I recently represented I Heart Curry at Tesla Motors' Earth Day events on April 19th at their Fremont, CA location and on April 20th at their Palo Alto, CA location. Both events were amazing!! Lots of people showed interest in cooking better food at home for themselves.

Here are a few photos from the events.

Tesla Motors' Palo Alto, CA office.

Fharzana at Tesla's Earth Day event on April 20th.

I teach hands-on Indian cooking classes in the San Francisco Bay Area. My boutique cooking start-up’s name is I Heart Curry. Here are the top 5 reasons to take my classes:

1. All the recipes you’ll learn in my class are tested. If you aren’t satisfied with what you cook and eat at the end of the class, I’ll be right there! You can speak your mind and I’ll have to see to your satisfaction.
2. I have a background in chemistry, I am a food nerd. Period. I know what ingredients are safe, which ones are shady, what to buy, and where. I will not only tell you why and how to use safe ingredients, but also tell you where to buy these to get the best bang out of buck.
3. I teach you how to cook from the very scratch, no pre-packaged ingredients used here (except for a condensed milk, evaporated milk, and anchovy paste). I’ll teach you how to be efficient in your kitchen while you cook the very best Indian food from scratch.
4. You’ll come in hoping to get an education in cooking, but pick up neat little bonuses like knife skills, what kitchen gadgets are nice and why, and a bit of Indian culinary history.
5. And lastly, because my previous guests loved learning with me, read some of their reviews on Yelp. Be sure to read the filtered reviews as well!

There you have it. Hope to see some of you in my class, if not, you’ll be seeing me in my premium cooking videos very soon at I Heart Curry; working on that right now. I update the list of classes every two to three weeks. Feel free to suggest Indian dishes that you’d love to learn to cook as a comment below. I’ll offer those in my classes and create videos as well.

I had created a post earlier identifying Indian ingredients by packing photos and some of you let me know how helpful it was, especially those that take my cooking classes from I Heart Curry in the San Francisco Bay Area. I decided to create part 2 of the same series - I'm going to identify quite a few Indian spices by their packaging photos below. I hope this will help you as well and help you get into the habit of buying whole spices or spice powders, rather than buying pre-packaged spice mixes.

Chili powder

Whole Indian cinnamon

Cinnamon powder

Charoli, this has sort of a nutty flavor

Black mustard seeds

Mustard powder

Caraway seeds

Fennel seeds

Fennel powder

Nutmeg or jaifal powder

White pepper powder

Ginger powder

Whole mace or javitri (its misspelled on the packaging :P)

Black poppy seeds

Black salt

Cumin seeds

Cumin powder

When buying green cardamoms, be sure that they are in fact green, not off white in color. If they aren't green, it means that the essential oil from those cardamoms have been extracted and now the vendor is selling the empty shells. Buyer be aware!

Coriander seeds

Coriander powder

Ghee or clarified butter, good stuff!

I teach Indian Hands-on cooking classes in the San Francisco Bay Area at my boutique cooking school I Heart Curry. Quite a few people have asked me about my kitchen habits and have adapted to some of them. That inspired me to write about what I do around my kitchen for all of you to read.

My favorite tool in the kitchen

That has to be my super awesome Miyabi Morimoto Edition 8-Inch Chef Knife. It is a very sharp knife and makes cutting vegetables a piece of cake. I have also cut thin slices of fish to make sushi with it and it does a wonderful job at it. My grandmother used to say that the taste of what you cook partially depends on how you cut your ingredients and how consistent the cuts are. It makes sense – if the pieces of your vegetables aren’t consistent, they’ll cook at different times. Some of them will be overcooked and some undercooked – not great. A good sharp knife makes your job in the kitchen infinitely easier. This knife is made from carbon steel and it is a bit brittle. I don't cut my meat, bone, or anything tough with it, because that can damage the knife. I use a cleaver knife for hard chopping and cutting.

Always wipe and clean

I have a bundle of paper towels in my kitchen at all times, but I heavily rely on hand towels. I have come to love micro fiber towels. They’re generally used for working on cars, but I find them to be super helpful in the kitchen. They are very absorbent, can be washed and reused, and help reduce paper towel use. I go through 2 to 3 micro fiber towels a day. I can’t imagine a day in my kitchen without these wonderful towels.

Stainless steel, carbon steel, cast iron cookware, and pressure cookers

These are the four types of cookware I use in my kitchen. I have a pretty awesome Kitchenaid stainless steel 10-piece cookware set that I’ve been using for the last four years and they are still as good as new! I gave up using non-stick cookware and needed to find a good replacement for making eggs and crepes. My Du Buyer flat carbon steel crepe pan does a terrific job as a non-stick pan replacement. I also own two carbon steel woks.

I have several Lodge cast iron pans (skillet, grill, and round flat pan) – their specific heat and heat retention are great for cooking steaks, fish, dosais, grilled chicken, grilled sandwiches, and many number of other delicious dishes on them. Lastly, I own a couple of Indian pressure cookers. These are the ones that whistle; they are excellent for cooking meat and lentils in no time. I can’t imagine going a day without any of my cookware, love them all!

Appliances

I own a KitchenAid stand mixer, blender, food processor, and coffee grinder. Each one of them are special – I can go on and on about them all, but perhaps in another post. I will say this much though, my coffee grinder grinds both coffee and dry spices – it is awesome!

I also own a Bella Cucina blender, this one is an answer to my prayers. I have always been looking for a tiny blender that has a low blade and can blend a small amount of spices, nuts, and poppy seeds. This blender is a miracle, it does it all! (Review coming soon)

I own a toaster oven, but no microwave. I just don’t like microwaves anymore… lets leave it at that. I also have an Indian wet grinder by Premier for grinding dosai, idli, and appam batter. I have a few other tiny gadgets, but nothing worth mentioning today.

Miscellaneous

I love using wooden spatulas. I have several; they’re old and worn off, but I can’t seem to get rid of them.  I use stainless steel and plastic bowls for food preparation, snapware glass airtight containers to store food away. I have a wooden block to prepare fruits and vegetables on and a plastic cutting board to prepare fish and meat on. I constantly wash my hands and rinse everything I cook – this keeps everything clean and prevents cross-contamination. I put away my fruits and vegetables in ziplock bags right after I return from the shops or farmers’ market. I wash, dry, and then put away green chilies, cilantro, and scallions.

I don’t use canned or prepared products. A few things that I can’t circumvent are: condensed milk, evaporated milk, frozen Indian shredded coconut, and osabi and tomato paste. I try my best to buy the safest brands that I can find. I buy fresh fruits and vegetables from my local farmers’ market. I buy antibiotic and hormone free meat at a local grocery store. Lastly, I get my Indian groceries and spices from a couple of Indian shops near by. My fish comes from a local Asian grocery store – they are fresh and never frozen.

I write these blog posts, but I also teach Indian cooking classes through I Heart Curry. A lot of my guests end up wanting to see the packaging of various ingredients that we use to cook. Sometimes I have them handy; most of the time I had already thrown them out. My guests tell me that just looking at the packaging and labels of Indian ingredients make them feel comfortable enough to visit the Indian grocery stores. This way they will know exactly what they are shopping for.

Inspired by the need of my guests, I decided to create a blog post where I identify a variety of Indian ingredients by their packaging photos. This is definitely not a complete list of ingredients, but it is a start. I’ll be adding more to this list in the future. I hope that this will be helpful for many of you.

Sona Masoori rice - my everyday rice.

Basmati rice - this particular one is aged, just the way I like it.

Masoor Daal, pink in color.

Kidney beans, this particular one is lighter in color.

Chickpeas, this particular type is from a region called Kabul and thus is called Kabuli Chickpeas.

Urad Daal or Black Gram Daal, these ones are shelled and split.

Cracked Wheat #2, which is coarse. Alternatively, #1 is fine.

Chana Daal or Black Chickpeas - these are shelled and split.

Yellow Whole Peas, these are much like the green peas we use to cook. Except, they are yellow and dried.

Toor or Arhar Daal (Pigeon Peas), these ones are shelled and split.

Moong Daal is really Mung beans, these are shelled and split.

Sooji (farina) is semolina, you can fine or coarse depending on your needs.

Rice Flour.

Besan is chickpea flour.

Black Salt or Kala Namak - used as condiment over pakoras, chaat, salads, etc.

Rava, used in making idlis and dosais.

Poha is cooked rice that has been flattened and dried. You can find both thick and thin versions at the grocery stores.

100% Whole Wheat Flour, I like the Pillsbury one. I use this as opposed to Atta Flour, because I think it yields a softer product.

Idli Rice is a short grain parboiled rice that is used to make idlis and dosais.

Papads or papadum or apalams - a thin crispy cracker made from lentils. A popular snack and appetizer all throughout South Asia.

Indian cinnamon, they are thinner than your ordinary ones. I love these, because I personally find them to be more flavorful and easier to work with.

Milk Powder, used to make various desserts.

Whole dried red chilies, they can be round or long. These particular ones are round.

I've been meaning to write up an Indian Grilled Chicken recipe for a little while now, but my schedule has been uber busy. An Indian recipe is a lot more involved and thus takes a bit longer for me to write up and revise. However, this Vietnamese Grilled/Fried Chicken recipe is sweet and simple, and delicious! My yes! So without further ado, here is the recipe:

Serving size - 4

Ingredients:

2 lbs chicken wings

5 cloves garlic, finely minced

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 teaspoon black pepper powder

1/2 teaspoon sugar

3 to 4 tablespoons safflower oil

Directions:

1. Rinse the wings and pat them dry with a paper towel.

2. Add garlic, fish sauce, black pepper powder, and sugar to the chicken wings and mix well. Set aside for 30 minutes.

3. Heat up the oil in a heavy bottom pan. Cook the chicken wings till they are golden brown on all sides. Alternatively, you can grill the wings on a grill or ribbed griddle. Take them off the pan and onto a plate lined with paper towels.

4. Serve hot. These wings are awesome all on their own or with a sauce on the side.

Sauce Recipe:

Combine 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, 2 to 3 finely chopped green chilies, and 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Last night I hosted an Indian cooking class on making Kathi Rolls in Three Ways from scratch. They are made with handmade multilayered flat bread (porotas), various main fillings (beef, chicken, paneer, spiced potatoes), and a number of accompanying fillings. You fill the porotos with one or two main fillings as well as the side fillings, roll it up, and eat! Making them is a bit of hard work, especially with multiple main fillings, but I find it to be all worth the effort. I knew exactly what the outcome would be like and how delicoius it'd taste, but my guests didn't know how it would all come together. They were cooking all these separate recipes and I'm sure were anxious to find out how it'd all turn out at the end. Finally we sat down to eat and they were very happy enjoying something terrific that they cooked! I had a great time teaching the class and will teach it again and again.

I offer classes through I Heart Curry in the San Francisco Bay Area and there are a few wonderful on-going classes right now. I'll be adding more classes soon. If you have any special request to learn something particular, now is the time to send me a word through 'Chat with Fharzana' on I Heart Curry - you can find this button on the bottom right corner of the screen . I also offer private, custom, and group classes. If you're interested in that, chat with me.

Here are some photos for you all from last night. I was hoping to take more photos, but I become entirely too busy cooking and EATING that I forget to take more photos!

Photo 1: Spread of ingredients before starting to cook.

Photo 2: Guest finely dicing onion.

Photo 3: Spread of cooked elements on the table before eating - porotas, beef, chicken, paneer, chickpeas, potato, and a plate full of other fillings.

Photo 4 and 5: My exposed beef Kathi Roll before rolling it.

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Click here to download:

photos-from-kathi-rolls-in-three-ways-indian-cooking-class-BcgbFqGJDoeBktvDmJhv.zip (769 KB)

I love potato, love love love them. I make snacks and main courses out of them. I hope to make desserts out of them in the near future. One of the things I often make with potatoes are various soups. I recently made some with Vietnamese chicken wings on the side. If you like this recipe, do check out I Heart Curry - I teach Indian cooking classes in the San Francisco Bay Area. I teach novice, intermediate, and advanced recipes. You can learn more about the classes and chat with me through the site.

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Click here to download:

potato-soup-GxxhkqwhuBIvyAJvenaC.zip (225 KB)

Here's on the potato soup recipe complete with photos.

Serving size – 4

Ingredients:

4 medium potatoes

2 teaspoons salt

1+2+1 teaspoons oil

1 whole garlic, roughly minced

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 medium onion, finely sliced

1 teaspoon cracked black pepper

1 tablespoon coriander powder

1 ¼ cup cooked lima beans or garbanzo beans or fresh leaks

2 tablespoons plain yogurt, whisked

1 teaspoon lemon zest

Lemon wedges

A handful cilantro, chopped

Mascarpone cheese

Directions:

1. Boil the potatoes. Peel and cut them into about 1-inch size pieces. Set aside.
2. Heat up 1 teaspoon of oil in a wok or enameled cast iron pot on medium heat. Sauté the minced garlic till its lightly golden. Take them out of the pan using a slotted spatula. Set aside.
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   Click here to download:

   potato-soup-DJcJnCmjvmGvqIipipts.zip (202 KB)
   
3. Add 2 teaspoons of oil in the same wok/pot. Add the boiled potato pieces. Toss them around to caramelize them a bit on medium heat. You need them to be a bit golden brown. This will take about 5 minutes. Take them out of the pan and set aside.
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   Click here to download:

   potato-soup-nfswbyFcAlxHIAqlcxIG.zip (158 KB)
   
4. Add the last teaspoon of oil in the same wok/pot. Add the cumin seeds. Once the seeds begin to change color, add the onion and sauté for 2 minutes on medium heat. Add the pepper, coriander powder, and a ¼ cup of water.  Mix everything together and cook for a minute.
   
5. Add the beans and mix everything well. Cook for 5 minutes.
   
6. Add the potatoes, half the garlic, and 3 cups of water. Stir well. Cook for 10 minutes.
   
7. Add the yogurt and mix it in well. Turn the stove off. Transfer this potato-bean mix into a food processor and process. The consistency is upto you – I like my potato soup to be a bite, so I process it to a coarse consistency. Add a bit of water to process it if necessary.
8. Transfer the processed mix back into the wok/pot. Add a 1 ½ to 2 cups of hot water to it. This also depends on how thick or thin you like your potato soup to be. Mix everything well, cook till the soup boils.
9. Add lemon zest. Check and balance your salt and pepper.
10. Serve hot or warm in a nice bowl. Top it off with a little bit of the leftover sautéed garlic and chopped cilantro. Serve with a wedge of lemon on the side – this soup tastes outstanding with lemon juice.

VERY OPTIONAL: Place a spoon of mascarpone cheese right on the top, it’ll melt away in your soup and make it extra delicious.

Enjoy!

Oil is an essential ingredient in every single kitchen. We all use different type of oils – some of us decide what type of oil to use depending on what is available at our local shops. Some of us make our oil selections depending on what we are cooking or which oil is more affordable. The thought process is a little different nowadays. People are becoming more aware and thus are buying oils that they believe are good for their health. There are types of oils that are better for certain uses than the others. Today I want to talk about oil safety, the science behind cooking with oil, and offer you some ideas about what type of oil would be more appropriate for different cuisines.

What happens to oil in the cooking process?

Oil gets heated up to different temperatures during a cooking process. It is heated almost up to its smoking point for deep-frying and to lower temperatures for other types of cooking process. Oil starts to smoke when it is over-heated and starts to form aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, dienes, and acids. As a result, if you continue to cook something in the same oil, the food product will taste poorly. More importantly, the smoke of rapeseed, soybean, peanut oil and lard can cause serious mutagenicity and genetic toxicity.  A few culprits to consider are an aldehyde called acrolein, as well as alkenals and alkadienals (unsaturated aldehydes) – they are formed during the burning/smoking process of the above-mentioned oil. There are quite a few fast food restaurants that use peanut oil to deep-fry their fries. Lard is widely used in pie crusts, and soybean is popular is households. Acrolien in very toxic to our cells and genes – they degrade our cells and genes; they also generate free radicals. Free radicals are responsible for cell aging. Recent studies have shown an increased amount of acrolein in Alzheimer’s disease patients’ brains. I strongly encourage you to read the two references listed below, they’re such eye openers!

In a nutshell, oils with low smoking point (rapeseed, soybean, peanut oil, and lard) - > acrolein - > free radical - > Alzheimer’s disease + premature aging.

What can you do?

Avoid the oils I mentioned above. Don’t buy them, don’t use them. I have started to avoid canola oil as well, because it is made from genetically modified rapeseed oil. I’ve talked about the negative side effect of rapeseed oil above. I know its very hard not to deep fry this and that, but try at least. If you must deep fry your favorites, use grapeseed oil – its my personal favorite for everyday use. The following oils are okay to use on a daily basis:

Grapeseed oil

Olive oil

Safflower oil

Now you have an idea of what sort of oil you should and should not use. Then there is the question of using refined or unrefined oil. Refined oils have a higher smoking point and unrefined oils have a lower smoking point. Refined oils have their impurities cleaned out and unrefined oils don’t. Unrefined oil might have tiny tiny bits and part of whatever it is made from (i.e. olive oil might have bits of olive); these tiny bits might burn as you heat up the oil to a high temperature. You’ll have to decide whether to use refined or unrefined oil for yourself.

What type of oil to use for a certain type of cuisine

Each oil has its own smoking point, here’s a quick link to Wikipedia for you to look it up.

If you cook the type of cuisine that requires you to heat up the oil to a high temperature and then proceed with the following step, I’d recommend that you cook with grapeseed or safflower oil. For example, Indian cooking requires that you heat up the oil, splatter whole spices in the hot oil, and then proceed. So grapeseed or safflower oil’s high smoking point perform very well for that. French cooking sometime requires that you sear a piece of meat or fish. You need your oil temperature to be really high for that. Grapeseed or safflower oil will do beautifully for that as well.

If you don't need your oil to be really hot all by itself in the pan in the very first step of your cooking process, then you may cook with olive oil; it has a lower smoking point. For example, for some Italian recipes, you can add the oil, onion, and vegetables right in the pan at the same time. This prevents the oil from reaching its smoking point, because the heat has something to disperse into, the vegetables or whatever have you.

Some folks like mixing oil and butter together to achieve the taste of both. Butter has a lower smoking point than the three above-mentioned oils. If you mix an oil and butter, the smoking points of the two will equilibrate. That basically means that the butter will bring the overall smoking point down a little bit. So, if you’re using this oil/butter hybrid, don’t allow it to sit on the stove all by itself for too long. Add whatever you’re cooking before it starts to smoke, so that the heat will be dispersed.

I hope this long long article has been helpful and informative. Happy cookin’!

References:

Emissions of volatile aldehydes from heated cooking oils

Acrolein, the toxic endogenous aldehyde, induces neurofilament-L aggregation

I cook Egg Fried Rice & Chicken Curry with Potato on weeknights when I don't have much spare time to cook. I still cook a dinner fresh from scratch, but it take less than 30 minutes. Often I cook extra and eat the leftover the next day.The flavorful fried rice is just perfect with the slightly spicy and lightly creamy chicken gravy. I love this combination and promise that so will you. If you like the Egg Fried Rice and would like to learn great dishes like this, do check out I Heart Curry - I teach Indian cooking classes in the San Francisco Bay Area. I teach novice, intermediate, and advanced recipes. You can learn more about the classes and chat with me through the site.

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egg-fried-rice-chicken-curry-with-potato-in-under-30-minutes-AasxBHqkyyBmkHlewpsq.zip (228 KB)

 Here's the Egg Fried Rice recipe:

Egg Fried Rice 

Serving size – 4

Ingredients:

2 cups long grain rice (Basmati or Jasmine)

2 tablespoons oil

2 teaspoons dried chana daal (split peas)

2 teaspoons dried moong daal

3 dried red chilies, broken into pieces

A few curry leaves (optional)

½ medium onion, finely diced

1 teaspoon salt

4 eggs, beaten

A handful cilantro, chopped

Directions:

1.   Cook and fluff up the rice using a fork and leave it uncovered for a little while for the rice to dry. Alternatively, use stale rice, it makes your end product nice and fluffy.

2.   Heat up oil in a large wok on medium heat. Add chana daal, moong daal, and chilies. Sauté till the daals begin to change color.

3.   Add curry leaves and onion. Saute for two minutes till the onion is softened.

4.   Add rice and salt. Toss well to mix everything. Don’t use a spatula to do this step, you’ll end up breaking the rice grains and making your egg fried rice mushy! Use a plastic or wooden fork-like spatula.

5.   Pour the beaten egg over the rice and mix it into the rice. As you continue to fluff your rice using the fork-like spatula, your egg will cook in no time - this takes about a minute or so.

6.   Garnish with cilantro. Serve hot with a Chicken Curry with Potato or your favorite curry with gravy.

I have an excellent recipe for a Chicken Curry with Potato dish. I won't be revealing it now, because it'll be in my up-coming cookbook :) If you're interested in the cookbook, signup below to receive information on the book's publication progress. I hope to release it within a month or two.