The essential (and at times, elusive) power of mustard oil

By Priya Krishna, The New York Times

When chef Asma Khan was growing up in Kolkata, India, she learned that there was very little mustard oil couldn’t do. Dry skin? Weak joints? A common cold? A dab of the oil could cure them all.

But she loves cooking with it most: drizzling it into begun pora, a rich and smoky mashed eggplant, or toasting garam masala in it before adding rice and goat to make tehari.

“You feel it coming through your nose,” said Khan, the owner of the Indian restaurant Darjeeling Express in London. “There is a part of it which is really pungent. There is a sweeter side. It is all coming from the mustard oil. It is like a living oil.”

Mustard oil, which is derived from the seeds of the mustard plant, is an everyday ingredient in parts of India and the subcontinent — and is particularly essential in Bengali cooking. In the West, though, it doesn’t have the same visibility.

Because undiluted mustard oil has ...