Across the highlands
Aloo Tama
Nepali curry of potatoes, fermented bamboo shoots and black-eyed peas
60 min·4 servings
asafoetida
Dried resin from the root of a giant fennel-like plant, usually sold as a yellowish powder. Pungent and sulphurous raw, it turns mellow and onion- and garlic-like when fried in hot fat.
Asafoetida, called hing in India and Nepal, is the dried resin from the root of a Ferula species. What is usually sold is a powder in which the resin is cut with flour and sometimes turmeric; pure resin in lumps is rarer and much stronger. Raw it smells penetratingly sulphurous, but a few seconds in hot oil or ghee transform it into a rounded, onion- and garlic-like aroma, which is why it almost always goes into the fat at the start rather than being sprinkled raw over a dish. It is used above all in lentil and vegetable dishes, and traditionally where onion and garlic are avoided. It can be found in Indian grocers, Asian shops and from spice mail-order suppliers; because the smell seeps through packaging, keep it in a tightly sealed jar.
Substitute:
There is no true substitute. A little garlic and some onion fried in the fat point in the same direction but bring more sweetness and their own character, and they miss the point where hing is meant to replace onion and garlic; when in doubt, leave it out, and the dish will be flatter but not wrong.
Used in · 2 recipes
Kathmandu Valley (Newar)
Samay Baji
Newar festive platter from the Kathmandu Valley: chiura, choila, bara and bhatmas
2 h·4 servings