19
Ghee:
Clarified butter.
Ginger, fresh (
Adrak
):
Peel off the brown skin before grating or
chopping. The recipes give the weight as well as the length of fresh
ginger required. Since the width and thickness of ginger pieces vary,
the width of a piece of ginger is taken to be 1 inch/2.5 cm for
quantities specified in the recipes. A 1 inch/2.5 cm long and 1 inch/
2.5 cm wide piece of ginger is taken to weigh
1
⁄
3
oz
/10 g.
Grate (
Kasna
):
To reduce food to fine particles by rubbing it against
the surface of a grater (an abrasive implement with sharp-edged,
raised perforations).
Halwa
:
A thick pudding of cereals or vegetables cooked in ghee and
sugar.
Khichdi
:
A soft rice and
dal
dish cooked with or without vegetables.
Kofta
:
Deep-fried balls of minced vegetables or meat.
Korma
:
A vegetable, fish, chicken or meat stew with a yogurt-based gravy.
Moong dal
:
Split, skinned green gram; also known as yellow
dal
.
Pakora
:
Pieces of food dipped in batter and deep-fried.
Paneer
:
Yield:
350
g
8
1
⁄
3
cups / 2 litres
whole milk
3 tbsp / 45 ml
lemon juice
1.
Place a strainer over a bowl large enough to hold the milk. Line
strainer with a muslin cloth large enough to hold the curds and then be
tied by winding one corner around the others and knotting. Keep aside.
2.
Pour milk into a pan and bring to boil on high heat, stirring
occasionally to prevent skin from forming on top. Reduce heat to
medium. Add lemon juice. Stir till milk curdles (curds separate from
whey). Cook till whey has a yellow tint and has turned from cloudy to
clear (about 2 minutes), stirring and scraping the sides and base of
pan. Remove pan from heat.
3.
Stir curdled milk and pour into muslin-lined strainer. Allow to
strain till whey is drained into bowl.
4.
Gather up corners of muslin and tie a knot above curds to make a
bag. Place bag on a
thali
, plate or board with knot on top and press
gently for a few seconds on knot to level curds. (Option: For a flatter top,
press top of bag evenly with a flat board about 30 seconds). Tilt
thali
slightly to drain and leave 20 minutes. Untie bag and remove
paneer
.
5.
Cut
paneer
as desired or as per recipe requirement.
Paneer
may
be stored submerged in the whey for moister
paneer
. Whey may also
be used to make soups, thin gravies and added to flour while
kneading; or it may be discarded.
Paratha
:
Layered unleavened Indian bread made with whole wheat
flour dough and ghee.
Pilau:
A spiced rice dish of fried raw rice, vegetables, seafood,
chicken or meat, cooked together with minimum water.
Poha
:
Puffed rice; a dish of puffed rice, onions and potatoes.
Puréed:
To purée is to rub food through a sieve or blend in a
mixer-blender/grinder until the food is pulpy/finely mashed. If using a
mixer-blender/grinder to purée tomatoes, remove cores first.
Alternatively, tomatoes can be grated to make a purée. Discard the
hard skin and core, if any.
Puri
:
Deep-fried puffed unleavened bread.
Red chilli powder:
Whole dried red chillies which have been
ground.
Roasting of spices:
Before grinding, spices are sometimes roasted
to bring out the characteristic aromas and to intensify their flavour.
To roast, place spices in a small, heavy skillet (pan) on medium heat.
Stir constantly until the spices darken by a few shades and give out
their distinct aromas. Remove from heat, spread on a plate and allow
to cool.
