Shaak and vaghar questionsશાક અને વઘારના સવાલ
A good shaak is not about a longer masala list. It is about the order of the vaghar and the size of the flame. What belongs in hot oil and for how long, when a lid helps and when it ruins things — answers below.
What order do things go into the vaghar, and why?
The order runs: hot oil, then rai, and once it splutters, jeeru and methi, then hing, then curry leaves and green chilli, then ginger and garlic, then onion, then the powdered masala like turmeric and chilli with the flame low, and the vegetable last. There is one reason behind all of it — how long each thing needs in hot oil and how fast it burns. Whole hard seeds need the most heat and time to give up their flavour, so they go first. Hing and curry leaves need only a few seconds. Powdered masala burns in about five seconds in hot oil and turns bitter, so it goes in last and on a low flame. The moment a wet vegetable hits the pan the oil temperature drops, and after that nothing more will give its flavour to the oil. The mistake is tipping everything in together.
Why must the rai splutter before anything else goes in?
Mustard seeds only release their flavour when they burst, so nothing else goes in until they have. Hot oil turns the water inside each seed to steam, the coat splits, and the aromatic compounds inside pass into the oil — and that oil then carries the flavour through the whole shaak. If the oil is not hot enough the seeds never pop, they just soften, and you are left with a raw, slightly bitter grittiness in the food. The test: drop in two or three seeds first, and if they crack and jump within three or four seconds the oil is ready. Add the rest, cover the pan halfway, and wait ten to fifteen seconds for the crackling to die down. Put anything wet in too early and the oil cools, and the remaining seeds will never pop. The mistake is heating oil until it smokes; the rai turns black and bitter. Medium-high is enough.
How much hing, and when does it go in?
A pinch for a shaak for four — about an eighth of a teaspoon of the compounded hing sold in boxes — and it goes in immediately after the rai has popped, before anything wet. Its aroma dissolves in fat and not in water, so it needs those two or three seconds in hot oil to open up; thrown into a wet pan it stays raw and sharp. Keep the flame low for those seconds, because hing burns very quickly and once burnt it tastes acrid. Lump hing is many times stronger than the box kind, which is cut with flour, so if you use the lump, use far less. It earns its place most with kathol and with beans and peas. Keep the tin tightly shut and away from your other spices, because the smell travels into everything sitting near it.
Should a shaak be covered or left open?
Cover it when you want the vegetable soft; leave it open when you want water to go. Dudhi, cabbage, tindora, potato and kathol cook in their own steam, so a lid does the work there and lets you get away with less oil. Bhinda, ringna, any shaak that has gone watery, and anything you want lightly browned stay uncovered. The reason is that a lid traps steam, steam keeps the surface of the vegetable wet, and a wet surface never goes above 100 C — so no browning and none of that fried taste ever develops. With greens, cover only briefly: trapped steam carries the vegetable's own acids back onto the leaves and dulls the colour. The mistake is covering bhinda, where the steam spreads the mucilage right through the pan and the whole thing turns slimy.
My shaak releases too much water — what do I do?
Take the lid off and turn the flame up. The water simply needs a way out. Most vegetables are more than ninety per cent water and salt pulls that water out, so salting early and then covering the pan is how a shaak ends up swimming. The fix is three or four minutes uncovered on a high flame to boil the liquid away; if the vegetable would overcook in that time, lift it out with a slotted spoon, reduce the liquid and put it back. To thicken instead of reducing, roast a teaspoon of besan in a little oil and stir it in, or add roasted peanut powder or grated coconut. Prevention: salt in the last two or three minutes, do not crowd the kadai, since steam cannot leave a full pan, and cut the pieces a little larger. The mistake is adding more masala powder to soak up the water — it tastes raw.
The shaak keeps sticking to the pan. What fixes it?
Take it off the heat at once, sprinkle two or three tablespoons of hot water over it, and lift it gently from the edges — do not scrape at the burnt base. If the bottom has really caught, shift the loose shaak to another pan, because the burnt taste will otherwise work its way through everything. The cause is usually a flame too high for the amount of oil, a thin-based pan, or powdered masala going into dry hot oil. Prevention: a heavy-based kadai, a medium flame, masala powders mixed with a splash of water into a paste so they never touch dry metal, and a lid so the vegetable's own steam keeps things moist. Potato and ringna stick the most because of the starch on the cut surfaces. The mistake is pouring more oil into a pan that is already catching; oil will not lift what has already stuck.
How do I reduce the bitterness in karela?
Scrape the ridged skin off, slit the karela and take out the seeds and the white pith, where most of the bitterness sits, then rub it with salt — about a teaspoon per 250 g — and leave it 20 to 30 minutes. The salt draws out a bitter juice, which you then squeeze out with your hands and throw away. If it has gone too salty, rinse once and squeeze again. What bitterness is left can be balanced with jaggery or a little sugar plus amchur or lemon, because sweetness and sourness both read against bitterness. Frying the slices in a little oil before the shaak also softens it. Some bitterness should stay — take it all out and you no longer have karela. The mistake is squeezing straight after salting without the waiting time: you lose the juice but the bitterness stays.
How do I stop bhinda going slimy?
Keep everything dry — that is the whole answer. Wash the bhinda whole, wipe each one dry with a cloth, then let them sit 10 to 15 minutes before you cut them; water on a cut face is what lets the mucilage spread. The knife and the board need to be dry too. Then cook uncovered on a medium-high flame and do not stir at all for the first three or four minutes, so the cut faces get a chance to sear. Acid helps: lemon juice, amchur or a little tomato breaks down the slipperiness, but add it after the bhinda has browned, not at the start. Salt goes in right at the end, since it draws out water. Two mistakes to avoid: covering the pan, and washing bhinda after cutting. Both put water on cut surfaces and the shaak turns slippery.
How do I keep green vegetables green?
High flame, open pan, as little time as possible, and no acid until the very end. The green is chlorophyll in the leaf, and both long heat and acid turn it a dull olive-brown. For palak, methi, fansi and green peas, cook on a high flame in an open pan for the shortest time that makes them tender, and add lemon, tomato, amchur or kokum only after the heat is off. A lid makes it worse, because steam carries the vegetable's own acids back down onto the leaves, so greens go uncovered. If you want fansi or peas ready in advance, boil them two or three minutes and drop them straight into cold water; the colour sets. A pinch of soda does hold the green but turns the vegetable to mush and leaves a soapy taste. The mistake is simmering palak for twenty minutes.
How much oil does a shaak actually need?
One to one and a half tablespoons is enough for a dry shaak for four — a tablespoon of oil is about 14 g. The oil has only two jobs: to pull the flavour out of the rai, hing and masala and spread it through the dish, since those compounds dissolve in fat and not in water, and to keep the vegetable off the base of the pan. Beyond that, oil does not cook the vegetable; steam and heat do. The ones that genuinely want more are ringna, bhinda, karela and anything you mean to brown — two to three tablespoons there. To use less, work with a heavy-based kadai and a splash of water under a lid. The mistake is adding oil to a shaak that has already stuck; it will not lift what has caught and the shaak just tastes greasy. Put the oil in at the start, where it does its work.