The home of food from or inspired by the Indian subcontinent.

Will be on a bike trip for 4 weeks, I prefer eating healthy and hygienic food so I avoid eating outside. But this time I have no option, so either I'll be eating outside or from ready to eat food, whochever is less unhealthy.

Available in the US? Thank you

Which tomatoes do you buy for your gravy in the US?

I dont have a pressure cooker and cant get access to one.

Are there any recommended recipes for legumes/dhal that I can make without a pressure cooker?

Can you cook legumes without one by just soaking for a couple of days?

Carby Indian food is delicious, AND we really need to be more careful.

We got this from a distant friend, and I can't remember what he told me the name was.

It has green roasted peppers, it's yellow, spicy, and is VERY crumbly. I was told to eat it with dosa. It tastes like a very good mixture of veggies but with a crumbly "couscous-like" texture.

I cannot exactly point out what the crumbly texture is, but it's a vegan dish.

I'm sorry for the bad explination.

Because I think they should. They look quite beautiful and its very sweet which in my opinion makes it a perfect addition to cakes, Perhaps it can be cut into little bits and sprinkled on top of a mango flavored cake or they should place a bigger piece on top of the cake like how they place little pieces of chocolate.

I personally haven't seen anyone do it though. I wasn't sure if it is done anywhere else.

What does everyone think? Is this a good idea? Have you seen it being done?

I had a masala dosa from a new place this morning, and while the dosa and chutneys were very very good, the masala was quite unusual for me, as it had kasoori methi in it. I have had countless dosas in different cities and even countries, and this was a first for me.

It wasn't bad. But it was curious.

Is there any region which typically makes masala dosa with kasoori methi in the aalu? I am not from South India so I don't necessarily know if this is a normal or common ingredient, but I usually associate it with gravies like cholay or palak paneer. Sometimes some rice dishes.

Looking forward to your responses!

What are some good recipes that one can eat when having acid reflux issues. Since it's not good to have food that can increase the reflux more like deep fried ,oily,toor udad daal etc, fermented, sour( except amla and lemon),spicy and greasy masala type,what food like snacks and meals can be consumed that can be helpful and tasty?

How much should I use for 1 kg mutton for biryani purpose and 1 kg chicken for curry purpose?

Should I wash after like 30 min - 1 hr after marinating in papaya?And should I keep it in refrigerator or outside?

I'm afraid that it might cause any bitter taste and spoil the complete dish.

And last how long does papaya paste ne stored,I think more than half of will be wasted ,if we can't use it till next week.

And how different is the meat tenderized in curd vs papaya paste?

Thank you

I might be going to an Indian restaurant in the US with a friend who has a mango allergy and I want to make sure she's safe. English isn't her first language so I might end up being the one to advocate for her with restaurant staff. She's never had Indian food before so I wanted to share it with her.

There are a couple obvious things like pickles and mango lassi, but I want to make sure we're not missing anything more unexpected. I'm thinking especially about amchur showing up as a hidden ingredient when I'm not expecting it.

What dishes should we avoid or ask the servers about?

I'd like to make a south Indian style Korma. I see most recipes use a paste .are from coconut milk, cashews and poppy seeds. Can I make this paste with an immersion blender, or will it be grainy?

I've been trying to learn how to cook Indian food for my husband (he's Punjabi, I'm an Aussie). He told me to cook spices first and how important it was to cook them long enough and that the oil separation was a good thing. I recently told my friend who is from a different part of India and she got really angry and said if there's oil ontop it means it's bad and theres too much fat in the dish. My husband was a chef and has worked in Indian restaurants in India, Malaysia and Australia so I normally just take his advice because he knows a lot but Im curious now because of how badly this other person reacted to the oil comment. Thanks for any help.

I have purchased a cast iron tawa from Amazon thinking it will be better for dosa, chilla. I had used dosa tawa at my friend’s place and I loved how easy it was to make chilla and dosa on it. However, i am not able to use it for anything except roti and prantha. Whenever I make chilla it gets stuck to tawa and I have to use a lot of oil. I made moong dal chilla today and I had to switch to non stick pan.

Is there any difference between normal cast iron tawa and dosa tawa?

If so, what other Indian foods have you had success freeze-drying?

Wanted to drink something fizzy at night but avoid all the sugar drinks. So swiggied Jaljeera powder, soda and lemon.

Not even joking, had the most refreshing and delicious fizzy drink ever. Anyone ever tried it before?

I cook chicken by putting washed chicken in the sauted onion, tomato and masala and cook in cooker. The chicken breast (white meat) part feels stringy ( overcooked) and chicken thigh or in-bone (dark meat/ feels nice soft. I read that the cooking time for chicken breast and thigh are different ( breast being less). Is that the reason? But how to solve the issue? Pressure cooker is easy and more healthy (specially during times of bird flu) option to cook. Even cooking in a single pan, it's the same. Or biryani! What is the way out or hack or tip?

My whole life I have used LPG, never thought of switching completely to electric/induction cooking. But when I went to Europe and saw everyone mostly using electric/induction, I also felt that these cooking methods are safer than LPG gas cylinder. I agree that cooking on gas has its advantages, flavor wise and you can roast stuff directly on the flame too.

I have never had any gas explosion happen near me but I was just wondering if anybody has the safety concern about gas cylinders and switched to electric/induction. If you did, what are your monthly costs and do you have multiple inductions so you can make up for the multiple stoves that are on a gas stovetop? Would you recommend it over gas stove?

I have a disease that has essentially destroyed my appetite … but Indian takeout is consistently something I can eat ?

I think spices help me overcome nausea, but I definitely want to make more healthy and cost effective recipes myself. I’d like to discover more authentic dishes too!

My big yikes is that I haven’t been doing any home cooking… so I’m making my spice cabinet go from 0-100 and wow that price tag!!! In the long run it will be worth it, though.

My dream recipe book would go through dishes centering certain flavors to eventually work towards a robust spice collection, but I don’t know if that exists? Any good recipe book recs are welcome and also advice for building up spices!

Any recommendations for non-Indian coffee powders (100% coffee no chicory) that are typically available in the US that can be used to make good south Indian style filter coffee? I have tried Ruta Maya espresso roast, Cafe Ole and Cafe Bustelo Espresso - so far Cafe Bustelo is slightly the better one but all of them result in weak decoctions, not the typical strong south Indian filter coffee. Have you tried any other brand? Any recommendations to try?

I went to an Indian restaurant while on vacation and while there had one of the best dishes ever. I finally branched out from only eating butter chicken and now I'm cursed to never eat this dish again.

I remember it having a yellow sauce, and it was topped with dried fruit and nuts. I want to find a recipe and make it at home, but when I try to Google it I only find curry fried rice. Sorry this is so vague, but I'll probably be happy with any dish that resembles what I ate. I crave that creamy deliciousness, please I need it in my life. When I check the menu online, the dish doesn't seem to be listed anymore. Does anyone have an idea of what this could be? Or suggestions for any sort of curry with dried fruit and nuts?

One of my annoyances with Indian Cooking, especially where my family comes from is they tend to peel away the skin of potatoes. The Skin is the most nutritious part of a potato, with Vitamin C, Potassium, Magnesium. The flesh is just starch.

I recently had paneer tikka lababdar at Kailash parbat and the gravy tasted amazing and had a very unique taste to it.

I’ve tried this at many other restaurants and they were pretty much ordinary. Seen countless videos on it and most of them are just the same masalas.

What is your hack to make it great?

Does anyone know where I could get plastic-less, stainless steel idli pans in the USA? Every thing I see on Amazon has plastic crap on it. If you do, a link is deeply appreciated.

I remember growing up in Bangalore during the early 2010s and there was this corner store sweet that has been consuming my waking thoughts.

It was a small white cube (the size of a sugar cube) and it was like a powdery soan papidi where you couldn't see the strands. I asked my mother but she just said it was mithai which the corner stores would buy in bulk and leave up front/sell for 5 rupees or so.

Does anyone else remember eating this? No longer live in India, and it's a distant memory at this point but it would be great to hear about it.

Made myself a slow cooker Chicken Madras with breast meat. The flavour is gorgeous, but the meat is tough as old boots. I think I may have boiled it when I first fried it on the stovetop with garlic and onions, it took. While to “brown”. Is there anything I can do to soften it up? I split the slow cook into 10 individual meals, so I’m hoping there’s something I can do in the reheating process to make it more palatable?

Thanks for any advice.

Hi..any idea y vada bursts in oil while frying?:TIA

Hi long time lurker, first time poster.

I dunno why but I am just plain useless at making any curry. Even the “just add” stuff turns out to be a disaster.

I am hoping someone can look through the below and advise improvements

So far I have tried the following but hasnt worked well (based on 400g chicken breast).

1. ⁠Garlic Onion Ginger paste

• ⁠One brown onion • ⁠4cloves garlic • ⁠5cm fresh ginger

Take the above, add 200ml water and roughly pulse in the NutriBullet to make a paste. Keep aside.

2. Whole spices

Separately in a saucepan, heat 2 tablespoons oil (I use sunflower), add

• ⁠1 star anise • ⁠half tsp fennel seeds • ⁠3 cardamon pods • ⁠half tsp black peppercorn • ⁠1 bay leaf • ⁠small cinnamon stick piece • ⁠1 dried chilli

Heat the above until smell fragrant and then add the Ginger Garlic Onion paste.

Cook for 6min.

Strain or pick out the the whole spices (i have also tried to leave them there also)

3. Add 400g chicken and cook for 6min.

4. Tomato base

Pulse 400g canned tomatoes quickly in Nutribullet.

Add to the tomato to saucepan with the following powder spices:

• ⁠1/2 tsp coriander powder • ⁠salt • ⁠1/2 tsp cumin powder • ⁠1/2 tsp tumeric powder • ⁠1/2 tsp chilli powder • ⁠1/2 tsp cinnamon powder • ⁠1 tablespoon tomato paste

Cook everything on low heat for 40min. I see the oil separate and sometime see water.

The issues are taste (doesnt really taste like Indian) and texture with water and not thick gravey.

We have a gas stove top and use a non stick saucepan (if that makes any difference)

Aside from vathal kuzhambu having the dried berries added what is the difference between the three. The masala? Way of making? etc. As far as I know if you consider the addition of coconut a differentiating factor, coconut is added in all of the so…..