Food & Culture> 5 Ways to Spice up your Cuisine the Indian Way

Image 1: Fresh garden picks

Image 2: Green chillies, lemon, curry leaves and ginger
Image by: Tanya Munshi
Image copyright: Tanya Munshi

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Text by: Tanya Munshi

What makes Indian cooking so distinct from other parts of the globe? Apart from being highly delectable, Indian cooking is very healthy with the spices and ingredients infused. Here are five simple garden fresh ingredients that are used to enhance the aroma and flavour of Indian dishes. If you want to add that extra zing and spice to your meal be it vegetarian or meats, then do give these five ingredients a try.
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Curry Leaves
Predominantly used in Southern India, fresh curry leaves offer a distinct woody and pungent aroma to your dish. Ingredients like ginger, garlic and mustard seeds bring out the true colours and flavour of the curry leaves which in turn enhance your dish. With its high nutritive value packed with Vitamin A and calcium, curry leaves are also used in herbal beauty products like soaps and medicines.

Tip: Tempering daal (lentil soup) or sambar with ghee (clarified butter), mustard seeds and curry leaves tickle your taste buds making you hungrier than before.
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Lemon
The tangy flavour of lemons stands out in a dish as it cuts out the rest of the flavours. After a dish is ready, squeezing fresh lemon over the dish for garnish enhances the flavour and of course, sending your hunger pangs on an overdrive when you can smell the zest from the lemon. Lemon is a rich source of vitamin C that increases the nutritive value of vegetarian dishes.

Tip: Squeeze the lemon after taking the dish off the flame or better still when you're about to serve. Adding lemon while the food is being cooked will be of no use as it will simply evaporate with the steam.

Garlic
Garlic a hot favourite is grown in almost all parts of the world. India is the second largest producer of garlic, after China. Garlic a wonder drug is easy to grow in almost any climate and of course easy to store as well. Garlic finds its place in meat, fish and vegetarian dishes. Add garlic the way you like -grated, finely chopped or in a blender before adding it to hot oil. Garlic is rich in medicinal properties; its keeps a check on high cholesterol, high blood pressure, its good for the heart and helps cure stomach infections, worms, fungal infections and digestive disorders.

Tip: Tempering daal or rasam is a popular favourite. Care should be taken to not burn the garlic as it tends to brown and offer a bitter taste.
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Green Chillies
These crisp green chillies are a rich source of vitamins and also help in increasing your metabolism. Add a few green chillies while sautéing curry leaves, finely chopped shallots, ginger and garlic in hot oil before adding vegetables, fish or meat. If you like it less spicy, add less number of chillies and don't slit them. But do remember, the smaller the green chillies, the more heat they have. The world's hottest chilli Bhut Jolokia has been recently discovered in Assam that has found its way in the Guinness World Records.
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Tip: Green chillies tend to splatter when added to hot oil; hence slitting them slightly prevents that. To enhance the look of your dish, garnish it with a few slit green chillies. You can also add it to the popular chaat, potato tikkis, cutlets or omelette; where the little green slices will whet your appetite with their very appearance.
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Onions
One of the oldest vegetables known to us, onions find a place in almost all the world's cuisines, but predominantly used in Indian cooking. Onions offer a distinct bitter, sweet and pungent taste all at one time. Rich in antioxidants and its cancer fighting properties, makes onion a popular choice for health conscious people who like to add taste to their meals in a healthy way. Add it to your salad, in a sandwich, as a marinade for fish or meat or in curries. Slice them, chop them, grate them or blend them into a paste, add them the way you like as each style will offer a different taste to your cuisine. Onions are highly effective for common cold, diabetes, are an excellent anti-cholesterol agent and rich in anti-oxidants.
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Tip: In 2 - 3tbsp of hot oil of your choice, add 1 tsp of mustard seeds, 5-6 curry leaves, a couple of slit green chillies, 1 tsp finely chopped ginger and garlic, 1 medium sized onion finely chopped. Sauté for 2-3 minutes till the onions turn golden brown and then add the marinated fish/ chicken. All you now need to do is add salt, turmeric and chilli powder to taste and cook till done. Garnish the dish with freshly squeezed lemon and a couple of green chillies and serve hot.

Indian Spice & Herb Dictionary - C

C
Text by: Tanya Munshi
Cambodge – popularly known as – Malabar Tamarind. This fruit’s rinds are used for flavouring curries. Cambodge is widely used in Sri Lankan and Malaysian cooking as well.

Cinnamon Cassia– Hindi – Kashash. The dried form of the cassia bark is used as a spice. It is also known to have medicinal properties curing joint pains and fever.

Cinnamon – Hindi – Dalchini, Darchini. This is a popular spice known all across India. It is mainly used in small proportions to flavour meat or chicken dishes, kheer, chocolates, dried fruits and baked products. It offers a lovely bitter, sweet and woody flavour and smell to the food item. It has medicinal properties such as – cinnamon oil has anti-fungal properties and this spice is known to help diabetic patients digest sugar with ease.

Cardamom – Hindi – Elaichi. Cardamom is also a very popular spice across India. It is used to flavour curries, kheer, masala tea and cardamom milk. A single pod of cardamom can be chewed to cleanse the palate as an after mint and for fresh breath. Cardamom tea is known be soothing for a person suffering from cold and cough.

Celery – Hindi – Randhuni, Shalari, Ajmud. Celery leaves and stalks are used in soups, vegetable broths, salads, ice creams and baked products. It has medicinal properties to treat liver disorders and in controlling asthma.

Chilli – Hindi – Mirchi. Chilli as in red chilli in powdered form is used extensively in India to add a spicy flavour and a red colour to the curries. Dry red chillies are also fried in ghee, butter or oil and added to dal for tempering or tadka. Kashmiri red chillies are famous as they are known to enhance flavour and colour to Indian cuisines. This spice is omnipresent in almost all dishes in varying amounts – be it vegetarian or a non-vegetarian dish. Interestingly, chillies are a good source of Vitamin C. In certain parts of India, such as West Bengal it is customary to have a raw green chilli along with your meal.

Clove – Hindi – Laung. Did your grand mom ever place a clove in your mouth whenever you had a tooth ache or a swollen gum? Well, that’s clove for you. Again, clove is used to flavour curries, especially meat dishes, added to kheer and sweet meats in India. It has medicinal properties such as helping diabetic patients in absorbing sugar with ease and in relieving toothaches.

Coriander – Hindi – Dhaniya. Coriander powder is used as a spice to flavour curries. The powder looks grainy and kind of smells a little woody. On the other hand, fresh coriander leaves are a treat. They not only offer a beautiful aroma to the cuisine, but also enhance the look of any dish if used as garnishing. Rajma (red kidney beans), chicken, mutton or fish curry look appetizing with garnished with chopped fresh green coriander leaves. It has medicinal properties as well, where it is used to cure nausea, fever and stomach disorders.

Cumin – Hindi – Jeera. Cumin seeds are used to flavour a curry, by simply adding a teaspoon or two into the hot oil in which the curry will be cooked. Cumin seeds offer a beautiful aromatic flavour to the entire curry. Cumin seeds are also used to season baked products as well. This ingredient is known to have medicinal properties such as curing stomach disorders.

Curry Leaf – Hindi – Curry Patta. This leaf is predominantly used in the Western Ghats, Konkan and the southern belt of India. Curry leaves form a predominant role in flavouring vegetarian and non-vegetarian cuisines across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and the Konkan regions of India. It offers a strong aromatic flavour and can get the hunger pangs running overdrive. Curry leaves are used to temper dal, sambar, rasam and tastes delicious with chicken and meat. Today, due to cross cultural cuisines spreading across India, curry leaves are used by other cultures as well.