Kasundi is a mustard sauce which expresses ethnicity and food forklore. I wonder why this sauce has not travelled across the world along with other Indian jars and bottles. It has so much potential. In Bengal we use it as a dipping sauce for our cutlets and croquettes. We also add it to our rice when we have our stir fried seasoned fresh leaves. I have used Kasundi and mustard oil to create this plucky corn plum red pepper salad. Grilling, roasting and mixing the ingredients one by one and then combining them all together was exhilarating. I had fun.
My food word for this recipe would be unexpected.
When you go out shopping look for;
Corn on the cobb
Plums
Red onions
Red peppers
Lime
Mustard oil
Pepper
Red chili powder
Salt
Kasundi
Sugar
Olive oil
White wine vinegar
The recipe would be;
In a bowl using a spoon mix together four tbsp mustard oil, a tsp red chilli powder, half tsp pepper and salt to taste. Now gently massage this chilli oil to a whole red pepper. Preheat the oven for five minutes at two hundred degrees celsius and then grill the pepper till it slightly shrivels which should take ten minutes at hunder and fifty degrees celsius.
Next, take two corn cobs and boil then in a pressure cooker till one whistle goes off. Take them out and pat them absolutely dry. Now apply the same chilli oil with a cooking brush all over the corn. Grill in an open flame till each pearl chars. Be aware that the corn will crackle quite a bit because you have oiled the corn pearls all the way through.
While the corn is roasting, cut one red onion and cut about three deseeded plums.
Once your salad body ingredients are ready, get set to make the dressing. In a mixing bowl, take three tbsp Kasundi, half a lime juice, a tsp white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and a dash of olive oil. Gently whisk this to ensure the liquids have become a single entity.
Just before serving, roughly chop the pepper. Scrape cut the corn from the cobb spine. Toss all the salad ingredients in one bowl with the rather quirky dressing. It makes a great side to a grill or a wrap.
