How A Lazy Person Cooks Indian Food
by SulagnaMisra
For the person who wants to cook Indian food but doesn’t have the patience, time, or wherewithal to learn all the spices and wait for the pot to boil, from an expert in lazy cooking.
1. CHAI
Ingredients:
Dried ginger (whole)
Tea bag (black)
Tablespoon of milk
Cup of water
Tools:
Kettle
Cup
Grater
Tea strainer
Lemme blow your minds: chai means tea. I KNOW!! So all this time you’ve been saying “chai tea latte,” you’ve actually been saying a “tea tea latte.” This is the world we live in.
This also means making “chai” is pretty easy, because it means putting a tea bag in hot water (water either heated up in the kettle or in the microwave) and then adding a spoonful of sugar and a spoonful of milk.
But if you want to add a little bit more spice to it, I highly recommend ginger. Ginger is great because it also helps your sinuses or throat and it generally has a very pleasing taste. Best of all, it can keep for a while. (This is a lazy cookbook.)
Grate some ginger, set up your teacup with a teabag and top it with a strainer full of that grated ginger. Then pour boiling water over it. I highly recommend real ginger and not a powdery substitute, because I know we’re lazy, but we still want it to taste good.
You can also add crushed cardamom (I usually get a few pods and smash them with the sugarpot, it makes me feel like a Godzilla) and ground cinnamon, but the amount of each can be tricky. It might require a few trials in terms of what you personally enjoy. I recommend drinking your mistakes so you don’t forget them.
If you like cardamom but don’t want to buy pods, I recommend getting “Elaichi tea” from Indian food markets. Also, get some frozen Indian dinners there while you’re at it.
2. ALOO BHAJA
Ingredients:
Potatoes (1–2)
Mustard seeds
Turmeric
Salt
A dried red pepper
Oil
Tools:
Frying pan
Flipper
Chop up the potatoes to around the size of your pinkie or your thumb, whichever is tinier. Unless you have ridiculously tiny hands (you know who you are), then use whichever is bigger. Do not peel the potatoes!!! Goodness is only skin-deep when it comes to potatoes.
Put about two tablespoons of the oil on the pan and put it over medium heat. Add mustard seeds the dried red pepper and wait for the pop and crackle. Then gently — don’t throw anything into hot oil! — add the chopped up potatoes. Add a few pinches of turmeric and toss it around for a bit, until all the pieces are yellowed like old books and at least one or two of the smaller pieces are brown on all sides.
You can add a pinch or two of salt when you add the turmeric, but I always forget to do so until right before we start eating. Replace the potatoes with cauliflower, green beans, or broccoli if you want to change it up! Err on less oil and less salt to get it healthier.
3. MEAT AND SPINACH CURRY
Ingredients:
A few bunches of fresh spinach
Ground turkey meat (adjust for soy or tofu or the like if you’re vegetarian)
Meat Masala OR Taco Seasoning
1 fingerlong segment of Ginger
2–3 cloves of Garlic
1 Onion
Salt
Oil
Water
Tools:
Pot
Flipper
Frying pan
Grinder / knife / grater (to chop up garlic, onions, and ginger)
Fry the turkey meat in the same way you did the aloo bhaja above, but add more oil and mete out the ground turkey meat in chunks. There is probably a better, more organized way to add the turkey meat but I am not the person to ask. Instead of spices, add some kind of meat seasoning. You can find meat masala at an Indian grocery but honestly any meat seasoning will do. It just needs to taste good to you! Depending on the seasoning, you might have to add salt. Add some turmeric too! It’s supposed to prevent Alzheimer’s, so I always add it to anything I’m cooking. Eat a couple of the tinier pieces to check for taste, and split the much bigger pieces so they don’t stay pink inside. But they’ll be boiled later, so that should be fine.
Put that aside and clean up the frying pan. Then take a break! Maybe tonight you can just pour some of that ground meat over some nachos with cheese, or put it in a sandwich with some lettuce and tomato slices. You worked hard! Reward yourself!
So, tomorrow, if you’re up for it, chop up or grate or grind up some fresh ginger and garlic. Chop up the onion into half circles. Fry up some oil and sauté the garlic first — then add the ginger and the onions. While doing this, set a pot of water — about one cup — to boil.
Roughly chop up the spinach in sizes that are easy to munch on and add those in as well. I like to keep the spinach a bit fresh. Partly because I’m too impatient to wait for the spinach to cook all the way, but also because it gets all shrunken and dark if you sauté it too much, and that makes me sad.
Then add the spinach and the ground turkey to the boiling pot of water. Add in some spices you find around the house, like cumin, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, maybe some cilantro if you don’t have that “cilantro tastes like soap” gene, chili powder, cayenne pepper, etc. Not stuff like rosemary and sage and thyme unless you know what you’re doing there. I personally am not familiar with them! Then, like, stir it for a bit, but not too much — keep that spinach happy!
It’s done! You did it! Yay!! Then bring it to a potluck or serve it to your friends. Use a fancy serving dish because it’s not necessarily going to look pretty, but it’s going to taste good. And that’s all that matters. That, and the fact that spinach has a ton of iron for those who are slightly anemic.
Sulagna Misra is writer living on the Internet who likes to stare into space. You can follow her here or here.