Indian Cooking Recipe - cooking resource

Indian Cooking Recipe

Cooking Indian has truly changed my life with these recipes that have been passed down for generations in my family. From recipe to recipe, indian cooking has shown me spices and foods that taste wonderful and are very healthy too.

The most important spices in a recipe for Indian cooking are chilli pepper, black mustard seed (rai), cumin, turmeric, fenugreek, ginger, coriander and asafoetida (hing). In sweet dishes, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg and rose petal essence are used.

The main portions of Indian cooking are rice, atta (a special type of whole-wheat flour), and at least five dozen varieties of bean dishes, the most important of which are chana (bengal gram; similar to the chick pea but smaller and more flavorful), toor (pigeon pea or red gram), urad (black gram) and mung (green gram). The beans recipe is used almost exclusively in the form of dal, except the chana recipe, which is cooking them whole for an Indian breakfast and is processed into flour (besan).

An Indian recipe can be an elaborate masterpiece, even if the only ingredients are lentils, yogurt, and a variety of spices. In fact, a recipe can require a day of preparation, cutting vegetables, soaking beans, pounding spices, or just sitting by the fire as the food slowly cooks. But not all recipes are so complicated and time-consuming. Some Indian dishes are quick and simple, requiring less than an hour of cooking.

An average recipe for Indian cooking may have a very long list of spices and ingredients. But once you start shopping for Indian cooking ingredients, each recipe will become quite easy to differentiate and the taste will amaze you.

Art of Indian cooking

IN Indian Food Sense, nutritionist and food columnist Ruth N. Davidar takes up the challenge of presenting a heath and nutrition guide to Indian food to show that healthy eating the Indian way does not have to translate into tasteless eating. In fact, her book makes one appreciate anew the science and sophistication of Indian gastronomy.

Davidar approaches her task in a systematic manner dividing her book into two sections: the first, a comprehensive introduction to nutrition; the second, a wide selection of recipes of food preparations from all over India. The recipes are not only easy to follow but extremely interesting. This is not because they describe dishes that are new, innovative or little known ¡ª in fact, quite the opposite. Davidar has selected preparations that constitute everyday food from all over India ¡ª such as dals, rice and breads, curries, chutneys and preserves, sweets, beverages ¡ª and then proceeds to analyse them in order to demonstrate the scientific and nutritionally-correct nature of our traditional culinary practices.

At the same time, she adds useful tips about Indian cooking and serving which further enhances the diet value of the food and makes for simpler, time-efficient cooking.

The opening section on nutrition is extremely informative and the orientation into the basics of nutrition that it provides makes it worth the effort to read through the somewhat pedestrian, textbook-style prose. Charts and graphs present educational infobytes on subjects that would interest almost anyone in today's health-conscious age: Adult Energy Expenditure, Body Mass Index and more.

A back-of-the-book section has some wonderful reference material and facts including a glossary giving the English, Hindi and Tamil name of common cooking ingredients; lists of food sources for various nutrients; some basic information on pathology; and home remedies for a range of common illnesses.

More info about India cooking, please visit Indian Cooking Recipe Curry.

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