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Mughlai | Kashmiri | Bengali | Punjabi | Gujarati | South Indian

Mughlai Taste

The influence of the Mughal rulers who ruled India is perhaps most felt in their food. A major contribution towards this is the tandoor which is an earthen oven, used to make rotis and kababs, which are pieces of meat marinated in spices and skewered over a coal tandoor. Some of the famous Mughlai dishes include tandoori chicken, seekh and boti kabab and even tandoori fish.

Mughlai food is very rich, its sauces consisting of curd, cream and crushed nuts like cashew. The biryani from the kitchens of the nawabs of Hyderabad, is a flavoured and spiced rice cooked with ghee and chicken or meat, and is a meal-in-a-dish eaten with raitha and salad. Aromatic spices and ghee make Mughlai food a very rich form of cuisine.

Kashmiri Taste

Traditional Kashmiri cooking is called Wazhawan and comprises mostly of non-vegetarian dishes. It is rich and aromatic with a wonderful flavour unique to Kashmiri cuisine. Most Kashmiris including the Brahmins (Kashmiri Pandits) are meat eaters. The cuisine of the state is characterised by three different styles of cooking - the Kashmiri Pandit, the Muslims and the Rajput styles.

One of the distinct features of Kashmiri cuisine is the generous use of curds in the gravies, giving the dishes a creamy consistency. The Kashmiris also use asafoetida to flavour their meat dishes. Saunf (aniseed) and dry ginger are other spices used imaginatively to enhance the taste.

Being the home of saffron, the colourful flavouring agent is used in the pulaos and sweets. Walnuts, almonds and raisins are also added to the curries. Some of the better known dishes are yakhni, tabaq naat, which is an exotic dish made of fried ribs and decorated with silver varq, dum aloo, rogan josh, gaustaba which is a light meatball, haleem which is meat pounded with wheat, etc.

Bengali Taste

The staple diet of the Bengalis is rice and fish. A true Bengali will consider a meal incomplete without fish and celebrations are never done without a fish preparation. Mustard oil is the medium of cooking as it imparts a unique flavour and taste especially to the fish items. Fish is cooked in a variety of ways - steamed, fried and boiled with various spices for different flavours.

Bengalis have a special seasoning called 'Panchphoran' which includes five spices - mustard, aniseed, fenugreek seed, cumin seed and black cumin seed. The garam masala is made up of cloves, cinnamon, cumin and coriander seeds, mace, nutmeg, and big and small cardamoms.

Mention Bengal and one is immediately reminded of the delicious sweets of the state - gulab jamun, rasagulla, sandesh, cham cham and many more. If Gujarat has a profusion of savoury items, Bengal matches it with its sweets. Made of milk and cottage cheese, these are light and delectable.

Punjabi Taste

Punjabi food is wholesome and full of rustic flavour. The custom of cooking in community ovens or tandoors, prevails in rural pockets till today. Tandoori dishes are popular all over the country today. Nans and parathas, rotis made of cornflour (makke di roti) are typical Punjabi breads.

The cuisine is characterised by a profusion of dairy products in the form of malai (cream), paneer (cottage cheese) and curds. The dals are a speciality of this type of cuisine. Made of whole pulses like black gram, green gram and Bengal gram, they are cooked on slow fire, often simmered for hours till they turn creamy and then flavoured with spices and rounded off with malai for that rich finish.

Rajma (Kidney beans) and rice is a favourite as are makke di roti and sarson ka saag (cornflour rotis and a creamy preparation made of mustard greens). Eaten with plenty of ghee, this is a winter favourite with Punjabis. The basic gravy used for vegetables and meat dishes is onion-tomato-garlic-ginger.

Though chicken is a favourite with non-vegetarians, fish is also a delicacy, especially in the Amritsar region, which is also known for its kulcha, a baked bread made of refined flour.

Tall glasses of lassi, made of yoghurt, added with either salt or sugar is a popular cooling drink not only in Punjab but all over the country. Phirni, a sweet dish made of milk, rice flour and sugar and chilled in earthenware bowls is a typical Punjabi dessert.

Gujarati Taste

Gujarat has a wide variety of savoury food, pickles and sweets. Roti itself is prepared in number of variations from the petal soft phulkas to the bone dry khakra, which is a spiced, crunchy preparation usually taken on journeys.

The population which is predominantly Jain doesn't include spices like onion and garlic and yet, the food is so interesting and delicious, which goes to prove the culinary skills of the people of Gujarat.

The Gujaratis have a sweet tooth and this shows in their cooking. Every dish is sweetened, be it a vegetable preparation or the simple dal, even pickles and chutneys are flavoured with jaggery and sugar. Seasoning of food is given great importance with mustard, fenugreek, thyme and asafoetida used both for flavour and as digestive aids.

South Indian Taste

The cuisine of the south is largely non-greasy, either boiled or steamed and therefore very light on the stomach. Rice is the staple of the south Indian meal. Traditionally south Indian food is served on a banana leaf and each dish has its own specific place on the platter and has to be served in a particular order.

The meal consists of several courses of rice, which is eaten with a different dish like sambar, rasam and curd during each course. There are several accompaniments like curries, made of either vegetables or meat, vegetable stews, raitha, papad and pickles. Curd is usually a must for all vegetarian meals. Coconut is used liberally both as garnish and also as part of the masala.

South Indian snacks are most popular all over the country. The ubiquitous idli, dosa and vada, are eaten with sambar by the bowlsful and spicy coconut chutney. While idli is steamed rice cakes, dosa is a pancake and vada are deep fried dal doughnuts.

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