stir, cover, simmer on low for about ten minutes, and what we have is this:

How did it turn out? Well, we had it as one of the sides with roti, for dinner. I thought it was yummy.

But I don’t think my quest for the heart of fiddlehead ferns is over yet. This dish was good but didn’t show off their quintessential fiddlehead-ness. I will be trying other ways to cook them…watch this space.

Roasted fennel

June 30, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Californian food, Garden cuisine, Vegetables Tags: californian food, food, Recipes, vegan, vegetarian Leave a comment

I have no idea why I planted so much fennel. We don’t much care for it in salad, and although my daughter loves chomping on the seeds, I’m not going to let it go to seed, because it is a noxious weed in California. So why did I do it? There’s all the fennel, waving in the breeze (hi fennel!) that I have to do something with.

Last afternoon I pulled out one entire plant, mostly to allow the mint hiding under the fronds to get some some sun. Cut out the leaves and the roots, and this is what I was left with: 3 bulbs.

Don’t they look like three buddies? The short and stout one, the tall and skinny one, and the one right in the middle? Slice them up an eighth of an inch thick, and you end up with this:

I love how pretty the insides are — the symmetrical petal shapes that emanate out of the center. I focused on one particularly pretty slice below:

This is one of those recipes where I wasn’t sure what I was going to do until I had done it. I knew baking in an oven was involved, salt and olive oil too. So I started with that. Rub a few teaspoons of XVOO all over them with your fingers. Sprinkle with some salt to taste. Then, squirt a few squirts of lemon around. Now for juicy vegetables roasted in this way where one expects some browning, some crunch on top is desirable. I went with cracked coriander seeds (just pulverized a bit, not ground up completely); and, scanning the pantry shelves, I saw almond meal, so I used that as well. A teaspoon of cracked coriander sprinkled on top, and a teaspoon of almond meal spread around. This is what I ended up with.

Into the oven it goes. Set to bake at 425 F, for 20 minutes. This is what comes out:

In retrospect, I could have gone higher on the oven temperature, perhaps 450 F next time?

It made a very nice vegetable side for two. It would also be great on pizza or focaccia. The fennel was still a little sweet and crunchy on top. I loved the lemon but it does make it a little intense, so if one prefers less intensity in flavor one could leave it out.

Oh — and this recipe would be great with belgian endives — a similarly juicy and crunchy vegetable.

Healthy, natural granola

June 29, 2013November 2, 2013Aneela Mirchandani Basic methods, Breakfast Tags: food, Recipes, rolled oats, vegan, vegetarian Leave a comment

Most newbies to California eventually discover granola, as I did, years ago. Popularized by the hippie movement in the 1960’s, this mixture of crisp roasted oats, dried fruit and nuts is usually combined with yogurt and fresh fruit for breakfast. I first tried it at a cafe and loved it. Of course I tried to recreate it at home, and reached for the many, many, many varieties of packaged granolas in the grocery aisles. I got quickly disenchanted. Why? Let me count the ways.

1. Too sweet!

2. There’s always one ingredient I don’t like. Either it’s coconut; or dried raspberries paired with vanilla; or sesame seeds which I like, but not in this context; or chocolate, good lord.

3. Often stale. The oils used are often rancid.

4. Never tastes quite oaty enough. As my husband says, too much binder, not enough oats.

5. .Some granola makers want to ride on the ‘rustic appeal’ train and make it artificially clumpy, to replicate that homemade look, but honestly people, those clumps are hideous. I’ve had packages of granola that were nothing but clumps. Clumps hide sugar and salt bombs. Yuck.

So I finally decided to make my own and never looked back. The fresh, roasted smell of oats brightens up the kitchen on the mornings that I make it, and I have never had store bought granola that tasted quite that oaty.

Thank you Alton Brown! I first saw this recipe on his show Good Eats, but I have refined, simplified, and de-sweetened it (Americans like their food too damn sweet, even Alton Brown. We are not children people).

Here is the basic recipe, and please experiment by tossing it with fruit and nuts of your choice.

Step 1. Oats

I use 6 cups old-fashioned rolled oats from Quaker. Put 6 cups oats into a giant bowl.

Step 2: Basic flavoring.

Add one teaspoon granular salt and stir it around with your hands. Then add half a cup of almond oil, and a quarter cup good maple syrup. We use Grade B. Mix it very well with a spatula, until all the oats are shiny and covered.

Step 3: Roast.

Start oven at 250 F. Spread the oats on a roasting pan in a flat layer about a quarter inch thick. Let it roast for one hour and ten minutes. About 40 minutes into the cooking process, take out the tray, and stir the oats around to break clumps. Put the pan back in to complete the cooking process.

Once it is done, you have the opportunity to mix in dried fruit or nuts of your choice — some that we have tried are, currants; slivered almonds; flax seeds.

Wait till it cools and save in an airtight jar. It will keep for at least two weeks, never had a chance to keep it longer — we always finish it within that time.

Primer on caramelizing onions

June 28, 2013August 6, 2014Aneela Mirchandani Basic methods Tags: food, indian food, indian recipes, vegan, vegetarian 4 Comments

At some point in their life, every able-bodied human will be called upon to caramelize onions. If you are Indian, this might happen three times in one evening. So let us learn to do this right.

Onions:

Let’s say you start with one yellow onion. Peel it and chop it. You do not want chunky pieces of onion. What you want is to maximize the cut surface area to expose more of it to the saute it is about to undergo. You can do this one of three ways: slice the onion paper thin; or first give it cross cuts with a sharp knife to produce a fine dice; or, get lazy and puree in a food processor with a few tablespoons of water. All methods work, but the wet purees will take a few minutes to lose their water, and only then will the onion start to caramelize. With the food processor, make sure to pull out a few chunks the blades inevitably leave behind and chop them by hand.

Saute:

Choose a thick-bottomed pan that will not allow the onions to burn. Stainless steel is best; Calphalon will work; you do not need Teflon. About three-four tablespoons of oil per medium onion is the proportion of oil you need. The flame should be medium-high at first. Be careful not to overfill the pot! If the uncooked onions come up halfway up the pot sides, they will steam instead of searing. Also, no lid needed.

Choices, choices:

Now, if you caramelize the Indian way, you will saute on medium-high for fifteen minutes or so, every few minutes giving the onions a vigorous stir. If you caramelize the Western way, you will turn the heat down to low after they first start sizzling, and keep the oil at a simmer for a good 45 minutes to an hour, only stirring every ten minutes or so. I think the Western way draws more sweetness out of the onions and is great when onions are the star of the show. In contrast, in Indian dishes, caramelized onions usually are the base for a spicy gravy.

Sprinkle of salt:

After they have started sizzling, I usually add a sprinkle of salt. This draws moisture out of the onions and helps them caramelize faster.

Proceeding:

As the onions cook, they will first get translucent, then the edges will start to brown. And their volume will shrink. There may be brown bits stuck to the pan as well; don’t worry about them! As long as you used a thick-bottomed pan that distributes heat well, this is fine. Remember, dark brown = good, black = bad. No doubt it is a subtle difference. But if you notice the edges turning black instead of brown, turn the heat down a bit. As it proceeds, it is wise to turn the heat down a bit anyway.

Finishing:

You can stop when you see some brown, or wait till you see mostly brown. It is a judgment call. The middles of the onion pieces will still be translucent till the end. If you want to scrape up the brown bits stuck to the pan, you can either wait till the next liquid comes in — whether it is tomatoes, yogurt, or other meat or vegetables — as they steam, the brown bits can be easily deglazed. If no further liquid is coming in, cover the pan for a few minutes, allow the onions to sweat, and the resulting liquid can be used to scrape them up.

The caramelization process:

After having done this a few hundred times, one might wonder — what on earth is going on? Well essentially the sugars in the onion oxidize and break down, browning occurs, and produce that familiar aroma. It is the same kind of caramelization process that is used while making creme caramel, otherwise known as flan; and a multitude of other desserts. Here is more information about it.
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The Odd Pantry

Essays on food

vegetarian