Anupy Singla is the author of The Indian Slow Cooker: 50 Healthy, Easy, Authentic Recipes
(Agate Surrey, 2010), a new cookbook dedicated to bringing traditional, healthful Indian food to the American table, using that most convenient of appliances – the slow cooker. Grandparents.com recently caught up with Singla, who shared some of her family stories, along with three of her favorite recipes from the book.
Grandparents.com: Why did you write The Indian Slow Cooker?
Anupy Singla: I have always wanted to write this book. My mother was one of the first Indians in this country to cook Indian food in a slow cooker. I told her through the years, as she bought my brother and I Crockpot after Crockpot and hand-wrote recipes, that this would be a great premise for a cookbook — home-style and healthy Indian without all the aura and fuss. She never believed that it would be such a hit. I'm glad we're proving her wrong!
GP: What are some common misconceptions about Indian food?
AS: The biggest misconceptions about Indian food are that it's unbearably spicy and very complicated to make. It doesn't have to be spicy at all. My father comes from a household in India that uses a lot of heat, and my mother does not. Spices give you wonderful flavor. Heat comes only from the chilies and red chili powder. Eliminate the latter if you don't want the heat. The only complicated thing about Indian foods is getting your spices together — which I've made easy. I'm rolling out a whole line of your basic spices in one kit on my blog, Indian as Apple Pie, and a way to dispense them with a traditional spice box, my Spice Tiffin. [The Tiffin can be found at Williams-Sonoma and on Singla's website.]
GP: Why are slow cookers ideal for Indian food?
AS: Indian food always tastes better the next day. It's that slow release of flavor from all the amazing spices. Slow cooking is a tradition called Dum Pukht in parts of India — a way of cooking more than two centuries old that involves cooking over a very low flame over long periods of time in a sealed container. Well, the slow cooker is the Westernized version of this style of cooking. It's a cinch to make beans, lentils, and even meats this way.
GP: Who taught you how to cook? How are you passing this knowledge on to your own daughters?
AS: My grandfather, who was from a tiny village in the heart of Punjab in India, gave me my first cooking lesson. I was 12 and he was visiting from India at the time. I still make my eggplant and potatoes exactly the way he showed me. The very reason I gave up my on-camera and very exciting television career several years ago was to connect my young girls to their roots through food — the food that I grew up on outside of Philadelphia, but that I was too busy to make as a harried working mother of two in Chicago. My girls love, love, love Indian food. They love vegetables. They love their greens and they don't understand why anyone wouldn't eat this way!
GP: What are some of your favorite dishes? How about your daughters’ favorite dishes?
AS: Hands down, the Rajmah, or Punjabi Curried Kidney Beans. We also love the chicken curry and Kheer, or rice pudding.
GP: What are some good dishes to introduce to kids who have never tried Indian food?
AS: For kids that have never had Indian, start with an open mind. I find that my friends' kids are more receptive to Indian, especially beans and legumes, than my adult friends! Don't use any chilies or chili powder. But put the flavor in there. I've converted many a kid to eating Indian food. They go crazy over the black lentils and the beans.
To learn more about Singla, Indian food, and The Indian Slow Cooker, visit Indian as Apple Pie.
Go to the recipes now:
Excerpted from The Indian Slow Cooker © 2010, by Anupy Singla. Reprinted with permission of Agate Surrey. All photographs © 2010 by Brave New Pictures, Inc.
Want to introduce your grandkids to Indian food? Browse the Grandparents.com Recipe Section for lots of wonderful ideas, like Tandoori Chicken.
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