Indian Food Basics

India is a wonderful country that provides a home to more than 1.38 billion people! It has practically 1.3 million square miles with 29 states resulting in a wide variety of local foods and meals. While northern Indian food has great deals of influences from the Middle East, southern Indian cuisine is more tied to Hindu cooking customs. Since cows are sacred in most Indian religious beliefs, beef is not as common in their traditional meals, and because of the Muslim impact, pork is not used either. The most popular meats in Indian cuisine are chicken, goat, lamb, and some seafood.

Being the 7th largest nation and the second one with more population, their dishes can change a lot from town to town but I can guarantee that all of them are yummy in their own way! It is really hard to talk about every traditional meal in India, but we will discuss a few of the most typical dishes.

Among my favorite appetizers on Indian menus are Samosas. This delicious entreé or snack is typical from the south and southeast Asia, the middle east, the north, the west, and east Africa. Samosas look like fried dumplings and are filled with vegetables or meat. Indian design Samosas are often accompanied by chutney. Another popular appetizer is Pakoras, they are veggie fritters made with chickpea batter!

Indian food is quite popular because of its numerous spices. They used them whole or ground and a lot of dishes can integrate around 7 different ones to produce something scrumptious. Pretty much all spices (with some exceptions, of course) are roasted in order to release their wonderful flavor and smells prior to being ground and blended.

When it pertains to main dishes, there are great deals of choices. In the north-east part of India, individuals like to eat March Jhol (fish with pool, tomato, chilies, ginger, and garlic), Pork Bharta (boiled pork with onions chilies ginger, and garlic), Chak-Hao Kheer (purple rice porridge), and Galho (fresh green leaves, veggies, with or without meat).

In north India, you can find Aloo Gobi (cauliflower and potatoes sautéed with garam masala, turmeric, kalonji, and curry leaves) Aloo Tikki (fried potato patties mixed with veggies), Aloo Matar (potatoes and peas in curry), Aloo Methi (potatoes with methi leaves), Chicken Tikka Masala (marinated chicken in a yogurt tomato sauce) and more!

Moving to south India, there’s Avial (coconut paste, curd, combined with veggies), Dosas (fermented rice and lentil batter in form of thin crapes), Vadas (tasty doughnuts made from a black lentil batter spiced with curry leaves, cumin, chili, and onion) and tons of more amazing dishes.

Indian food also offers a lot of yummy desserts to satisfy your craving for sweets like Gulab Jaume (deep-fried milk-based mix with various spices), Kheer (rice pudding), Rasmalai (milk, an acidic ingredient, sugar, and saffron), etc

There’s a lot to discover Indian food, to start this fantastic journey of flavors, my suggestion is to try everything on our menu, our Indian restaurant features the most traditional meals and we also do food delivery!