Hing

Details

Nearly all hing sold in India is compounded, and that is not the scandal, it is the product. Raw asafoetida is an oleo-gum-resin so strong and so sticky that it is close to unusable in a domestic kitchen, so it is cut with a flour and a gum to make it measurable by the pinch. The scandal is that the pack almost never says how much resin is actually in it. Ours says it: asafoetida resin 30 percent, wheat flour 62 percent, edible gum acacia 8 percent, and the resin share is measured as alcohol-soluble extract on every lot rather than assumed from the recipe. India grows effectively no asafoetida, so the resin is imported and compounded here, and hing sold to you as Indian-grown is not what it says it is. What hides behind the word compounded is a resin share far lower than a buyer would guess, chalk and earth for weight, rosin or galbanum standing in for asafoetida resin, and synthetic flavouring supplying the smell that the missing resin no longer does.

• Asafoetida resin 30 percent by weight, printed on the pack and measured per lot
• No chalk, limestone or earth, acid-insoluble ash under 1.5 percent
• No rosin, no galbanum, no substitute resin
• No synthetic flavouring, no added colour, no tartrazine
• The carrier is wheat flour, so this contains gluten and is not suitable for a gluten-free kitchen
• Two checks you can run at home: stirred into water it goes milky white, and a drop of vinegar or dilute acid on a chalk-loaded hing will fizz, on this one it will not
• At 30 percent resin it is strong. A pinch here is about a quarter of what you would take from a supermarket tin.