“O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” Psalm 34:8
There is an Indian story of a queen who “proved the truth by tasting the food.” The story tells how her husband, who dearly loved her, and whom she dearly loved, lost his kingdom, wandered away with his queen into the forest, left her there as she slept, hoping she would fare better without him, and followed her long afterwards to her father’s court, deformed, disguised, a servant among servants, a cook. Then her maidens came to her, told her of the wonderful cooking, magical in manner, marvellous in flavour and in fragrance. They are sure it is the long-lost king come back to her, and they bid her believe and rejoice. But the queen fears it may not be true. She must prove it, she must taste the food. They bring her some. She tastes, and knows. And the story ends in joy.
When I was a child, I traveled to many countries by flight of imagination fueled by books. Probably my favorite heroine was Christian missionary, Amy Carmichael, who served in India in the first half of the 1900s. In addition to learning how God worked through her to save many children physically and spiritually, I learned about the place. An author can transport the reader through both time and space with their words.
Spicesof India was the topic of our cooking class this month. Gayle and I began by reading the above excerpt from Things As They Are: Mission Work in Southern India. We wondered if Indian dishes would have seemed exotic to Amy Carmichael, or if they would have already made their way to London. Had the British East India Company brought curry to her neighborhood? When she settled in Tamil Nadu, what would she, the workers, and the children have eaten? I’m not an expert on Indian cuisine, culture, or history, so we didn’t have answers to all our questions.
“Indian”. You can’t just put it in a box. The nation is filled with people with differences in religion, caste, and language. Hindus, Muslims, Sihks, Buddhists, and Jainists have different rules about diet. Geography also effects what people will eat. Dairy and meat are used more in the north, while coconut milk, tropical fruit, fresh vegetables and fish are more common ingredients in the south. One thing that the people do have in common is spices.
Indian food is aromatic and flavorful. Indian food is more complex than that curry paste or powder you may find at your local grocery store. Once you’ve taken fresh, whole spices and used them to prepare a dish yourself, hopefully, you will notice and appreciate the scents and tastes more fully.
Gayle and I skimmed through a couple of menus from Indian restaurants, puzzling over the names and descriptions. A couple of spice charts gave some light to our ignorance. Next, we opened the spice container that my sister gave me for Christmas. When you remove the lid, your nose and eyes are struck by the aromas and colors. We didn’t taste the individual spices-the exception being cardamom. Friends in Colombia had explained that there are small black seeds inside the light green husks. When you bite down on the seeds, a minty flavor is released and freshens your breath. The sensation isn’t exactly like an after dinner mint, but it does the job.
Gayle was also introduced to the fresh herb, cilantro. Thankfully, she isn’t one whose brain and taste buds define its flavor as soapy.
This month we didn’t cook in class. Personal diets complicate things, so I brought a sample of a Hyderabadi Biryani (chicken and rice) that I had prepared the day before. She could just taste and see that Indian food is good without having to count the calories of a full meal.
For this dish, you marinade chicken in a spiced yogurt mixture. While the raw chicken is absorbing the flavors of the spices and being tenderized by the yogurt, you prepare the rice. Basmati rice should be rinsed and/ or soaked before cooking. Although this recipe didn’t say to, I fried the whole spices and the rice before adding the water. You are told to cook the rice until it is only 3/4 of the way done. Then you place the raw chicken in the bottom of a Dutch oven. Layer with plenty of fried onions, then top with the rice. There was an option to drizzle the rice with a milk-saffron mixture; I substituted a packet of paella seasoning for the saffron. Lid on top, you place the Dutch oven on the stovetop and let the dish cook for 20 minutes. Lower the heat to the lowest setting (I just turned it off, but left the pot on the still warm burner), and leave it for 15 minutes. Next, remove the Dutch oven from the heat and allow the dish to cool for a further 15 to 30 minutes. At this point you could serve the entree, but the flavors will combine more if you leave it to the next day. The problem is, though, that the chicken is at such a perfect texture on the first cooking that you hate to reheat it. Alas.
To complete the presentation, you should also prepare a raita (usually a mixture of yogurt, cucumber, and herbs). Joel thought that the rice needed an additional texture: crispy fried onions.
How many of us have looked at all the containers of dried herbs and spices on our kitchen shelves and wondered, “When was the last time I used them?” Herbs were the subjects of our April cooking class. There are many questions to ask, and there are many ways to explore in search of answers. Too many for one class. We decided to focus on the most common herbs, and we crossed a few of them off the list knowing ahead of time that they weren’t favorites. Still, we were able to fill a chart with information regarding flavor, pairing, and storage.
In addition to learning about herbs, we wanted to learn how to include more vegetables in our diet. So we combined the two with recipes for roasting herbed potatoes (root vegetables). Knowing that roasting would take some time, we jumped right in to preparation. Gayle practiced her knife skills by cubing the russets and sweet potatoes into similarly-sized pieces. She also chopped the rosemary and thyme leaves into even smaller pieces, so that their strong flavors wouldn’t overwhelm.
One of the recipes mentioned that you could use an air-fryer in place of a traditional oven. We read the manual, wiped down the machine, and plugged it in. Half our prepared potatoes went into the air-fryer and the other half were well-spaced on parchment paper lined baking sheets and into the preheated oven. I also threw in some carrots seasoned with dill, to encourage Gayle to reconsider her aversion to the flavor.
My lesson plan was less structured this month. Rather than me providing all the information, I suggested that Gayle look inside the cookbooks she owns to see if they had anything useful. One had recipes that used herbs, but it didn’t have a section devoted to any discussion. The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook had a paragraph about each of the common herbs, but the information was very basic. We found descriptions, uses, health benefits, etc. in a few herb-specific books that I had brought with me.
The potatoes still needed a few more minutes to finish cooking. So I pulled several plastic portion cups from my bag. We removed lids one at a time to smell the different dried herbs. We set them aside when the aroma of the roasting potatoes and fresh herbs began to fill the kitchen.
The results from the two methods weren’t extremely different. We preferred the air-fried potatoes, but we had a variable: we forgot that the pans were in the oven so those vegetables were more well-done.
This class was lacking in attention to health benefits, reasons to choose fresh over dried, and arguments to convince you to plant your own garden. But we did test different cooking methods, review/practice knife skills, and handle fresh herbs. Best of all, we enjoyed spending time together and enjoying the fruit of our labor.
KZ Kitchen 