How To Make Healthy Indian Food

Photo: Thinkstock

Love Indian food but not sure how to whip it up at home? Take some cues from British-Indian food writer and TV chef Anjum Anand, who’ll be taking us on a spice trail throughout Oz in a brand new cooking show, Anjum's Australian Spice Stories which starts tonight (7.30pm on Food Network Australia from Monday 4 April). She’s here to show us that home-cooked Indian food is usually fresh and healthy – it’s not all about curries, and it’s usually not rich and creamy. Here, Anjum shares some Indian cooking tips to get you started (and your mouth-watering)…

Add tang with dried mango powder
“This is raw mangoes that have been dried and then powdered. It adds a lovely, fruity tang to anything you put it in, without liquid, so if you don’t want lemon juice or vinegar you can add some dried mango powder.”

Cook onions really well
“If you don’t cook your onions properly, and a lot of people don’t, then you don’t get the sweet caramelisation from them, and curry is about sweetness from the onions and sourness from the tomatoes and yoghurt. The sweet and sour, with the garlic, ginger and spices adding flavours around them. If you don’t cook your onions properly, your sauce will always be flat, without depth of flavour. If you cook them until they are shriveled, and brown at the edges, you should be fine.”

Use fish in Indian dishes
“People think Indian food overwhelms fish, but I completely disagree. India is two-thirds coastal. If you have an Indian crab curry, and then you have plain crab, there is just no comparison. I cooked a lot with mackerel when I was doing Spice Stories, I thought that worked really well because it held its shape and it’s quite meaty and the right flavour. I’ve cooked barramundi curries. Prawns are beautiful in Indian food. In my new book I recently did crispy fried mussels, which was amazing.”

Check the top of your curry
“The way you know your curry’s done is when the sauce releases oil back into the pan. All the ingredients absorb the oil, and once they’re cooked through, they release it. Which is sometimes when you see oil floating on the top. My curries never have that much oil, but you look in the pan and you’ll see it’s kind of separated, then you know it’s cooked.”

Use chickpea flour
“I love cooking with gram flour – it thickens curries, you can make dumplings out of it, you can make breads and desserts. At breakfast you can make little gram flour pancakes and they are delicious.”

Recipes

Recipe 1: Baked ricotta with chard

Image: Thinkstock

Serves 5–6

softened butter, for the tin
2 tbs olive oil
11⁄2 tsp cumin seeds
1 onion, finely chopped
5 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
150g chard, coarsely shredded
1⁄2 tsp garam masala
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten
500g ricotta
handful of pine nuts

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C and place a baking tray on the middle shelf. Butter well a 20cm round cake tin with a removable base.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large non-stick saute pan. Add the cumin seeds and, once browned, add the onion and cook until golden on the edges. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or so. Stir in the chard, garam masala and some salt and cook for 8-10 mins, or until the chard’s wilted. Remove from heat.

3. Beat the egg into the ricotta until well blended, then stir in the vegie mix. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding 1⁄2 tsp black pepper, or to taste. Pour the ricotta mixture into the tin, sprinkle over the pine nuts and place on the hot baking tray. Cook for 35 mins, or until golden and set.

Quick-fire: Roasted red pepper, tomato and chilli chutney

Blend together 8 large garlic cloves, 1 red chilli, deseeded, and 6 ripe vine tomatoes, quartered, until smooth (I use my hand-held blender). Heat 2 tbs vegetable oil in a saucepan and add the blended ingredients with some salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture’s reduced and begins to release oil into the pan, around 25 mins. Taste; it should taste harmonious. Stir in 1 roasted, skinned pepper from a jar, chopped, and cook for another few minutes to warm through. Serves 6.

Recipe 2: Griddled zucchini carpaccio, chickpea salsa, pistachio dressing

Image: supplied

Serves 4 (side dish; or 2 as a light lunch)

For the salad
4 large zucchinis
olive oil, to brush
400g can chickpeas, drained well and rinsed
1½ tbs lemon juice, or to taste
1 scant tbs roasted ground cumin
1 small tomato, finely chopped
1/3–½ small red onion, finely chopped
salt, to taste
30g coriander (leaves and roots), chopped
75–100g feta

For the dressing
¾–1 tbs red or white wine vinegar, or to taste
1 small garlic clove, peeled
15g pistachios (roasted is fine)
2½ tbs extra virgin olive oil
¼ tsp coarsely ground black pepper, or to taste
¼ tsp caster sugar

1. Heat a griddle pan until quite hot. Slice the zucchinis on the diagonal into thin slices, no more than ½ cm thick. Oil the slices, place on the griddle in a single layer and cook, undisturbed, for 3 mins, or until the base has well-charred lines. Turn and repeat on other side. Repeat with the remaining zucchinis. Transfer to a plate as you cook each batch.

2. As you stand over the griddle, stir together the chickpeas, lemon juice, roasted cumin, tomato and red onion and season to taste.

3. Blend all the dressing ingredients with 2 tbs water until smooth; I use a good stick blender, but a mortar and pestle will also work. Adjust the seasoning and vinegar to taste and keep aside.

4. To assemble, place the zucchinis on a platter, slightly overlapping at the edges. Drizzle with the dressing. Mix the coriander into the chickpeas, scatter them over with the feta and serve.