Hello everyone!

I made a batch of ginger and garlic paste over a month ago, and I stored the leftovers in a pretty airtight glass jar in the fridge (i cleaned up an empty foie gras jar, its better than any airtight jar i've paid for!)

The paste smells and looks exactly as good as the first day. Is it ok if I continue using it, or should I be prudent and make a fresh batch? I used it yesterday with no ill effects and it tasted good too.

Cheers

Sangeetha

You have answered your own question Sangeeta :-). If it tastes and looks good and it was okay to use yesterday without any ill effects, it should be fine. You fry ginger and garlic in hot oil usually, which should make it safe anyway.

If you have too much in the future and you aren't going to use it for a while, freeze in an ice cube tray (don't use it for ice after this) and keep the cubes in a bag in the freezer. You can just pick a cube and add to whaever you are cooking.

Mamta

i dont wish to sound rude but why do indians eat so much garlic? some things have abot 5or6 cloves of it in each dish. is it possable to make a curry without adding garlic to it and what would it turn out like without garlic?

Well fried garlic and onions do make a tasty and healthy base for many dishes. Not all include 'alliums' in the recipe and those that do recommend garlic can be made without it - will just taste different, it is your preference.

Try an onion & garlic free potato curry!

http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/recipe_display.php?id=10260

Indians that follow the Jain and Braham religions are prohibited garlic & onions in their cooking, but are allowed a pinch of asafoetida for flavour in cooking - it is from a completely different plant species.

Hello Neil

You are not being rude, just asking a question.

Indians do not eat too much Garlic, it is myth. My vegetarian family in India and many friends here, will not eat vegetables/dals that have garlic in them. Even those that are non-vegetarians, do not like very garlicky food. They will add a small amount. Many Indians will not even eat onions, let alone garlic, they only add ginger to their curries, which they never call 'curries'! This is not only true of Jains and certaion other sects, but a lot of other Indians too. Garlic was considered Tamasik food in Indian medicine, so not recomended.

In my youth, even garlic eaters ate very little garlic, only one or two very tiny garlic cloves to a dish, if that. It is a recent trend, to add a lot of garlic in everything, more so here than in India, just like most British dishes now have onion/ginger/garlic and often coriander. You can blame the restaurants and chefs, who don't seem to leave garlic out of anything these days, even casseroles!

If it is properly cooked and you do not get the 'raw' flavour, it can make a dish taste quite nice, when used in moderation.

I like plenty of garlic in my dishes (including casseroles..lol)... I think it adds so much to the overall flavour..

Steve

somethin else that always bothers me with indian cooking is how books tell you to use 1 tablespon of oil but when you try that the onions always burn. i always end up using a lot more that what the books say.

I too reckon that one tbsp of oil is parsimoniously unrealistic and should at least be doubled, although it will depend on the pan, age of onions and type of oil - for instance you can get away with a bit less oil in a non-stick pan.

Most of Mamta's recipes would seem to indicate 2 to 3 tbsps of oil but any surplus can be skimmed off later and is better than cremating the onions and having to start all over again!

Winton

I think the amounts of oil and many other ingredients are down to conditioning !

Let me elaborate a little...

We know that fats and calories should be kept to a minimum, we know carbs seem to be frowned upon so when people do recipes they tend to steer towards what is considered healthy and not what they are actually using.

Watch any TV chef as they say take "a pinch of salt" and then proceed to take a small handfull that must be at least 2 tsps full...

They will say add a tablespoon of oil and then pour straight from the bottle what is more like 5...

A glass of wine is a good glug or two which empties half a bottle (I have some glasses like that but its not a standard pub measure)...

When it comes to writing recipes out people tend to put what they think people want to see... if someone started writing a recipe that says "add 200ml of oil to a pan".. people would either think how unhealthy and not bother following it, or make it using less (and probably end up adding a little more and a little more as the onions stick...)

I personally tend to put something like 25-50ml of oil when writing a recipe so it covers both ends of the spectrum and sounds better than 5tbsp etc...

Steve

Oil is a personal choice. I find that 2tbs., rarely 3 tbs. is more than enough for the amount I normally cook. The trick is not to keep the heat too strong when frying onions. If it begins to catch, add a good sprinkle, about 2-3 tbs., water to the frying onions and carry on. You can do this 2-3 times. In fact a young girl I know in India does this at all stages of making initial 'masala mix', in order to be able to fry everything well in less oil. What my mum does, and I do this too, is to use extra oil/ghee for special occasion dishes and when we had a party at home or people coming for dinner. Some of the ?healthy? aspect of the food is then sacrificed for getting a better taste. You can do this when you make curries occasionally, but not everyday, or weight will become a massive problem. You need less oil for vegetarian dishes generally, but most vegetarian ?curries? taste better with more oil.

If Lapis sees this post, she will be better able to explain why/how more oil/butter releases flavours and tastes better.

As AskCy says, TV chefs put so much butter and oil in their restaurant food here in UK too. I bet they do not cook like this for themselves at home! At restaurants, when I am ordering something simple like a grilled fish, I have to tell them not to put a dollop of butter on top of mine. Even then, quite often things are swimming in butter, which is tasty but too rich for me.

After saying all this, you have to decide for yourself Neil, whether you want restaurant style food or home cooking. Most of my recipes here are home style, but you can adjust the amount of anything there, including oil, to adjust to your needs.

Another question if Lapis is about! I was wondering..........

Why is it that perfectly good onions can start to smell quite unpleasant if not cooked or preserved soon after peeling/chopping?

Thanks, Winton

Winton at a guess it will be because cutting breaks the cell walls open allowing the compounds inside to oxidize creating some compound of sulphur (dioxide?) which is the horrible smell you get in stink bombs etc..

Steve

I love how the topics tend to meander in these discussions. Its interesting to see these trains of thought. Ginger and garlic lead to onions to oil to the chemical process that make onions smell!

Neil, if you think there is too much garlic in indian curries, you should see what happens in Spain. In curries, garlic tends to blend in and get disguised. Here they use minced or sliced garlic in all its natural glory, sauteed in olive oil with a bit of parsley and poured generously over fish or meat. Sometimes my skin smells of garlic after a seafood meal!

And i am supposed to be on of those vegetarian indians who never eats garlic. hehe. I think my grandmothers haven't ever come near the stuff.

cheers

sangeetha

I think it's just a case of using common sense really. Use the least amount of oil that you can and like Mamta has said, keep the heat right down, even if it takes a long time to cook the onion it's worth waiting for.

Some people have complained about me using ghee to make a 'curry' before now, but what I say to those people is that I only used 2 or 3 tablespoons to make a dish for 3 or 4 people, but a lot of people eat more than 1 tablespoon of butter on their toast in the mornings.

It's the same with mayonnaise, as tasty as it is, mayonnaise is just oil that has been blended with a little egg yolk, lemon juice, vinegar, mustard and seasoning. People don't think twice about putting a big dollop of mayonnaise on something. They probably eat more oil in one serving of mayonnaise than they do if they were to eat a portion of a home made Indian curry (not restaurant, which is just full of oil).