Indian Food 101

[Urbane Guerrilla]

By chance, we recently picked up a copy of Curries and Bugles: A Memoir and a Cookbook of the British Raj by Jennifer Brennan. There's some rare old stuff in there. A recipe for homebuilding your own ketchup starting with 10 pounds of tomatoes. Recipes each with their own individual curry mix. How to make your own papadams. Rendering only moderately youthful mutton more edible by parboiling before roasting. The intelligent use of ghee. Of garam masala too. A scattering of quaint little old advertisements -- anybody know what Hayward's Military Pickle was like, or could offer authoritative opinion on what made it and Hayward's Military Sauce so military? Hayward's apparently no longer make Military Pickle, though small-batch makers may apparently be found through the Net.

(I've been imagining these beret-sporting, DPM-uniformed Armoured guys eating Military Pickle with lunch on Salisbury Plain -- and enjoying an immense raise of morale thereby.)

Random thought: chileheaded Indians might really like a plate of nice zippy Buffalo wings. Properly, it needs the capitalization, having been devised in that upstate New York city.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

A reference to one Mary Nowak with a Military Pickle recipe here from 2007 -- don't think it's a complete recipe, though. No vinegar? No brine? Turmeric and ginger, okay...

Rose Farms and Farmhouse Products offer it in jars.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Heap big roasted Buffalo and maize.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Pass um Di-Gel.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Woot! Dead-tree comes through where the 'Net forbore to tread! The Kenya Cookery Book and Household Guide, 1928 (twelfth ed., 1958) has this for

Military Pickle (and remarks)

1 marrow, fair sized (zucchini or other long squash)
1 lb (500g) cauliflower florets, left so you can appreciate that it's cauliflower
1 lb (500g) French beans (haricots? green beans? both?)
7 chile peppers (presumably fresh, green or ripe)
1 oz (30g) ginger, chopped fine or minced
1 1/4 C flour (the Brit-ism has it 1 breakfast cup, 1.2 C/284ml) -- scanted
1 cucumber
1 lb (500g) onions
1 lb (500g) sugar
2 quarts/up to 2.5L vinegar (conversion seems in error here, perhaps a maximum amount is intended to be given -- well, this ain't rocket surgery)
1 oz (30g) turmeric powder

salt to draw -- almost like brining
Chef knife, saucepan, jars/lids

Cut vegetables small, cover with the salt, leave for 12 hours then drain. Put veggies into saucepan, add vinegar, boil 6 min. Mix powdered ingredients to a smooth paste (in a little vinegar, I suppose) and add to veggies while they boil. Boil or simmer all together for 30 min at least, stirring frequently to prevent any burning.

Put into jars, put up as in canning: sterilization procedures and all. Apparently usable at once, no doubt some nuances come with ageing. Said to be damn fine with strong Cheddar... say, Wensleydale, a crumbly, somewhat sour cheese of the white cheddar description. (Is it true Wallace and Gromit rescued the entire English Wensleydale industry?)

[Juniper]

Ball Blue Book would not approve of canning anything with flour in the mixture. Just sayin'

[DanaC]

Said to be damn fine with strong Cheddar... say, Wensleydale, a crumbly, somewhat sour cheese of the white cheddar description.

Wensleydale is not a variety of Cheddar.

I can see how it might look a little like a 'white cheddar' as you would call it, but it is an entirely different cheese. White cheddar is just cheddar that hasn't been coloured.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

The stuff tastes cheddary to me, and the texture is not dissimilar either. The distinctive part is its sour note, along with its not inconsiderable strength and sharpness, again the sort of thing I get out of a cheddar -- about medium-sharp. It seems altogether a most English cheese -- as contrasted with the French style(s). Not so?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Juniper, I'll bet the flour is in there to thicken, and that cornstarch (likely not substituted 1:1) would do just fine for that too, if you figure flour is a bad idea. I've never canned, so I don't have an informed view.

The amount of flour seems rather a lot for that job, even with a couple quarts of vinegar and three or four pounds of assorted vegetables in the mix.

And the whole doggoned thing sounds temptingly fun to mess up the kitchen with. Wonder if I would go for more chilis in it...?

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The stuff tastes cheddary to me, and the texture is not dissimilar either. The distinctive part is its sour note, along with its not inconsiderable strength and sharpness, again the sort of thing I get out of a cheddar -- about medium-sharp. It seems altogether a most English cheese -- as contrasted with the French style(s). Not so?

Well, yes I can see that there are certain similarities. But to me Wensleydale tastes a little more like Cheshire cheese than Cheddar. I guess when compared to French cheese they probably all taste more similar than different. But that just means they all have an English taste, not that they all taste of Cheddar. I was just pointing out that Wensleydale is not a variety of Cheddar. They are two distinct English cheeses.

[Sundae]

I can see how the pickle would taste good with a strong Cheddar OR Wensleydale (or both). You're right, UG, in that the distinction in Wensleydale is its slightly sour note. I think that sets it apart from Cheddar though - which to me has a sweeter flavour.

Wensleydale was never under threat, it's a supermarket staple here. You might be thinking of Wallace and Gromit's The Curse of the Were-Rabbit which brought an enormous surge in popularity for Stinking Bishop cheese. It's only made on one farm and demand oustripped supply for a long time afterwards.

[Juniper]

I looked it up, and evidently it's OK to add flour or cornstarch to high-acid foods before canning. Pickles would seem to fit right into this, so never mind!

All I've ever canned is tomatoes, fruits, green beans and zucchini relish. Call me the voice of semi-experience.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I know in England there's a strictly controlled limit, on what can be called Cheddar cheese. But to us feriners, Cheddar covers a wide array of tastes. It varies greatly due to the milk used, pasturized or not, butterfat content, etc. Also the time of year it was made, how it was aged, and a host of other things affect the taste.

Starting when my mother was a baby, the family would trek to the Crowley Cheese Factory in Healdville, Vermont (featured on Dirty Jobs), and buy 33 lb wheels of Colby Cheddar, twice a year. They've even replicated the limestone caves you have, up there.

I'm currently hooked on a "New York" Cheddar, made in Wisconsin, I get from a little store in Elmer New Jersey, for $10 a pound. It's marvelous, but probably different from what you call cheddar.

[Pie]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

What would you consider Indian, Pie?

Sure, there's a zillion different definitions for what's 'Indian' food, just like... say, Italian, or Chinese. There are as many variations as there are grandmothers. However, most of what I see here is 'restaurant food', stuff no one would make or eat at home. Lots of grease and indigestion.

I'm south Indian (by genetics, at least!) so I'd consider 'real' Indian food to be iddlies, dosas, sambar, rasam, paruppu, dry veggie curries, yogurt or buttermilk. Lots of plain basmati rice. Uthappams, upma, fresh fruit. No sweets unless it's a festival day. (Sweets were a brit invention dontchaknow, but would include laddu, milk kova, coconut laddu.) Gonkura pickle, lemon pickle, my grandmother's hot mango pickle. Aviyal. Sweet or mooru kolambu. Thayir sadam. Khichdi. Murukkus. Coconut, coriander, onion or gonkura pachadi. Ghee in moderation.

Veggies might include potals, eggplants, green beans, potatoes, capsicum, okra, tomatoes, bittergourd, sweet potato, onions, squash of different sorts, bananaflower, jackfruit... Mostly stir-fried with chilies, ginger, mustard seed, dried chilies, curry leaves and a few dried lentils and a pinch asafoetida. Note: curry leaves have nothing to do with curry powder.


Here, read this article.

[DanaC]

I think most of what I ate at Gran's was effectively celebration food. She used to do the full banquet type thing. But that's because we were all there to eat, so it was a family get-together. What she cooked was a kind of hybrid of Indian food and British Raj influences.