secret ingredient thread

[Anonymous No.16451016]

pic related, it's mustard oil. this shit is amazing, not only in indian food but really good to add a bit when sauteeing pork or chicken, or add a bit in sauces that already have mustard like steak diane or something. one caveat is that different brands and even different batches of the same brand have wildly varying potencies. some of the stuff you can deep fry in and some will be like a chemical weapon if you try to use solely it for frying. if you get the right amount of pungency it takes deep fried indian stuff like pakoras, vada pav, or samosas to another level

[Anonymous No.16451017]

MSG

[Anonymous No.16451053]

>>16451016
additionally: fish sauce/anchovy paste, korean chili flakes (gochugaru), pomegranate molasses, asafoetida, tomato paste, unrefined palm sugar

[Anonymous No.16451131]

>>16451016
How does this work
Doesn't 99% of mustard flavour basically evaporate with any extended cooking?

[Anonymous No.16451145]

>>16451131
No, it's so enmeshed in the oil that anything the oil gets into will have the mustard flavor. Since the batter is so deeply saturated with the oil, it doesn't get the chance to all burn off. It's really a great ingredient for deep fry and has a high smoke point too. Good for fried chicken as well I forgot to mention

[Anonymous No.16451191]

>>16451053
>asafoetida
my man. asafoetida and fenugreek are some of the most important ingredients in moving your indian food from "close enough" to authentic.

[Anonymous No.16451206]

>>16451191
I use fenugreek all the time, inspired by dishes like Princesa toast (bulgarian classic pic related). Then asafetida I use in western recipes with fish sauce, lovage and caraway for meat rubs, inspired by Ancient Parthian chicken.

[Anonymous No.16451208]

>>16451016
Nyquil Chicken is the bomb

[Anonymous No.16451209]

>>16451053
I made homemade ceasar dressing with anchovy paste. It's great.

[Anonymous No.16451235]

>>16451016
I almost picked some of this stuff up at the indian grocery round here like 2 or 3 weeks ago. I'd never heard of it, so I passed, but honestly reading the OP made me wish I'd gotten it. You mentioned potencies varied on brand....any specifics on that? Strongest or weakest variants?

[Anonymous No.16451245]

>>16451053
Great list. I would add msg, shaoxing cooking wine, fresh garlic used right (rubbing on bread, smeared into paste with oil used at end of cooking), Kashmiri chili, panko bread crumbs for all applications, and using the Dhungar smoking method (piece of charcoal in oil, tightly cover pan for 10 mins pic related).

[Anonymous No.16451258]

>>16451053
What is unrefined palm sugar? Why would you use that.

[Anonymous No.16451297]

>>16451191
curry leaves as well

[Anonymous No.16451307]

>>16451206
loos delicious man, keep it up
>>16451297
weirdly enough i've not found much of a use for my curry leaves. anything besides pongal?

[Anonymous No.16451322]

>>16451235
honestly I have no clue, I usually just pick up whatever brand the store has. this might be wrong but I swear the bigger bottles are more potent, maybe something to do with shitty sealing along with the ratio between volume and opening size. I would pick up a small bottle to start, but you need a big bottle if you want to deep fry. But if it's too strong, you can't deep fry in it anyway because the chemical assault is like 10x worse than cutting onions or dry-roasting guajillos or something
>>16451258
it's an unrefined sugar made from palm plants. it has a complex flavor profile and isn't wet like brown sugar. it tastes a lot better than brown sugar too, way deeper flavor profile. it is one of those flavors that you can never seem to get in a homemade thai curry the same way the restaurant does (along with cracking your coconut cream and making sure to fry your (homemade) curry paste.)
I use it in a lot of pastries instead of brown sugar, and it's very useful in curries. It's not the kind of thing you would want to add to a tomato sauce or anything with an extremely simple flavor profile unless you want the dish to have a caramel type flavor, but in curries it just tastes like a deep, sweet roastiness (REEEEEE ROASTIE!!!)

[Anonymous No.16451336]

>>16451307
fry them in a bit of oil and add to rice dishes like pulao (mix in as well as top.) Fried curry leaves honestly work as a good garnish for almost any curry. I toss them into a curry sometimes if I'm feeling it, especially if it's like a Goan fish curry or something. They also elevate my vada pav to another level.

[Anonymous No.16451409]

>>16451322
Interesting. Thanks I'll try it sometime when making butter chicken or something. Would you use palm sugar in pad Thai? Or desserts that call for brown sugar?

[Anonymous No.16451440]

>>16451336
makes sense, thank you. i just haven't found a lot of recipes calling for them, but if i treat it as a "well why not" thing i could see it being useful.

[Anonymous No.16451717]

>>16451409
Either works though be careful with desserts because brown sugar's moisture can be important for the dish if it's baked or such. It's basically about as dry as granulated sugar but has a flavor like a deeper, more complex brown sugar.
As for pad thai, 100% use it. I'd bet that restaurant pad thai uses a ton of it; it's not quite as sweet as white sugar so you can get a lot of flavor for a given sweetness level.

[Anonymous No.16451729]

>>16451440
Great for a simple rice dish--saute some mustard seeds, curry leaves, garlic, turmeric, and a bit of kashmiri pepper in a good amount of ghee and a bit of mustard oil, and mix with ample salt in rice with additional fried curry leaves for garnish. And this is nontraditional, but I like to use short-grain stickier rice for this as it absorbs the mix better. I make this to put curries over and it's far better than the stuff you get at an indian restaurant that just has ghee and like a cardamom and star anise pod. Add saffron too if you feel fancy

[Anonymous No.16451743]

>>16451191
asafoetida is also insanely good in a fried chicken mix. for some reason it already has that 'fried chicken spice blend' flavor. Asafoetida, white pepper, and some kashmiri red pepper powder make for a super flavorful flour dredge, just don't add too much asafoetida or it will smell like sweaty indian people. Not a joke btw, I think asafoetida comes out in the sweat even more than garlic and to me it's the main reason why people think indian people smell sometimes

[Anonymous No.16451756]

>>16451016
Mine is expensive balsamic vinegar (especially to deglaze), it makes such a big difference
Also going through a gochujang phase

[Anonymous No.16451765]

>>16451756
both great, you should check out gochugaru, basically superior to italian restaurant style red pepper flakes in every way. less spicy because no seeds so you can add more of the amazing fragrant aroma. if you need spice just add some of the normal flakes. mixing these two will let you get a much better balance of spiciness and pepper flavor. and unlike the other flakes, you can dust it very liberally over something like hummus and it adds a lot without being spicy in an unbalanced way. I throw a bit in so many of my dishes now that I feel like fucking Chef John

[Anonymous No.16451770]

[Anonymous No.16451795]

>>16451770
bit limited in scope but I can get into it. I guess you make a lot of beef stew or something kek. also I am OP and I am adding a tripcode because I am a faggot

[COOQ !q4mb3OgqgQ No.16451800]

>>16451770
bit limited in scope but I can get into it. I guess you make a lot of beef stew or something kek.

[Anonymous No.16451824]

>>16451765
Damn don’t get me too hyped, it’s been on the list for a while to try since it’s in so many korean/asian recipes.
What other asian shit do you use? I have some chili oil laying around it’s not amazing but maybe it’s just the brand or improper usage?

[Anonymous No.16451838]

[Anonymous No.16451891]

>>16451016
Isn't this shit illegal?

[COOQ !q4mb3OgqgQ No.16451897]

>>16451824
It's just a great addition honestly, like if I make aglio e olio I would use mostly or all gochugaru. Palm sugar is great like I mentioned, fish sauce, perilla, furikake (especially nanami togarashi.). Chili oil you should make yourself, it's far superior to lao gan ma and doesn't have any msg. Extremely easy recipe, I make a quart at a time. Use all the 'optional' ingredients you can find in there. I use half gochugaru and half regular pepper flakes; the gochugaru gets a more satisfying crisp. I'm trying to think of other asian shit I use a lot, maybe five spice? But that's pretty situational. Lemongrass is nice. Pickled mustard greens also situational but can be great, same for fermented broad bean paste. And of course hoisin sauce is pretty awesome
>https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/chinese-chili-oil/

[COOQ !q4mb3OgqgQ No.16451910]

>>16451891
It's not legal to sell as a food item in America, but they sell it at every indian place as a 'massage oil'. The FDA honestly doesn't give a shit though because every store blatantly puts it with other cooking oils. It's an outdated law from the 90s