Imagine the most perfectly crisp, crunchy and golden-brown roasted potato... you know, the kind that your conservative Chennai parents rarely fed you as a child because bovine fodder like cabbage was considered healthier.
Now, consider sodium bicarbonate, or cooking soda (also known as baking soda). It has the dubious reputation of allegedly being the weapon of choice for unscrupulous restaurateurs to get you to eat less at their all-you-can-eat buffets.
Unfortunately, this bit of nutritional wisdom is based on some bad science. Ordinary restaurants do use soda in their kitchens, but not to make you feel bloated and eat less, but to save cooking fuel. Great restaurants, on the other hand, also use baking soda as a culinary laser-guided precision missile.
Historically, its primary use has been as a leavening agent for baked goods, particularly desserts where the use of temperamental fungi (yeast) is a bit like using crayons to paint the Mona Lisa (it’s hard, although not impossible in the hands of a skilled genius).
In India, it is also used to add fluffy lightness to, among other things, dhoklas and appams . But to use baking soda purely for its ability to generate carbon dioxide gas in the presence of acidic ingredients is an insult to its more impressive, yet largely underappreciated, talents.
For starters, its alkalinity can be used to increase the pH of dishes that are too tart or sour.
In plain English, it means that a pinch of baking soda is a great way to adjust and reduce sourness in any dish. Sourness (also known as high frequency, low amplitude, eyes-closed facial twitching) comes from acidic ingredients like lime juice, tomatoes, tamarind, vinegar and yoghurt.
Tomatoes and tamarind are particularly notorious for being too sour at times, especially when making sambar or rasam . So, once the smell of raw tamarind goes away, give it a quick taste and if you feel that it’s too sour, add a tiny pinch of baking soda and, voila, your sambar will be magically fixed.
Another use is in hastening the cooking time of atrociously thick-skinned lentils like black urad (pebbles are easier to cook) and chickpeas.
Baking soda breaks down the complex molecules in the cell walls of these intransigent legumes and reduces their cooking time by more than 75%! In fact, it’s this trick that restaurants use to save on LPG. But here’s the flip side, baking soda will add a soapy, “mineral-ly” taste to lentils.
However, that is where good chefs will apply a bit of food science and use an acidic ingredient to neutralise the excess alkalinity.
Experienced cooks in north India use a neat little trick for chickpeas ( channa ) — adding a tea bag to the pressure cooker. Tea, being mildly acidic, will fix the soapy taste while also imparting a lovely dark brown colour to the chickpeas.
A few more tricks. When making noodles (instant or otherwise), a pinch of soda to the boiling water will add a springy, Kollywood stunt actor texture to the noodles. And finally, if you add a pinch when parboiling peeled potatoes, baking soda will break down the pectin in the cell walls of the potato, which will help you get the most astonishingly crispy, golden brown colour and texture when frying them.
So, go make some perfectly golden roasted potatoes, and serve your parents with a passive aggressive “this is how it’s done” look.
