Global Kitchen: Indian Made Easy
Cooking Homemade Indian Cuisine is Simpler Than Most People Think
People are led to believe that Indian food is very complex and that there are a lot of spices and different steps. While that’s true for some dishes, the majority of Indian food is actually quite simple.
— Sudhir Kandula, finalist on NBC's "America's Next Great Restaurant"
Indian cuisine is fragrant, tasty and more often than not, healthy. But the average American is too intimidated to make Indian dishes at home in spite of the fact that it’s no harder than whipping up lasagna or tacos.
“Most of the time, people are led to believe that Indian food is very complex and that there are a lot of spices and different steps,” said Sudhir Kandula, a finalist on NBC's “America’s Next Great Restaurant” in 2011. “While that’s true for some dishes, the majority of Indian food is actually quite simple. I used to cook a lot of Indian food for my friends with stuff I found in Whole Foods.”
Susan Simon knows all about Indian food and its simplicity. Her store, India Sweets & Spices, in Culver City, California, has been around since 1985. One shelf offers a masala spice with an easy-to-follow chicken masala recipe on the side of the bottle.
“Americans buy a lot of Indian spices for the taste and health benefits,” said Simon, who worked at the store before becoming its owner in 2009. “That is the heart of Indian food ... spices.”
Safe at Home
Go to any major city and there is no shortage of Indian eateries.
But, as Kavita Gunda Bouknight points out, “Going out to eat Indian food and cooking it at home are two very different things.”
Bouknight is a wife and mother whose parents cook Indian dishes. She and her friends have devoured her dad’s scrumptious samosas since childhood. She said the trick to cooking Indian cuisine at home is awareness.
“There needs to be more programming on TV specifically designed to make Indian cooking at home easy,” Bouknight said. “Every network seems to have an Italian cooking show, but the exposure to Indian cuisine is limited.”
Kandula hopes to remedy that. As of the time of publication, he was in the early stages of kicking off a chain of Indian restaurants and a cooking program for television.
“I love demystifying Indian food,” said Kandula, who works in the technology field but graduated from the culinary program at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. “People don’t have to be afraid of it at all.”
One example Kandula gives is an alternative samosa recipe.
“What’s not to like about samosas?” he asked. “They've got potatoes, peas and carrots. They’re spicy and flavorful, wrapped nicely in a pastry, and crispy, fried and delicious.”
Kandula said people unfamiliar with cooking Indian cuisine avoid homemade samosas because they don't know how to fold them. They don't want to fry them and have them explode. Kandula addressed that problem during his stay on "America's Next Great Restaurant."
"I cooked them in a panini maker as opposed to frying them,” he explained. “I didn’t use any special ingredients. I used potatoes, peas and carrots, crisp chilies, garlic and ginger, some mustard seeds and a little bit of the spice I made on the show and grilled them. It was as simple as that.”
Kandula, who specializes in Southern and coastal Indian food, also recommends an easy green-bean dish with toasted coconut, dried red chilies, and chickpeas and cauliflower tacos made with mustard seeds, spices and dried red chilies. The latter can be served over rice. He made both dishes on the show with relative ease.
Key Ingredients and Terminologies
Indian cuisine elements can even add flavor to non-Indian food items.
“I grew up eating every vegetable and never understood why my friends and classmates didn’t until I went over to their houses and ate vegetables the way they prepared them,” Bouknight said. “The school cafeteria was the same way. They poured cheese over everything to make it taste good.”
But with a little Indian spice, vegetables and most foods can taste more flavorful and delicious, she said.
“All you need is fresh ginger and fresh garlic,” Bouknight said. “Those two ingredients are easy to find and make any dish taste better.”
Kandula is also a big believer in garlic and ginger, as well as onions, mustard seeds, turmeric and dried and fresh chilies. But ingredients are just a part of the puzzle. The average person doesn't understand the terms used in Indian cuisine.
“Masala isn’t really a dish but a mixture of spices,” he said. “And curry is not a powder or a spice. It’s a way of cooking.”
Cultural Impact
Broadcast journalist and TV personality Maria Menounos is learning how to make Indian food from a friend. She said the best way to overcome the fear of cooking Indian cuisine is just to try it.
“People are nervous about cooking ethnic food because it is a part of someone else’s culture,” said Menounos, who is of Greek descent. She writes about cooking and eating well in her book, “The EveryGirl’s Guide to Life."
“Just try and do your best,” Menounos advised. “It may not taste as good or as authentic as what you would get at an Indian restaurant, but so what? Ignorance is bliss.”
Exposure is the key to gaining comfort with new foods. While Indian food may never be as popular or as embraced as Italian and Mexican food, Kandula says he believes it could be a close rival to sushi.
“It needs time,” Kandula said. “Italian food has about 150 years on us in this country, and Mexican food has about a 75-year head start. But sushi is relatively new, it’s healthy and it’s taken off like wildfire. Who would’ve thought people in the Midwest would eat raw fish?”
- Photo Credit Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images
