Indian food beyond restaurant curries ( and some guidelines and resources to make them) - Indian/Bengali/ other regional
I noticed a few of posts where people are wondering what's there beyond the food served in restaurants specially in the west. This post is an attempt to give an idea of the versatility and width of the Indian fare - introducing different cooking techniques, non-curry dishes and less known curry dishes. Being born and brought up in India helps but of course there's handicap of not being exposed to all cuisines as extensively as I am to my own regional cuisine (Bengali), so Indian foodies please feel free to fill in more details in your comments ! About restaurant food - What is served depends on a lot of factors like the immigration pattern, where I live I see communities from Andhra (Southern Indian state), so the dishes are often made with typical South Indian ingredients like mustard, curry leaves. Thought the menu is heavy in North Indian dishes, they are cooked in south style :) Ingredients - very limited ingredients are used, sometimes no discernible difference from curry to curry. Some of the improvisations are to be able to court a cosmopolitan palette, some due to difficulty in procuring ingredients. Use of boneless meat is another issue, Indian food isn't made with boneless meat or boneless fish. There is a loss in texture and flavour due to smoothening out of the 'curry sauce', a traditional version is coarser and doesn't quite look like the smooth sauce. Also there is issue with how curry is defined 'veggies/meat floating in a pool of thick sauce' is the standard Indian 'curry' while many of our dishes at home don't look like that. But this is true for even restaurants in India. You would hardly see these vegetables - Parwal/potol (pointed gourd), Ridge gourd, Bottle gourd, Pumpkin, variety of leafy greens (apart from spinach and maybe methi nothing else is served), moringa blossom, kundru, limited use of eggplant, radish to name a few. Same with spices and same with cooking techniques. Actually, with due respect to Indian restaurant who are doing their bit making Indian food accessible to everyone, I must say that 'Indian-food-served-in-restaurant' is a parallel cuisine :) I do appreciate how they have given a convenient and marketable twist to traditional cuisines, toning down or dialling up where required and taking essence from at least some regional cuisines in the process. So now getting to what lies beyond these, what aboutnon-curry styleIndian dishes and snacks ?
Stir fried dishes - Many of the side dishes in our main courses aren't 'curried', i.e, no thick gravy-sauce thing, They go by different names in different places - like bhaja/bhaji. The basic structure is - heat oil, put the tempering whole spices, fry briefly to relase flavour, then toss your raw veggie or semi-boiled and braise/ fry / saute depending on the desired outcome and type of veggie. Sometimes powdered spices are added, sometimes not. The dish can be finished off with a garnish of herbs/ grated coconut / ghee or served just right off the work without those. Veggies used - bhindi (okra), thinly spiced pumpkin (like - fried with nigella seeds), potato, barbati, pointed gourds, sprouted lentils, cauliflower, kundru/kundri, moringa blossom to name some.
Stir fried snacks - Very closely related to the (1) family - poha, bhurjis, bhurji wrapped in flat breads. Basic egg bhurji - heat oil, temper with spices, oinions and garlic (tomatoes if you like them) - add beaten eggs, stir and fry, add your choice of powder spices, serve with garnish. Same with Paneer bhurji - instead of adding egg, add crumbled paneer and you are sorted. These are SOS meals.
Rice dishes - People may have had some kind of biriyani and pulao but the options are actually unlimited. Like the bengali basonti polao is yellow and sweet rice pulao made with short grained aromatic rice. Jadoh is a dish made with another aromatic short grained rice variety, pork, ginger and bay leaf. There are many varieties of biriyani not usually served in restaurants - like Kolkata style biriyani which is light and aromatic or moti biriyani (meatball biriyani) etc.
Chokha and Bharta - Basically boil or roast the veggie. Then mash it with spices or mash and fry with spices. Potatoes, eggplant, bhindi, kankrol, Sheem etc. are used. Also - banana stem, banana blossom.
Steamed dishes - Dhokla/ khaman dhokla, khandvi are steamed chickpea four dumpling like dishes which are later drizzled with sweet or savoury condiments. Then there's idli from south and momos from Tibetan communities in India.
Pancakes - Dosa is the most popular one. But there is the everyday Cheela which can be made with different veggies and spices of your choice, or Dosa's cousin Uthhapam, Parasattu, Appam, Idiyappam (more like steamed noodles though), there are sweet ones - malpua, pooda, patishapta and neutral ones like Soru chakli
Stuffed breads, fried breads - Aloo/ mooli / gobi / methi etc. parathas, keema or minced meat parathas. Kachauris ( green pea kochuri/ lentil kachauri) There is luchi (with Flour and nigella seed dough)
Chaats and puffed rice snacks - There are 'wet' chaats like Vel puri, aloo chaat, ghoogni chat, dahi vada, churmur, aloo kabli, papdi chat etc. or dry ones like puffed rice with nuts (muri makha / jhal muri) and chanachur and cucumber-onion and spices.
Batter fried - (Pakodas and pakodis/ vada / bora ) Usually a chickpea batter with spices, prepare your veggie/meat, dip it and deep fry. The consistency of batter is key, in fancier versions, the veggie/met is stuffed. Chillies, Cabbage, eggplant, potatoes, pumpkin, different leafy greens like jute leaf are batter fried.
Dry traditional snacks like Indian style trail mix - Chivda, Chanachur, murukku gathiya, nimki - mainly doughs of chickpea flo rice flour / plain flour and other different types of flour spiced and fried.
Envelope and filling then deep fried - Samoma/Singara (wide variety of filling- Potato, cauliflower, peas, lentils), Chop and cutlets are anglo Indian fusion dishes - fish, meat, egg, jackfruit, mixed veg, banana blossom there are many different types. (mochar chop, echorer chop,dim er devil )
Noodles and dumplings - Covered under tibetan/ North East Indian cuisine.
Stews - shorba, Rasam, Kerala style chicken stew, Kolkata style chicken stew, Nihari (marrow and red meat stew), Kadhi (chickpea flour and yogurt), raw mango stew Stews are different from daal/ lentils in cooking style and consistency - these are light, sometimes clear soups.
Drinks - aam panna, jal-jeera, tender coconut water, lassi and channch (spiced buttermilk), thandai, kokum water.
Desserts and chutney - not covering here, the list would be endless.
Indian Curries which are regularly made in homes but not seen in restaurants Like I mentioned, this has to do with cooking styles not used, or ingredients which aren't used or about regional food overlooked.
Non veg Steamed curries - Fish mixed with spice pastes, oil, chillies and container sealed and steamed. Usually a mix of poppy seed paste, freshly ground mustard and a bit of grated coconut, mustard oil, green chillies and coriander leaves. .. knocking off any one and using any two would also do. Mustard is for the kick, poppy seed as a soothing nutty mild-sweet base and coconut for the coconut-y flavour and sweetness.
Leaf wrapped dishes - fish wrapped in leaf then steamed or fried, can also be made with banana blossoms, paneer. Pora or burnt - leaf wrapped and semi burnt, or stuffed inside bamboo and burnt. You can use the same spice pastes as used in (1).
Fish cooking techniques not used in restaurants - kancha jhol ( light gravy little to no curry base, raw fish stewed in gravy and drizzled in mustard oil) Hara-gouri - Fish one side sweet other side tangy / one side spicy the other tangy etc., leaf wrapped and fried / burnt / steamed, bharta or mashed - like Bombay duck fish. Fish cooked in ground mustard gravy, fish cooked with turmeric leaf. Also in bengali cuisine, many of our veggies and lentils are cooked with crushed bone in fried fish / fish head something not served in restaurants.
Stuffed veggie dishes - Veggies hollowed out and stuffed with veg/non veg fillings. Stuffed eggplant (Bharli vangi), stuffed potato curry, Pointed gourd potol er dolma stuffed with spiced lentils/ minced meat / minced fish / chena / nuts or crumbled paneer). There are tangy spicy dishes like bharwan Karela (stuffed bitter gourd), bharwan bhindi(stuffed okra), bharwan mirch (peppers)
kofta curry /dumpling curry - Restaurants only serve veg malai kofta while there are many different kofta dishes from Nargisi (egg wrapped in minced meat and curried) to green banana kofta to Chitol er muitha (chitol fish dumplings curried).
Bata technique ( making paste of veggies) - Khosha bata (green veggie peels are crushed and fried/ ground) like parwal peel bata. Kochu bata - raw mankochu (taro root) lightly steamed or raw ground to paste with spices and chillies.
Dried fish - these are bengali dishes - Dried shrimp, hilsa, bombay duck etc. cooked in different styles - bharta (dry curry intensely fried), cooked with veggies or cooked in gravy with potatoes or boiled eggs. They are also many other dishes from coastal south India, Goa etc. which used dried fish.
Leafy greens - Restaurants never use anything apart from palak/spinach, that even the tender variety and maybe some methi and mustard (?). Also restaurants grind them to paste like in palak paneer or sarson ka saag. But majority of recipes beyond punjabi recipes don't grind the leafy greens to paste. Leafy greens are called Saag/ saak/ xak in different regions. Variety - Mature spinach, Mustard greens, Poi/Pui (Malabar spinach), Kalmi (Water spinach), different varieties of Amaranth - green (notey),red (laal notey), gima, jute leaves, Neem (Margo plant), dheki (fiddlehead fern) - to name a few. They are usually cooked without any curry base, with potato or some other veggies or just the leaves, (not mashed), with some spices. A generic recipe - heat oil, add nigella seeds, chillies and minced garlic, fry and then add the chopped greens and salt, fry and cover till water evaporates and leaves are tender.
Veggies less used in restaurants but widely used at home - What I use - pointed gourd, bottle gourd, bitter gourd, ridge gourd, snake gourd, pumpkin, cabbage, drumsticks, Banana blossoms, Banana stems, young jackfruit, oyster mushroom, taro root, sweet potato, pumpkin, green banana, sheem, borboti/barbati, pyaz koli, Tinda, moringa blossoms (not found in USA at least I haven't) cucumber and dhudhul.
Khichdi - From different regions - from bisibele bhat to bengali bhuni khichudi these are boiled rice-lentil concoctions cooked with spices.
Modern twists - Omlette curry, Soya chunk curries, mushrooms
Overlooked dishes from different regional cuisines
Bengali/Kolkata - https://www.bongeats.com/ : Close to my heart and IDK where to start ! This is a delicate light cuisine based on less known flavours - nigella seed, poppy seed paste , panch phoron etc. with many less known festive dishes. Then there's hilsa and range of fish dishes. Labra, shukto, chechki, ghonto, jhal, dalna etc. are the different dishes
Tibetan - Beyond momos not much is known, but there's thukpa (noodle soups), tingmo (steamed buns), shapta, phalay to name a few.
7 North East Indian states and Sikkim - Another cuisine not recognised enough even in India, I have traveled quite a bit in these regions and the range is so wide. Sikkimese food has tibetan and Nepali influence with use of items like fermented soy beans. North Eastern states - Assamese cuisine has some similarity with bengali Khashi - tripura Arunachal pradesh has distinct traditional cuisine. Notable dishes - Jadoh, a pork-rice dish, chicken with seasame seed paste, boiled chicken etc.
Marathi https://madhurasrecipe.com/category/regional-recipes/marathi-recipes/ , Gujrati and Marwadi cuisine. Marwadi cuisine has some of my favourite dishes - papad curry, gatte ki sabzi (chickpea flour dumpling curry), magodi, ker sangrdi.. these are tangy spicy dishes worth trying.
Parsi and Sindhi cuisines - Parsi cuisine is a mixture of western Indian and Persian cuisine, I sadly hadn't had experienced much apart from Dhanshak and a pulao made with berries (in a restaurant in Mumbai). And almost no exposure to Sindhi food, only heard a rhyme once "Palla Machi khana Sindhu muluk chorke nehi Jana" in my school text book. And that Palla is supposed to taste like Hilsa, If anyone knows resources you are more than welcome to share it.
Water - 2 cups (roughly, Please refer to the images to know the desired consistency.)
Rice flour - 1 1/2 Cups.
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Oil - 1 tsp
Idiyappam is made by mixing rice flour with BOILING hot water and salt, then sleeved through a pressing tool to form that noodle-like structure. If the water is not boiling hot, the mixture won't stick through. Use a sturdy spatula for mixing to ensure no lumps form. We first form a base, add coconut flakes, and then cover it with another layer of the Idiyappam mixture. We then steam these Idiyappam cakes until soft. Make sure you don't overcook these delicate cakes as they'll lose its softness. Detailed Recipe with pictures - https://learningyourroots.blogspot.com
Should I take Bacopa Monnieri capsules before or after breakfast?
I'm taking KeenMind Capsules (Called Synapsa in US I think) . The phamplet says take it "with" some food. I currently take it after having breakfast?. I'm from Sri Lanka, so my breakfast would usually be a bit heavy with lots of carbs (eg - rice or something made from wheat flour like this and veggies and meat. Does taking it after a heavy meal have any negative effects like reducing the amount absorbed?
Idiyappam Flour. Blog updated on July 14, 2020 Leave a Comment Any post on this site may contain affiliate links. If you use them they cost you no extra. We make a small commission. Idiyappam flour closed with lid. 4. After 10 minutes, open it and mix well with your hands touching water. Make cylindrical balls to put it into a kitchen press. Idiyappam dough made into cylindrical balls. 5. Put the dough into kitchen press and keep it ready. Put Idiyappam pan in a stove. Place a wet cloth in the Idiyappam plate. Idiyappam pan in a stove. 6. Now make Idiyappam using the ... Idiyappam recipe is a traditional food consisting of rice flour, pressed into noodle form and then steamed. This is also called as idiyappam in Tamilnadu, shavige or nool puttu in Karnataka or noolappam in Kerala and string hoppers in Sri Lanka. This idiyappam with rice flour is easily digestible and can be given to elders, sick people and even infants after 6 months. Just a simple coconut milk with sugar or any Homemade Idiyappam Flour or Processed Rice Flour. Processed rice flour is a very useful ingredient which is used in many recipes like Idiyappam, murukku, seedai, kozhukattai etc., This is the good procedure to make it once and reuse later whenever you want. Idiyappam also known as Nool puttu are string hoppers. Basically these are sevai or seviyan made with rice flour dough. Idiyappam along with Puttu and Appam are a common breakfast in Kerala. This idiyappam recipe gives you soft and smooth idiyappam which tastes very good with a curry or kurma or any side dish of your choice. how to make idiyappam with rice flour with step by step photos: firstly, dry roast rice flour for 2 minutes on low flame. keep aside and allow to cool completely. meanwhile, in a kadai take 1¼ cup of water. also add salt and oil. stir well and get water to boil. further simmer the flame, and add roasted rice flour. Preparing idiyappam with rice flour itself requires a good amount of effort. Watch the video to find out how to prepare atta or wheat flour idiyappam easily. Kozhukattai. I searched the internet thoroughly but could not find the exact substitute for the Kerala Kozhukattai using wheat flour or atta. Here is the wheat flour Kozhukattai which I am experimenting for the first time. The texture was ... Idiyappam is made of rice flour or wheat flour, salt and water. It is generally served as the main course for breakfast or dinner together with avial, spicy curry either made of mixed vegetables, egg, fish or stews made with either meat or chicken curry and coconut chutney. Idiyappam is generally made using plain rice flour and doesn’t require roasting. The Idiyappam shown in the picture was made using Home Made Roasted Red Rice Flour which my Mom sent from Kerala for making Puttu 🙂 Idiyappam is usually garnished with Coconut and Sugar.It is served with some nice gravy like Chicken Curry, Vegetable Stew, Egg Curry and so on. The trick is in the roasting of the flour. We will be making idiyappam today with just plain rice flour. The key to a good idiyappam is to roast the flour until very hot so it absorbs more water while kneading and that results in a very soft and fluffy idiyappam. Here is how to do idiyappam at home the most easy way. You will need an idiyappam press or an idiyappam maker for this recipe. You can buy it here. Note: If you have access to good quality puttu flour / idiyappam flour, do use that ...
How to make Kerala Soft Idiyappam ഇടിയപ്പം Noolappam ...
#veena'scurryworld #keralaidiyappam u can contact me here 👇👇[email protected] - Mail id https://m.facebook.com/veenascurryworld/ - Facebook https://www.i... Idiyappam - Preparation & storage of idiyappam flour / Making of idiyappam by Revathy Shanmugam - Duration: 13:23. Revathy Shanmugamum kavingar veetu samayalum 211,494 views 13:23 Idiappam recipe in TamilIngredientsRoasted Rice flour -1cupwater-1.5 cupsalt- To tasteOil-1tsp MethodBoil Water with salt and oil..Lower the flame and slowl... South Indian Speciality dish- Idiyappam or string hoppers.IngredientsRice flour- 2 cupsWater- 2 1/2 cupsSalt- 1/4 tspGrated coconutPreparationBoil water, add...
