Why measure when you have your taste buds, right?!
As long as I can remember, my grandma and mom never measured anything in their cooking. There would be huge family gatherings and lots of food. Just watching grandmom(Amma) cook with a pinch of this, a teaspoon of that, tasting every now and then was pure joy. Despite all the chaos I would be called to taste and see if it was OK. Let’s just say, it wasn’t just O.K, it was all so perfect. Maybe because of their inconsistency in how they cooked and got it right always, inspired me to see what cooking was all about.
The phone calls to mom asking for recipes always sounded like a doctor’s prescription if it could talk;). So now I cook like how they did, at least I try. One thing I did learn though, was how a curry should look and smell. Except for the time when I added a little bit more of the coriander powder and it did not taste how I wanted it to, although it looked and smelled perfect. I am careful with spices now.
Cooking is an art, baking is science. So true.
Here’s a curry you can cook with just your eyes and nose and a few ingredients.
Salan is a Spicy curry popular from the region, Hyderabad(southern part of India). It’s generally served with some form of biryani as an accompaniment. It uses simple ingredients and the curry is simply delicious. You can add more of coconut, less of peanuts or less of something and more of anything you like.
I personally love this curry with some herbed brown/wild rice, coconut rice or rotis/flatbread. The curry is a nutty, mildly sweetish from the peanuts. The spice are quite important to the curry because the coconut, peanuts and the sesame can make it quite subtle. So the chili powder is key. Charring some green chillies along with the sweet peppers gives this curry the smoky flavor and works wonders for the curry.
- 20 Mini peppers(not the spicy kind)
- 4-5 spicy chillies
- ⅓ cup raw peanuts
- 2 tbsp white sesame seeds
- ⅓ cup fresh or frozen grated coconut
- 3 tbsp oil
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 3 whole dried red chillies
- 2 red onions thinly sliced
- 2 large tomatoes
- 2 tsp ginger garlic paste
- 2 tbsp red chili powder(use more or less according to your spice level)
- ½ tsp coriander powder
- ⅓ tsp turmeric powder
- 2 tbsp thick tamarind juice(if you don't have tamarind, add thick sour full fat yogurt)
- 4 cups of water
- Wash and pat dry the peppers and make a slit in the middle. Put it on a baking tray, add a tsp of oil, salt and pepper and Bake it at a 420 oven for 10-115 minutes or until it's charred. Take it out and keep aside.
- In a small pan, add the peanuts and fry on low heat until it's toasted and add the sesame seeds, fry for a minutes and turn off the heat. Add the coconut along with the peanuts and sesame seeds and grind to a very fine paste with ¼ cup of water. Keep aside.
- Take a large pan, add 3 tbsp oil and let it get hot on medium heat. Add the cumin seeds and red chillies. Add the sliced onion and fry on medium heat. Keep stirring and frying. When it is slightly wilting/caramalising add the ginger-garlic paste. Fry till it browns lightly. Add the tomatoes, chili powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder and salt. Keep stirring and frying until you see the oil separate. It will take about 5-7 minutes. Then add the ground paste, 4 cups of water. Check for salt and cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
- After it mixture gets bit thicker, add the tamarind juice at this point. Let it come to a boil again, then add the peppers and simmer for 5 minutes and turn off the heat.
- If you are adding yogurt instead of tamarind pulp, add the yogurt after you turn off the heat. Mix well.
- Let the curry sit for at least 2 hours before serving. Serve with rice or rotis.
The Rice is made with some herbs and some vegetable stock.
Those mini peppers look so adorable. Bet the curry taste heavenly!
Thanks so much Angie. Those peppers definitely add pizzaz to this recipe. so good.
Omg Asha! I love this post! And you know I find it so hard to write down the Indian recipes because indeed its literally like a splash of this and a dash of that. I have never measured anything ever!!! Now I have to sit down and do it for the blog and I can tell you it ain’t easy! I really love the colors and the flavors of this recipe. I can’t wait to try it! Gorgeous my friend. Pinned! <3
So true, mom always said, a touch of this, this and cook. I never understood then until I cook the same. Blogging is a blessing in a way, don’t you think?!
Thanks for the pin my friend. xx
You are most definitely an artist in the kitchen, my friend. This looks and sounds wonderful and I love all your tips. There really is so much more freedom when it comes to cooking vs. baking. I think, at first, I was drawn to the structure of baking – it’s almost easier to follow a precise recipe…I still enjoy that but as I learn to cook more and more, I realize it’s so nice to be able to do a lot of it on the fly and taste as you go, and adjust, etc. Maybe one day I’ll be able to whip up a curry and meal like this without a sweat. ; )
I could not have explained cooking and baking better. I adore and love baking, there is some sort of surety and satisfaction that comes with it. But, you are right too, where you can be a free soul in cooking. I know without a doubt you will be able to create curries with no sweat.
hugs my dear.
xx
Oh I LOVE reading about how your mother and grandmother cooked in the kitchen! My family sounds like it was very similar to yours. I used to love when they asked me to taste test, I always felt so special. Anyways, I am a HUGE fan of curry, but I don’t think I have ever had Salan! Such a shame and obviously something I need to change, ASAP! The spice in here is making me swoon! Cheers and thanks for sharing the YUM!! 😉
Thanks you so so much for stopping by my dear. Sorry again for your loss, I understand. I still remember my grandma every day. Family is so wonderful. Curries are so easy and with few ingredients can change a taste. Hope you get to make it love.
Have a wonderful day.
xx
Unless I’m making a recipe for my blog, I don’t like to measure either. Tasting is definitely the best way to tell if a recipe is right — so true! This curry dish looks so warm and comforting, Ash, and I’d love to sit down to it for dinner because it’s so cold out! Beautiful photos as usual, too. Pinned. 🙂
Thanks so much for the pin Marcie. Measuring just feels so tedious in itself. haha.
Stay warm my friend, it is chilly.
Beautiful colours Ash! And my mum was the same. She would have to sit there and measure everything for the recipes on the blog which really wasn’t her style. This looks so full of flavour!
Haha, poor you mom. I can almost see her expression when she’s measuring. They can never do that.
Thanks lovely.
It looks so delicious and comforting… The perfect dish for a cold day.
Thanks so much dear.
Colour Blast, looks awesomely delicious and by the looks of these pictures, its a recipe to treasure. Cudos Ash!!
Thanks my dear friend. Hope you get to try it out sometime.
so true, measuring is hard especially with Indian cooking but yeah when you blog you have no choice! I love salan and your looks mouthwatering good!
Thanks so much Manali.
xox
Only this morning I was looking at the colourful peppers at the market and thinking how lovely they look but what would one do with them. Here is the answer and what a fab one! You are really an amazing and passionate cook…it shows in all your recipes. I love this beautiful looking, versatile dish. I love the rice next to it too!
Thanks so much my lovely one. I cannot wait for you to try out some dishes for your family. I’ll cook everyday for you, if you make a cake for me every week;). Your cakes are a dream.
xoxo
Omg this looks so good!!! I love your photography and pinning this!!!
Thank you thank you, for pinning and your sweet words. xx
It’s a challenge writing blog recipes, because I rarely measure things (except when baking). And actually rarely season things the same way two times in a row! So I understand that kind of cooking. Anyway, this looks delightful! Really good dish — thanks.
So so true.
Thanks always for your nice words. It’s so nice to hear everyone’s feelings about cooking, but we all seem to agree that measuring is tough.
xoxo
One of the things I love about Indian cooking is that vegetarian dishes aren’t just a side, but can often be the main course. There’s so much flavor and thought put into it that if you wanted to be a vegetarian, you wouldn’t feel like you’re just eating “rabbit food”. This curry completely brings out all the colors you’ve shown and I love that it has a coconut base. Incidentally, hearing your story about your mother’s cooking made me think of a fabulous cookbook idea: Stories from your mother’s kitchen and bringing them to life on your own, but with the twist that Indian kids often have the dilemma that their parents didn’t use exact measurements. This makes it so difficult to learn on your own. So the cookbook would teach you how to take your mom’s “general” directions and still make a good recipe. It would teach you to cook with your tastebuds rather than your head. What do you think?
xx Yasmin
http://banglesandbungalows.com
Ok, I love love your idea. WE need to talk more about it. I do have a few in mind, just praying that a publisher reaches out.
Let’s chat later.
hugs my friend.
I read your first line and felt you were in my head! 🙂
Before I started my blog, that’s how I cooked too and so did my mom and granma!
Your curry might have been made by site and taste, but it is a feast for all the senses, Asha. Delightfully delicious!
Thank you so much Sashi. The blog surely makes us measure not once but few times before we push the publish button.
Happy almost weekend my dear.
This looks absolutely amazing! So hearty and warming….A little of this, a little of that and you’ve got yourself one tasty dish. My grandma who originally inspired my LOVE for food would always teach me “It has to look right,smell right and feel right” She was never one for giving measurements! xo
Your grandma was a wise lady. So sweet. Looks like we have s much in common. Smell and looks are so important.
hugs my dear.
Loved the pepper pictures and the salan!! I too remember my Grandma never used to measure anything except for Idlis, appam and some special items she used to eyeball the ingredients. I do follow strict measurements for Roti doughs and of course baking 🙂
Thanks so much Shibi. So true, for idli and those it was.
Do you cover it while it sits for the two hours? And it is supposed to sit off the heat for that time, right?
You take it off the heat, cover and let it sit. You really don’t have to leave it that long, it’s nice though.
I love how you were in tune with how/what your grandmother cooked. A lesson I never learned until my grandmother passed and left me her handwritten cookbook. Looking back, I wish I would have been more attentive or involved. I think a challenge for recipe developers is the need to write down exact measurements. Flavor can be quite personal. This is a gorgeous recipe, Asha. So much vibrance, nourishment and I know it tastes amazing! I can just imagine the aroma wafting from the kitchen! I just picked up some end of season peppers from the farm, but I only got 8. I need to get to the store to pick up more. I can’t wait to give this a go!! I’m curious…. the grated coconut, can I use fine, macerated coconut (not flake)? Thank you my dear!!
Thanks you so much for your thoughtful always Traci. I am so happy for your written cookbook, nothing more precious than that. Cherish it forever.
The coconut Traci, honestly haven’t tried it with macerated coconut. You can find grated frozen coconut in any Indian grocer.
I really hope you get to try it out.
Thanks lovely
xoxo
A must try! So excited to bump onto this fantabulous recipe!
Slurp! What a yummy, authentic curry Ash! One small question: can we use any other type of coconut? Frozen or fresh coconuts aren’t available here:/
And you’re so right about this: “Cooking is an art, baking is science. ” We also learned how to cook by watching our grandparents and parent do it. And they never measured, they tasted the food and adjusted the spices and ingredients accordingly:)
Thank you for the delicious recipe! Off we go to check the rest of your posts!
xoxo
PS You missed a small typo in the instructions in step2 :” Add the coconut to the coconut”:)
You are the best. Thanks to you, I just corrected the typo. Hugs.
In case you don’t get frozen or fresh, you can definitely try out dry coconut flakes and re hydrate it before grinding.
Food is such an amazing thing, learning from grandparents and parents is a blessing.
Thanks you again for all the love you show always.
Happy Holidays.
xoxo
Thank you for clarifying dear Ash! Hope you had a great Holiday season, our best wishes for a fantastic 2016 for you and your family!
Hugs,
Panos and Mirella
Asha, I can’t get over how beautiful this is and I know I will love the taste of this from reading the recipe. I’m going to make this soon, Thanks for the inspiration. Your blog is filled with so much that i want to try! x nina
Asha, I have made this recipe a few times already. I do skimp just a bit on the red chilies for the little one here. Still, it has quickly become our favorite! Such a gorgeous curry. Thank you 🙂