Indian Cookery for Beginners

When abroad and fed up with eating out, every Indian/Pakistani craves tasty home food. Most of us will fumble at the beginning if we’ve never done any cooking at home. That first step is always the most difficult.

However, if you learn some basic principles of Indian cooking you will find you are able to prepare a wide range of dishes.

First, start by preparing your ingredients and setting them all out ready for the cooking. Most Indian cooking starts with a ‘Chhaunka’ of ‘tempering’ i.e. heating oil in a pan and adding the spices that will usually crackle and splutter and release its flavours and aroma. The prepared vegetables are then added to this ‘chhaunka’ or ‘tempering’ and cooked, either dry or with a little water, until the vegetables are tender and cooked.

For various vegetables some of the ‘chhaunkas’ popular in north India are:

Potato Raw:
Methi seeds, Whole red chillis (two or three- broken in two/three pieces), Heeng( just a wee bit). This is for both dry or with ‘tari’ preparations.

Potato Boiled
Heeng, Jeera, Whole Red Chilli

Pumpkin( Yellow Kaddu)
Methi seeds ,Heeng, Whole red chilli

Brinjal (Baigan)
Methi ,Heeng

Kunderoo
Methi ,Heeng, Red chilli whole

French Beans
(a) Either Jeera or Methi
(b) South Indian style –Rai(Sarson), Chanadaal, whole Red Chilli, Curry Patta (add fresh coconut grated towards end of cooking)

More easy recipes coming soon, come back soon.