How to Handle and Cooked Indian and S.E. Asians’ Spices and Herbs?

Do you really need to stick the traditional method of cooking if there is a better choice for consistency, convenience, less attention required, better texture and fuel saving?

Very mild braised curry beef cooked to cater a Hong Kongers' dinner gathering, I got the best feedback from this dish, they wondered what kind of potato I used because they liked it so much.

By ChefSarawak@NZChefSi

The uniqueness of S.E. Asian cuisines is mostly very rich and rather oily due to there are infused with herbs, spice, and nuts. Why are they oily? 

Most of these herbs and spices needed to be simmered in an oil to release its properties to benefit our health like carotene, by simmering them in an oil that worked like a carrier oil, their essential oil would be released and sealed within, simmering with oil could soften the herbs’ fiber as well.

This is a generation that cuisine timeline has marched into fusion era as colorful as the economic airlines’ airbus which carried fully loaded international tourists touched down at different cities’ airport.

Why I wrote this article is I realized that many chefs not born and raised from India or S.E. Asia actually know how to cook curry powder properly, I really think that they thought once curry powder is “dissolved” with hot water then it is cooked!

It was a case when a chef stir-fried a plate of noodle by adding curry powder into it. I was asked to taste it. Before I picked up the curry noodle with my fork, I already saw the yellow color was not eventually distributed, uncooked curry powder prevailed, I only used my fork to pick the noodle sparingly, before the noodle touched my mouth, uncooked curry fragrance already reached my nose, I knew very well what it would be tasted and my mind was wondering should I be honest, to tell the truth or just tell lies by saying that it’s nice. Now, I really think I was rather stupid, I should just lie to the chefs that I have to go out the restaurant to buy something, as not every chef could take honest advice.

There were cases I saw great chefs added curry powder to their sauce or mayonnaise, if just a pinch of uncooked curry powder was added, it should be fine, but if an exceeding amount of curry powder is added to a sauce, the curry powder really needed to be simmer with a “carrier oil” until it is cooked properly.

If a curry powder is used to roast a chicken or lamb leg, then the curry powder needs to be mixed with oil before brushing to the skin, I would make sure the curry powder is not overcooked and got burnt, perhaps you must roast your chicken first half-done, then brush the curry oil to the chicken and finish the last part of roasting.

French chef Alain Passard would mix miso and coffee to brush on the roasted duck before the final cooking, So what are the good ingredients could be mixed with curry to apply on a roasted meat, I would suggest coconut cream and curry powder for roasted chicken, miso paste and curry for the duck, yogurt, curry powder and oil for beef, tamarind, citric or pineapple juice, curry powder and oil for lamb leg or seafood.

Curry powder has so many uses, it can be used to stir-fry different kind noodle,  create a curry noodle soup base, used for marinating skewers, roasting, basting, grilling and deep-frying, or it can use for en papillote a convenience version when there is no fresh curry paste avail. Curry powder can be used to make pastry filling as well as pies.

If a few fresh herbs and spices mix from India or S.E .Asia are used to flavor a meat or vegetables, they are usually grounded to paste in a mortar, then simmer slowly in an oil before main meat or vegetable is added on. And this will take a long cook especially when it cooks with the local S.E. Asian beef.

I would suggest using the best of western culinary method to apply into some traditional S.E. Asian dishes that took a long hour to cook to save the fuel cost, to reach consistency, less attention required, more convenience, improve texture and also its flavor.

Please watch how I cooked my beef rendang.