Indian Recipes: Simple Foods, Sumptuous Taste
Filed Under Food and Drink
India, a hauntingly beautiful land with widely divergent arid, wet and coastal environments, now supports a population of better than a billion people with some of the most varied and surprising cuisine in the world. The variations not only include what Indian food is cooked with, the flavor can change depending on what it is cooked on!
No longer viewed as the land of curried rice, India is a country with sweepingly wide and diverse taste in food. With so many of it’s favored dishes bursting with texture and variety, rice & wheat are still a mainstay, but the food of India is anything but ordinary. Most cultures in India include vegetarian dishes, since about 33% of the population is vegetarian.
Wide varieties of food are found in Western India, since this area of India include wetland, arid and coastal environments. Sea foods are available, and the use of mild yogurts, cheese, and ghee, a clarified butter that is cooked until the milk fats rise to the top, and you are left with a sweet intense taste. Ghee adds a subtle flavor often overlooked when cooking Indian foods. Different spices, while available nationwide, still tend to favor certain spices locally.
In the West it is ginger, and coriander, not the hot spices automatically associated Indian Cuisine. In the East, the fish dominates while dairy, though popular in rest of the country, is rarely considered special here.
In the Northern regions, in the state of Punjab, near the Afghan and Pakistan borders, local foods may be either vegetarian or with meat. Both are common. What does surprise most visitors is the variations from a home cooked meal versus what one would get in a restaurant. The two can be polar opposites. In restaurants, there might be thick spicy sauces and meats in great variety. They will use ghee heavily, and cream for gravy and sauces, making these meals thick and sumptuous. Most home meals, will be simple affairs of breads, rice, and lentil pulses, spiced and steaming. Either one will prove delicious! Cooking with alternative spices here might include mace or even cinnamon.
Finally in Southern India, the way the food is served is as important as what is served. Traditionally food is placed on a banana leaf, with dry and wet foods placed according to custom, and an artistic flair. Generally the meals here are assembled around rice. The cuisine of Andhra Pradesh will be spicy or pickled foods. From meats, to vegetables, to fruit, much of this areas foods will revolve around a meat; chicken or lamb, due to the Muslim Influence here.
India is a large country with astounding variety, even fast foods are available, although they might be simpler fare like Batata Vada, a potato fritter served with vegetable or fruit chutney or even a mini meat pie. The choices are as varied as the country!
Chip is a designer, cultural enthusiasts and a blogger. His approachable take on Indian cooking can be found on the blog on Indian food at http://www.masalacook.com
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