The Indian Paradox

The Indian Paradox 150 150 David Rosengarten

A glowing Saturday sunset, the charming Hudson Valley town of Rhinebeck, NY, in crisp early spring, and the harbingers of restaurant excellence all around us were good. Walking down Market Street and hoping one of these places would cry out for us, we suddenly found ourselves in a cloud of ambrosial spices owning the air in front of a bustling little eatery called Cinnamon. The shout went up from my party: “OMG…this Indian restaurant is not cooking with curry powder! This Indian restaurant is undoubtedly preparing their spices dish by dish, in ratios they customize…you can smell it!” For the great secret of top-level Indian food—as Madhur Jaffrey told Craig Claiborne forty years ago in a New York Times interview—is simply that “curry powder is the villain.”

The seduction was complete: we walked in and took a table for two as visions of cardamom plums danced in our heads. I, for one, was convinced that I’d found yet another Indian restaurant destined to build “The Big Indian Restaurant Surge” in America, which I’m predicting in the current Rosengarten Report. My point in the RR essay concerns the intense ingredient focus of all restaurants today, across all ethnic stripes, except Indian ones. We’ve learned so much from Italian restaurants, French restaurants, Californian restaurants, so much about presenting fresh, high-quality food. But Indian food, for the most part, still seems like tired food from the “central curry house.” I opine in the piece that something’s gotta give…and soon.

The RR essay flags an Indian restaurant in NYC that is definitely on the right course: Babu Ji, the new star of the East Village (175 Avenue B).

Babu JiA thali platter at Babu Ji

I plead for all Indian restaurant food in America to be as real tasting as Babu Ji’s food from their deep-fried ball of homemade yogurt with a luridly purple beetroot, ginger and chile sauce, to the amazing cauliflower fritters in a creamy, sour, bright yellow turmeric curry (in the forefront of the photo).

I expected more of the same vitality when I stepped into Cinnamon. That’s how the food around me looked and smelled. When I got to the menu, my anticipation rose still higher…because this is a menu seriously dedicated to the regional cuisine of India, with some of the perennially overlooked regions getting pride of place (Andhra, Hyderabad, Kerala, etc.).

I placed my order in a near-state of frenzy: onion kulcha with homemade pickle, tadka dal, sabji bhaji (a Calcutta vegetable specialty), chicken Chettinad (black pepper chicken from Chennai), and all the trimmings.

The feast was assembled on my table, so I dug in. And that’s when I realized that my Rosengarten Report piece lacked two key cautions in this period of India rising. Yes, it’s wonderful to avoid the curry powder…to avoid the buzzkill of all dishes tasting alike…to underline the boldness of real Indian food. But a great Indian chef also knows to avoid these two problems:

 

1) Over-spicing

Not talking ‘bout chile spice here. I’m talking ‘bout the fragrant spices of Indian cuisine: coriander, cumin, turmeric, fenugreek, cinnamon, clove, etc. I’ve cooked a lot of Indian food over the years, and know the pitfalls well. When you’re “showing off” with your wonderful fresh spices, it’s easy to overdo it. Too much spice detracts from the natural flavor of the lamb, or the seafood, or the okra, or whatever. It’s a blast that’s not so welcome…right down to the dusty feel in your mouth. I was talking to a Pakistani taxi driver in NY recently…who criticized the amount of spices they use in India. “Pakistani chefs,” he told me, “control the spicing better. You can taste the meat.” I want to make sure that as Indian food takes off in the U.S., it doesn’t drive away millions of potential diners who agree with that taxi driver.

Kalustyan'sAn assortment of spices at NYC’s Kalustyan’s

2) Undercooking

The other practice of showboating Indian chefs also hurts the finished product: undercooked spices. When a spice mixture in, say, a stew, is done right, the effect is melded, harmonious, multi-level. But when the spices haven’t been cooked long enough, the dish, to quote Hamlet, is “like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.” The problem here has gotten worse in recent years, as chefs have become aware of the Indian technique of adding spices at different moments in the cooking of a dish. It’s a fine practice, I say…just as long as you give the spices plenty of time to cook!

Despite the ambitious food at Cinnamon being both over-spiced and undercooked, I did like this restaurant. I will be back. But I hope they get better at finding the subtle paradox of Indian cuisine.

P.S. Indian food with subtle spicing also goes better with wine!

 

images: Bigstock, David Rosengarten, & Siobhan Wallace

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