Читать книгу Miss Masala - Mallika Basu - Страница 30

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YOU CAN’T COOK INDIAN FOOD WITHOUT OIL.

When I started cooking while studying for my journalism degree, I failed spectacularly to make Indian food using miniscule quantities of oil. It was devastating to accept that I’d be old and wrinkled before three onions would fry in one teaspoon of oil. So I compromised by using non-stick pans and as little oil as was necessary to cook the food properly. At the time my journalism tutors joked: ‘Never believe anything written in newspapers.’ I haven’t quite followed this sound advice. Some article glorified the health benefits of sunflower oil and I’ve used it in Indian cooking ever since.

In truth, I could use any flavourless, colourless variety of oil that has a high smoking point, such as corn, groundnut or safflower oil. These are what I recommend for my recipes unless I specify otherwise. There’s also coconut oil, used widely in south India, and mustard oil, popular in Bengal. But I use these only occasionally. Mainly because I can never find storage space for them in my kitchen cupboards.

And finally, there’s olive oil.

A contentious choice – fast becoming most fashionable in India. But let me ask you, would you cook a pasta dish with mustard oil? Or a roast dinner in coconut oil? Besides, olive oil loses its famous delicate flavour when heated to the high temperatures needed for Indian cooking, and it costs a bomb. So wrong on so many levels. Best avoided for curries, I say.