Miss Masala

WITH ALL INDIAN RECIPES THERE ARE SOME OBVIOUS SIGNS FOR WHEN TO MOVE ON TO THE NEXT STAGE OF COOKING:

The oil is sufficiently hot if it forms little bubbles when you touch it with your wooden spoon.

Whole spices are ready when they sizzle and release pungent aromas.

Dried spices, whole and powdered, each have their own strong smell, which will tone down when cooked.

Onions are cooked when they are evenly golden brown but not burnt.

Tomatoes are cooked when they disintegrate.

A combination of dried spices and other ingredients is ready when, having been cooked on a slow simmer, oil starts oozing out of little holes in the mixture.

Lentils are done when they lose their shape and become integrated with the cooking water to form a thick soup.

AN IMPORTANT TRICK, I LEARNT, is to whack the heat up high and stir like a maniac to prevent the spices from getting stuck to the bottom of the pan and burning. As I explained to my uninitiated sister: don’t make love to it, fuck it! If the spices do get stuck on the bottom of the pan, just add a couple of tablespoons of hot water from the kettle and scrape them off.

Initially this meant giving each pan of food my undivided attention, a boring task that is broadly comparable to watching cheap nail colour dry. It’s not difficult, but until you get the hang of it you have to pay attention and avoid getting distracted. With this revelation I embraced my next Indian cooking attempt – the Mattar Paneer. The stakes were getting higher. This is a classic north Indian dish made with Indian cheese and peas. To destroy this recipe would be tantamount to committing curry hara-kiri.

True to form, I dived straight into the recipe. But midway through the frying-onions stage, extreme boredom set in. I wandered off to pour myself a glass of wine. Then fired off an impassioned e-mail to a friend on the idiocy of men. By which time, the onions had started to burn, bringing the attempt to an untimely and tragic conclusion.

Of course, there is no shame in burnt curry. As with many things in life, like perms and financial journalism, it is better to have tried and failed to cook Indian food than to have never tried at all.

Mattar Paneer (#ulink_98ce6a18-7f0d-54e4-ba1e-e67ccbe8f6cc)

Curried Indian cheese with tomatoes and peas

Paneer is Indian cheese – a firm favourite with vegetarian Indians and yours truly. Cooked paneer has the texture of tofu and the moreishness of good-quality buffalo mozzarella. Stone cold, however, it has all the allure of cubed polystyrene.

Luckily, paneer is only served steaming hot as chunks of loveliness nestled amidst a melange of spiced ingredients. I tried making it from scratch once, with disappointing results. Buy it ready-made from the hard cheese section of your local supermarket and focus your efforts on the recipe instead.

Feeds 4 Vegetarian

1 large onion

4cm (1

/

in) root ginger

4 garlic cloves

3 medium tomatoes

250g (9oz) paneer

2 tbsp oil

1 tsp kasoori methi (optional)

2 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp cumin powder

/

tsp turmeric powder

/

tsp chilli powder

3 tbsp natural Greek yoghurt

1 mug of frozen peas

/

tsp garam masala

salt

1. Peel and finely chop the onion, ginger, garlic and tomatoes and cut the paneer into bite-sized pieces. The best way to do this is to first halve and then quarter the block of cheese lengthways, then cut through the width at even intervals.

2. Pour 1 tablespoon of the oil into a large frying pan set over a high heat. When the oil is hot, fry the paneer cubes until golden for 1 minute on one side and a further minute on the opposite side. This will prevent the cheese from crumbling later. Remove the pieces with a slotted spoon and set aside.

3. Leave the kasoori methi (if using) to soak in 2 tablespoons of hot water. Next pour the remaining oil into the same frying pan. When the oil is hot, stir in the onion, ginger and garlic and fry for about 10 minutes until pale golden. Now stir in all the powdered spices apart from the garam masala, add the tomatoes and fry for another 5 minutes, jabbing the masala mixture with your wooden spoon to help it disintegrate and form a thick paste. You may need to add a little hot water to prevent the mixture from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

4. Lower the heat to a simmer, add the yoghurt and stir it in well. Now wait for the oil to ooze through little pores in the masala mixture, stirring from time to time until this happens. When it does, after about 2 minutes, mix in the peas and half a mug of hot water. Cook for another 3 minutes, then season with salt to taste and chuck in the garam masala, paneer chunks and the kasoori methi (if using) along with its water.

5. Add another half mug of hot water to cook the whole lot for 5 minutes. Once oil floats to the top, serve the Mattar Paneer hot with some warm ready-made naans and creamy natural Greek yoghurt.

INTRODUCING KASOORI METHI

Kasoori methi, dried bitter fenugreek leaves, works miracles to balance the sweetness of curried dishes. It’s sold alongside other dried spices and is at its finest first soaked in a tablespoon of hot water and then added along with the liquid to the dish towards the end of cooking.

Keema Mattar (#ulink_31f79498-5b68-506b-bebd-05f2577e4b78)

Perfectly Fluffy Basmati (#ulink_032580b3-b484-56ec-a8c5-887788a4e852)

Mattar Paneer (#ulink_4bc9179c-eede-59c3-a8d1-7c64ce471410)

Berry Dal (#ulink_d7505811-de5a-5090-abcb-2c57054da162)

MY SECOND ATTEMPT AT MATTAR PANEER was a triumph – a culinary phoenix that rose, quite literally, from the ashes. Bright-eyed and optimistic, I carried on valiantly. Climbing at work to the heady heights of PR manager and moving to a modern apartment block, albeit in grim Elephant and Castle. And gaining enough confidence to add more spices to my collection. Mustard seeds, dried mango powder, asafoetida and tamarind paste made it to my bulging ‘Indian’ kitchen shelf. Familiar dishes from my childhood were tried from the NIAW Cookbook, with mixed results.

But I felt empowered. Emboldened. Excited. I sealed my fate by having a go at the age-old dal recipe passed down the generations of my maternal grandmother’s Berry (pronounced ‘Bay-ree’) family.