The Basics of Cooking in India

Before diving into any recipes, we need to cover the basics of cooking in India. Thankfully, I had some friends give me some of their tips about substitutions, and I also searched Pinterest up and down for a lot of idea. Here are the overall tips/substitutions I've gleaned thus far in my India cooking journey.

Terminology to know:

* Ground chicken = Chicken Keema

* Green bell peppers = Capsicum (obviously red or yellow are called colored capsicum)

* Cilantro = Coriander leaf

* White flour = Maida

* Whole wheat flour = Atta

* Tomato sauce = Tomato puree

* Powdered sugar = Icing sugar
* Sugar, what we consider regular, fine sugar = Castor sugar

* Baking soda = May be called Cooking Soda. Can be hard to find.

* Chili powder = Still called Chile powder, but it is 1000 times hotter than American Chili Powder, so if you use it, use WAY less than the recipe calls for. Think Cayenne pepper hotness. Learned this the hard way and had to rinse our chicken off before we could eat it!

Substitutions/Products to Use:

* In recipes that call for sour cream, use Dahi yogurt. It reminds me of the taste/texture of Greek Yogurt, and is a perfect substitute for sour cream. Friends tell me they use it as sour cream like on tacos, but neither Kyle nor I are big sour cream fans, so I've never tried it. One VERY IMPORTANT thing to note...although this works as a substitute for sour cream or Greek yogurt, dahi does NOT have the same nutritional value as Greek yogurt! It does have some of the same good nutrients as Greek yogurt, but also has about 3 times the fat content. So don't treat this as a health food.

* Anytime a can of cream of chicken soup is called for, make this simple substitute.

* Chicken broth - you can't buy it canned, but you can dissolve what are basically bouillon cubes in boiling water. They'll either come in a boxed package like this:

 Inside are a bunch of mini boxes that have 2 cubes each in them. Two cubes boils in about 4 cups of water, or 1 cube in about 2 cups.

 Or you'll more commonly find them packaged in little bags like this:

These are smaller, individual cubes that boil in just one cup of water. 

* Cheese. I personally can't live without it. Probably in import stores you can find for real cheese that's really expensive, but what I use everyday is a big block called "Processed Cheddar Cheese." It's like the second cousin of Velveeta, but has worked fine in any recipe I've needed cheese. You can also get "mozzarella" cheese that's called "Pizza Cheese." I recommend the Amul brand, or Brittania. I think it melts the best. Gouda cheese is also fairly easy to find (and not crazy expensive) if you'd rather use that.

* Also if you're like me, you love all things pumpkin. Again, you can't get canned pumpkin here, but you can make your own pumpkin puree! This is what the fresh pumpkin here looks like (don't think orange on the outside):

Just scoop the seeds out, place it as face down as possible in a pan with about 1 inch of water, and bake at 400-425 degrees for 1+ hours till you can prick it with a fork. Then puree in a blender or mash it really well with a fork. 15 oz (not quite 2 cups) equals one can of pumpkin.

* Brown sugar - you can find actual brown sugar in some stores around India, but if you're unable to find it, Demerara sugar is an excellent substitute. I've used it in cookies, muffins, etc and the outcome is the same as American brown sugar. In fact, I like it even better than American brown sugar in oatmeal...it's extra good :)

* Black beans - you can't get canned black beans here, unless you want to pay an arm and a leg for them in the import section. But you an get the dry beans and then cook them. They're called "Rajma Jammu" at my grocery store and they look like this:

I also recommend buying a pressure cooker. At first I thought I wouldn't really need one, but then I batted 0 for 3 trying to make black beans. Here's a tutorial on cooking black beans.
The pressure cooker is also a great way to turn fresh green beans into the consistency of canned green beans, which was useful for the green bean casserole at Thanksgiving :)

Some of the recipes I'll post actually use a slow cooker/crock pot - a friend found one import store in Pune that carries crock pots, so I had her pick me one up and carried it on the plane on our way home. But just recently, Amazon.in started carrying them, so check there!

My number one tip about cooking in India...just realize that it is going to take a lot more time than cooking in America, and embrace it as fun! Making everything from scratch and chopping fresh vegetables takes time, but it's worth it.

** As a bonus, if you're addicted to coffee (like me) and could never bring over enough bags of coffee in your luggage to last you, there's hope! www.bluetokaicoffee.com has incredible coffee that they roast when you order it and ship to you super fast, like in about 3 days from when you order it. And it is GOOD.