High on hing

Here we talk about the aroma of food and then comes this little ingredient that is no in way pleasant to smell, rather it stinks! Some would call it dreadful and repelling. Asafoetida or hing is that sometimes obnoxious spice that can make or mar a dish if the quantity is not controlled. And the most surprising fact is that the place of origin – Europe – has forgotten hing whereas India still uses it widely. Imagine a papad without hing…or remove hing from food that has no onion or garlic…it would not be as tasty. Jains specifically use a lot of hing for the reason that they do not use onions and garlic. 

One rule Mom had told me years back: do not use too much hing if you are using onion and garlic in your food. She is right as then the flavours are too strong and overpowering. Soon after my marriage I also learnt that it is possible to store a year’s stock of hing as Alyona would get our supply and seal in it small plastic packets and place it a large airtight jar…then I knew that we are going to use a lot of hing in our everyday cooking! 

Except for the smell (or stink as hing haters call it!), hing has everything going for it. Travel to a masala factory and guess what can be smelt even a kilometre away? Yes indeed it is hing! It is impossible to keep pure hing (the one from Kanpur is excellent) in an open container for more than two minutes. The smell is so strong that it can permeate from the kitchen into the other rooms with a vengeance! Bet one has to use a micro mg of it. As an in-house doctor, hing can write a whole chapter on remedies. The most powerful use is as an anti-flatulent and digestive…so no wonder that Indian cooking gives hing its due respect. Hing is also prescribed for respiratory conditions like asthma, bronchitis and whooping cough. Its vile smell has led to many unusual medical claims, mostly stemming from the belief that its foetid odour would act as a deterrent to germs. The shock of the sulfurous smell was once thought to calm hysteria and in the days of the American Wild West it was included in a mixture with other strong spices as a cure for alcoholism. In the days of the Mughal aristocracy, the court singers of Agra and Delhi would eat a spoonful of asafoetida with butter and practice as it was believed that asafoetida enhanced their voices (and probably the strong smell from their mouth made them sit far away from public on the banks of the river Yamuna to do their riyaaz). 

A cook will know that the repellent smell is caused by the sulphur compounds present in the resin which disappears while cooking. It’s quite interesting actually how it reached our masala dabba. Asafoetida originates from a plant (though it looks more like a mined mineral!). It is the tall Ferula Assafoetida (sometimes 12 feet high) that has fine edible leaves and stalks (Afghanis and Iranis use these as a vegetable). The roots of the asafoetida plant are thick and pulpy and also yield a similar resin as that by the stems. In fact, all parts of the plant stink! When the plants are about four or five years old, they develop very thick and fleshy, carrot shaped roots. The resin is collected from the roots just before the plants start flowering in spring or early summer. This procedure lasts for about three months from the first incision, by which time the plant has yielded up to nearly a kilo of resin and the root has dried up. The milky liquid soon coagulates when exposed to air and darkens in colour. Today, the most commonly available form is compounded asafoetida and that’s what we use, a fine powder containing 30% asafoetida resin, along with rice flour and gum arabic. (India is the world’s largest producer of compounded asafoetida.) 

Till my girls were babies hing was quite important in the house because a slight complaint of gas or distension of the stomach, Alyona would dissolve hing in hot water and steep a pad of cloth in it and use it for fomenting the abdomen of the troubled baby. When do I look for hing? When I need chaas after a heavy meal because I like to add a pinch of hing to it. I like hing in Ma Chole Di Daal…in fact I like it if hing is the dominating flavour…these rainy days the khichdi we make at home has some ghee, jeera and a pinch of hing. I like to add to fish, all vegetables and pulses and in small quantities in chutneys, pickles and sauces and chaat masala. Alyona uses a pinch of it in dhoklas too. 

Love it or hate it, hing is indispensable to some masala boxes and it sure is irrepressible while cooking because it makes its presence ‘smelt’! Dare I design a dessert with it? Now that is food for thought!