Mallika Basu - Miss Masala

My first lentil shopping trip was totally overwhelming. Lentils come in green, brown, yellow and red, some with husks and others skinless. The variety is quite bewildering, as is how to cook each type. I used my tried-and-tested, scientific method to master cooking them: buy one small bagful and perfect it after several failed attempts. The trick is to buy 500g (1lb 2oz) of a variety at a time and never, ever replace the lentils in one dal recipe for another. These are the types of lentil typically used in Indian dishes:

MASOOR – SPLIT RED LENTILS.

Widely available and super quick to cook.

A real winner in my books.

TOOR – SPLIT YELLOW LENTILS.

Also known as Arhar or Tuvar. These are shaped like flat discs, sometimes sold with an oil coating that you can just wash off. Popularly used in south Indian dals.

CHANNA – A SMALLER RELATIVE OF THE CHICKPEA.

It’s split in half to create a yellow lentil. It has a sweet, nutty flavour and is often cooked with sweet vegetables or sugar.

MOONG – A GREEN PULSE THAT CAN BE SPLIT AND DE-HUSKED TO GIVE AN OVAL-SHAPED YELLOW LENTIL.

The green stuff is a great stodgy winter choice, while the yellow version gives a lighter perennial option.

THERE. I HAD IT. The finest homemade dal, Mattar Paneer and Keema Mattar. The three ideal basics for my first ever, complete Indian meal. All I still needed was to master the art of fluffy basmati rice.

This was easier than I thought. My father arrived in London for his annual summer holiday. I invited him over for some of my newly perfected, quick Indian home cooking. He brought along a brand new, Iranian Pars Khazar rice cooker. Handing me the large box, he declared that every girl’s new home needs a rice cooker. For the first time since I was two, I agreed with him instantly.

For good measure, he also handed over his fail-safe recipe for perfect basmati rice.

Steaming hot rice for every Indian meal

I never cook anything but white basmati rice when eating Indian food. I’ve read all about how it’s lower in fat than other long-grain rice. But honestly, it’s the light, fluffy texture and nutty fragrance that does it for me.

For a brief, seriously healthy spell I tried making brown basmati instead. This is packed full of fibre and even healthier that the white variety. But it takes a bit of getting used to with a curry. So I use it only to serve with other, non-Indian meals.

Feeds 4 Vegetarian

350g (12oz) basmati rice

1. Having weighed the rice in the kitchen scales, measure it out again in a mug – taking note of the number of mugfuls – and place in a medium pan. Fill the pan with cold water. With one hand, stir the rice for a minute to release the dust from the rice into the water.

2. Next drain the rice and, using the same mug, add one-and-a-half times as much hot water as rice into the same pan. By measuring the water in this way, you are adding only as much as the rice needs to absorb while cooking. No need for draining or second-guessing!

3. Bring the pan to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer, cover with a lid and cook for 10–15 minutes until the water is all absorbed and the rice is cooked through. Never stir the rice while cooking because that releases starch and makes it all gloopy. If you desperately want to prod the rice to check it, use a fork instead of a spoon. Once the rice is ready, keep the lid on the pan for 2 minutes to let the steam release any grains stuck to the bottom. Then scoop on to a plate and attack.

QUICK TRICKS FOR THE GODDESS IN YOU

Getting to grips with the recipes was one thing. Retrofitting them into my life was quite another.

In the early days, I made grand plans to further my cooking prowess. Never mind deadlines. I was going to powder my own garam masala. Marinate meat overnight. Cook raw chickpeas for hours as recommended by the latest cookery magazine. All the while, maintaining the karmic calm of a stoned Himalayan sadhu.

I soon realised that the truly inspirational cookery programme was presented by a celebrity with a crack team of experts. Invisible to the outside world, like Santa’s elves, they ran around her, shopping, chopping, cleaning and washing up, while others did her hair and mopped her brow.

I, on the other hand, had no one but my meagre self and a long list of urgent priorities. Work paid the bills. Friends were essential for fun. Men were high maintenance. Painting nails and updating my wardrobe were critical. Fashioning shortcrust dough into triangular-shaped samosas was not.

I decided that spending unnecessarily long toiling in the kitchen ranked close to ironing jeans and drinking Liebfraumilch. Daily slaving over a steaming pot simply wasn’t for me. The goddess in me needed shortcuts. Anything to make my life easier. This, believe it or not, was how Dada and my aunties operated too. I didn’t actually know anyone who made his or her own garam masala back home.

During my next food-shopping trip, I contemplated the complex equation of effort vs. reward. The answer seemed to be a pot of curry powder. This premixed ingredient is the mainstay of recipes in dog-eared women’s magazines at the dentist and the doctor’s. On the surface, it sounds like a godsend. A blend of essential whole spices such as cumin, coriander, chilli, cloves, black pepper, etc., ground into an all-purpose curry powder. Ready for whatever Indian dish you are planning to cook.

Easy, but so boring. I tried it with chicken. Then lamb. Next with vegetables. Everything tasted the same – of supermarket own-brand curry powder. This isn’t in the spirit of true Indian cooking. Half the fun is in the variation, adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that to end up with something truly unique. It was also far too reminiscent of the dried fruit and nut British homemade curries of the 70s. I cast the stuff aside and made once more for my haven of masala salvation – the Indian Spice Shop.

Here, I sought another vaguely familiar spice shortcut of the past. In my student years, Mother had taken to sending me presents via any willing London-bound relative. The parcels contained contact-lens solution (‘much cheaper in India’), boxes of sugary Indian mithai and cartons of recipe-specific spice blends, including ready-mixed meat masala, chicken masala and the optimistically named Kitchen King.

Alas, I hadn’t made the most of these gifts. My student brain cells had been reserved for the pursuit of an education in business, contemporary fashion and the exploration of illegal substances. But now I was a changed person. A clean and respectable, tax-paying, law-abiding goddess-in-the-making. I loaded the rickety basket with channa masala and kadai gosht masala and filled whatever space was left with cartons of Kitchen King.

In my apartment, the back-of-the-pack recipe for sautéed chickpeas instantly appealed. I stir-fried some onions and tomatoes; added 3 tablespoons of channa masala powder, and the tinned legumes became my new best friend. I sighed, ‘You complete me’ under my breath as I toasted wholemeal pitta bread. And then the doorbell rang.

It was a fellow would-be goddess in pink velour track pants – my neighbour from downstairs. Also third cousin, i.e. immediate family, and close friend. She wanted to borrow some serving dishes. ‘Are you cooking channa?’ she enquired as I threw the door open. ‘Yes. Doesn’t it smell great?’ I replied. I quickly ate a massive bowlful in front of the telly after she left and put away the leftovers to take for lunch at work. But as I walked through the corridor the next morning, nose twitching, I wondered what the neighbours thought of my kitchen wizardry.

It wasn’t just the corridor of our porter-guarded tower block that had been overtaken by the potent whiff of the spice blend. It had infiltrated my two tiny bedrooms, the inbuilt closets, my jewellery chest and every millimetre of upholstery. I frantically aired the flat, opening windows wide and lighting scented candles, but the smell of channa masala lingered on. Three days later when my neighbour came over to return the dishes and chat, I could smell the stuff emanating through the pores of the battered blue Ikea sofa.