How to scale Indian cooking?
What are the best practices for scaling up Indian dishes such as chicken curry, butter chicken, palak paneer, etc. that follow these generic steps (albeit with different ingredients):
oil -> whole spices -> onions -> ginger garlic -> tomatoes -> chicken/veg
The process above yields extremely tasty & authentic dishes that serve 4-6 people and I have used various recipes with good success.
But when I double/triple/quadruple the quantity (i.e., the amount of chicken or spinach) things go awry. I increase the base curry ingredients (onions, ginger/garlic/tomatoes/spices) but not necessarily twofold, threefold, or fourfold, etc. The result is a dish that lacks flavor or balance.
The question is, should all ingredients proportionally increase?
Best Answer
Cooking is as a rule of thumb more forgiving when you tinker with the ratios than e.g. baking. That said, if you have a recipe that works and you want to increase the number of servings, the first step is to increase all ingredients by the same factor, keeping the ratios consistent. This should bring you at least into the vicinity of the desired results.
Unfortunately, this can still be somewhat off target, as recipes depend not only on ingredients, but on basic physics (and chemistry), e.g. evaporating a percentage of liquid, or heat transfer to and from a body of food, may it be a roast or a pot with a given volume. A shallow layer of something in a wide pan will cook differently than the same amount in a tall and narrow pot. Whenever you scale up or down, you need to take these factors into account. And yes, this can influence not only the cooking time, but also the flavor profile. Just think of frying a small amount vs a large amount in the same pan - there’s a reason some recipes recommend searing some ingredients in batches.
It’s almost impossible to give a generic answer, but if you follow the principles of
- scale proportionally
- determine cooking time by doneness or desired intermediate states, not time alone
- optionally, adjust liquids according to surface area
you shouldn’t be too far off and only need minor tweaks. Everything beyond that would need looking into the specific recipe.
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How do you scale up spices in a recipe?
Spices and Seasonings: This can be a little tricky, so make sure to start low and taste each time you adjust the seasonings. You'll likely need to increase the seasonings by an extra 50% in recipes that are doubled. For recipes that are halved, you might need a little less than half.What order do I cook curry in?
Your curry base should follow this order: first put oil, followed by whole spices (fried until fragrant), then onions that mixed well in the oil and cooked until they turn brown in colour, and finally ground spices, salt, ginger, garlic, and green chillies, which are mixed well and cooked about 30 seconds to one minute ...Do you fry tomatoes or onions first?
To make the tomato fry, first peel and slice the onions, keep aside. Chop the tomatoes in medium sized pieces (don't chop them into small pieces) and keep aside. Heat oil in a large pan and add mustard seeds.How can I improve my Indian cooking skills?
10 Tips for Becoming a Better Indian CookKitchen Scales | Salter | Waterproof | Bluetooth | Indian Cooking Recipes | Cook with Anisa
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