What is Aloo Ghost?
Aloo Gosht is a traditional South Asian curry made with tender meat (usually mutton or beef) and potatoes simmered in a rich, spiced gravy. Flavored with garlic, ginger, onions, tomatoes, and aromatic spices, this hearty dish is perfect with naan or rice, offering deep, comforting flavors in every bite.
What does Aloo Ghost Taste Like?
Salty is one of the five main tastes. It has a satisfying and addictive quality with hints of sourness. Salty foods include cheeses, cured meats, chips, and olives. It is used in almost every dish and prepared food. Salt is added to enhance flavor and offer a distinctly salty taste.
Umami is one of five main tastes. It is savory with a depth of flavor. Umami is a taste in many foods, including meat, seafood, beans, and nuts. It is both naturally occurring and created through the specific use of ingredients to create a satisfying taste. Umami is characteristic of proteins and savory dishes.
Spicy is a flavor that brings heat and fire to food by creating a burning sensation in the mouth or sinuses. Spicy flavors come from hot peppers, horseradish, and wasabi. Spicy adds a kick and sometimes complexity to a dish and releases endorphins, creating a mildly addictive quality.
Ingredients
Beef refers to any part of meat from the cow. Beef is a popular meat across multiple cuisines and pairs well with a multitude of dishes, often serving as the main ingredient. There are eight main cuts of beef and many more within each section of the animal. Varieties of beef vary depending on the breed of cattle and its diet.
Boiled potatoes are eaten in a variety of ways; plain, mashed, spiced and seasoned to name a few. The potato is boiled whole, or commonly chopped into smaller pieces with our without the skin and cooked until the potato is tender and creamy in texture when chewed. Boiled potatoes taste very bland and require salt to bring out their flavor.
Botanically speaking the tomato is a fruit, but in the culinary world it is used almost strictly as a vegetable. Tomatoes are a nightshade plant that grow on tall, thick sturdy stalks. There are many varieties of tomato, but the most common type is round and red. It has a thin skin that covers its extremely juicy and soft flesh. The center contains seeds wrapped in a gelatinous film. The tomato is sour with a hint of sweetness. It can be sliced into rounds and wedges or diced into small chunks and is eaten raw or cooked.
The green chili pepper is a spicy vegetable by culinary standards, but botanically it's a fruit. Green chili peppers have thin, green bodies with a tapered bottom. They are 2-3 inches in length with a one inch diameter. Their skin is a medium shade of green and is shiny and very thin. The flesh of the pepper is thin too and contains hot seeds in its center. It is an extra hot chili with a wonderful flavor and used in many dishes to add heat.
The onion is a bulb vegetable, meaning its bulb and not its leaves are eaten. Onions come in many varieties, including white, yellow and red. Shallots are small and mild onions. Vidalias are sweet, while red onions are strong and sharp. The onion is usually round and has a thin dry skin around its juicy layers. This skin depends in the color of the onion, as does the flesh. The flesh, or body of the onion is made of multiple round layers, that get smaller towards the center. The flavor of onions are sharp and sweet when raw, with an astringent taste. When cooked, these flavors mellow and the sweetness emerges. Onion are a very common flavoring and ingredient for many savory dishes.
Vegetable oil is obtained by extracting oil from seeds. Types of vegetable oil include canola, sunflower, corn, and safflower. Light and with a neutral taste, vegetable oils are used to fry foods, or can be used to lightly coat meats and vegetables before roasting. Vegetable oils are also used as ingredients in salad dressings and sauces.
Ginger is a spice whose root is used in food around the world. The root is grown underground and has a hard body and thin beige skin. The root has many rounded and long shoots and is often fat. The flesh of the ginger is golden colored with a flavor that is earthy, spicy and bright. Ginger is made into tea, used in sauces, desserts and savory dishes.
Ginger garlic paste is made by blending fresh garlic and fresh ginger together to form a fine paste. It may be blended with water and salt for texture and to bring forward the flavors. The paste is yellow and tastes strongly of both garlic and ginger. It is spicy, sharp and commonly used in Indian cuisines as an additional flavor to many different dishes.
Garam masala is a well known and popular Indian spice mix, used in a multitude of dishes throughout Indian cuisine and is sometimes found in fusion recipes as well. There are different variations of garam masala, however; some of the common spices include coriander, cumin, cinnamon, ginger and black pepper. Nutmeg, cloves, mace and other spices may be added. The general flavor of garam masala is sweet and a bit spicy with a very warm quality. This powder is brown and typically used in smaller amounts.
Salt is a mineral composed mostly of sodium chloride. It is the main flavoring used in food and is naturally occurring in certain foods, such as cheese, beets, meat and celery, plus many others. Salt is white and has finer granules than sugar. Many commercial salts include iodide, while others exclude it. Most salts are white, while some are naturally pale pink with minerals. Salt brings out the flavor of something and can create a tangy mouthfeel, if used in excess.
Botanically the chili pepper is a fruit, in culinary terms it is a vegetable. There are a number of varieties of red chili peppers. Some common ones used for spice powders include the piri piri, cayenne, pasilla, New Mexico chile and chile de árbol, among others. Each pepper is red and has a thin skin, with a thin flesh and seeds inside the middle of the pepper. The peppers are dried and ground into a powder that can be used in cooking. The heat level of each kind of red chili will vary as will the flavor, but it is always hot and some may be smoky, will others are earthy or bright.
Ground cinnamon is a fine aromatic powder made from the bark of the cinnamon tree, also known as cassia; another variety. The bark is peeled from the tree, dried and ground into the warm brown powder that is known as cinnamon. The flavor is spicy, warm and sweet and savory at the same time. It is extremely popular in many cuisines and common in American desserts.
Black cardamom is the mature version of green cardamom. Green cardamom is harvested young. Black cardamom is a small, hard, and oblong brown pod with black seeds. The seeds are ground into a powder and used to flavor savory foods. Black cardamom has a pungent and smoky flavor.
Turmeric comes from a flowering plant. The root of the plant is used to make turmeric powder. This root is golden and has a texture similar to ginger, but less fibrous and juicier. The root is dried and ground into a fine golden colored powder that is used for flavor, color and even medicinal use in foods. The flavor is bitter, earthy and peppery. Turmeric is one of the most common spices in curries.
