Vadouvan

Vadouvan from Altes Gewürzamt, roasted and savory

Vadouvan from Altes Gewürzamt has roasted onions and garlic at its core, along with mustard, urad beans, and brown lentils. This French-Indian preparation gives rice, potatoes, and wok dishes a warm spice that is reminiscent of soy sauce and lovage.

Vadouvan is Altes Gewürzamt’s coarse spice blend made of onions, garlic, mustard, legumes, and fennel. French settlers once developed it in the South Indian city of Puducherry from a Tamil paste, which is the source of its savory character, unlike any other blend from the house.

Warm, savory, and entirely unique in tone

In warm rice, the Vadouvan unfolds in a full-bodied way, with mild heat and the gentle sweetness of fennel and turmeric. The roasted onions and garlic provide an underlying depth that one would expect more from a long-simmered stock than a spice blend.

Even upon opening the jar, it is noticeable that this is no fine powder. What lies inside is coarse and crumbly, and two ingredients found in no other Indian blend from the house are responsible for this. Urad beans and brown lentils are roasted along with the other ingredients in the original process and give the preparation its body.

In South India, the urad bean is called urad dal; it is small and black, comes out white when peeled, and is used there in batters and flatbreads. Roasted, it tastes nutty and a bit like popcorn, and this exact note runs throughout the entire Vadouvan.

For rice, potatoes, and the wok

Its specialty is hearty fare, such as rice, potato dishes, and quick stir-fries, and a creamy fish sauce also carries its roasted onion note effortlessly.

Sprinkle it over the dish only toward the end, as the onions are already roasted and do not take well to a second round of heat. Fried vegetables with potatoes bring out this note most beautifully because the fat in the pan absorbs it and distributes it over everything.

Salt is the eighth item listed in the ingredients, so you only need to add a little more salt with caution. Peanut oil is listed as a regular ingredient and not just as a trace, which is unusual for spice blends and is part of the production method here. You can find more classic blends in the Curry selection from Ingo Holland.

From onion paste to the tin

In the Tamil original, a moist paste is first made from onions, garlic, and spices. It is formed into small balls and dried in the sun for weeks before being crumbled into the pan.

This method explains why a Vadouvan never appears as fine as a ground powder, and it also explains the effort involved. A moist onion mass simply cannot be sent through a mill, which is why the preparation at Altes Gewürzamt has remained a manual process.

Ingo Holland was reluctant to give specific usage instructions, and that was due to the nature of the product itself. Anyone who smells it will come up with their own ideas, whether for mussels, carrots, or a simple potato soup.

Puducherry was under French administration until 1954, and Vadouvan emerged from this long neighborhood of two cuisines. It belongs to the range from Altes Gewürzamt, finds its counterbalance in a fine sea salt from the same house, and meets a relative made of whole seeds in the Panch Phoron.