I had a fun time reading Krish Ashok's Masala Lab recently. There is ton of wisdom in the book for novice and experienced cooks alike. The biriyani project plan towards the end of the book in a winner. If you followed it, chances are you will come away with a very decent production no matter what your prior experience with biriyani making.
In my own kitchen, I have only ever taken short-cuts and marveled at those who know how to make it right. Ashok's project plan emboldened me enough give the real recipe a shot. He made it seem plausible for one and all to get to the finish line of a respectable biriyani. I loved this bit of wisdom on the use of tamarind in cooking. I always blamed the quality of the tamarind when a dish ended up not the right level of sour or the smell of tamarind overwhelmed other spices. Ashok proposes a good way to achieve consistency with the use of tamarind which I will implement:
A doubt that a lot of new cooks tend to have is this rather common, yet highly dubious, instruction in most recipes on the Internet: Cook the tamarind juice till its raw smell goes away. What does ‘raw’ mean here? A more sensible way to ensure that the tamarind does not overwhelm your dish is to keep tasting it till it has the level of sourness that you think is acceptable. In general, tamarind water-based gravies will need 6–8 minutes of medium heat to bring the sourness down to an acceptable level. Start from there and then decide if you need less or more cook time. Contemporary chefs who work with food scientists have determined that the pH of a good, balanced dish tends to be in the range of 4.3 to 4.9. So, while I am not recommending that you invest in a pH meter to test your sambar, this is a reaffirmation of the basic idea that a perceptible level of sourness is critical for most dishes. As we learnt before, a pH value of less than 7 is acidic.
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