Indian Cooking

Diversity and Features of Indian Cooking

Today Indian cooking is known for it's popularity in the world. There are various Indian restaurants in every corner of the world. Indian cooking is a blend of unique spices like turmeric, cumin, cardamom, fenugreek, chilies and many more.  But the best of the Indian cooks will agree that the authentic Indian cooking involves just few spices blended together to make a dish with it's distinct flavor. Too much of spices could spoil not only it's flavor but texture too.

One of the most popular Indian cooks, Sanjeev Kapoor has a great website, www.sanjeevkapoor.com which would give all the food lovers enough unique recipes to try in their own homes. They will also find handy tips to use in their kitchen on his website. India being a fusion of various cultures and religions, have variety in it's cooking too. Though there are lots of dishes like biryani, fish curry, prawns vindaloo available in it's cooking, the dish which has become most popular in almost every country is chicken tikka. In some countries, it has even been described as a national dish.

Many Indian spices are known for its medicinal values. For example, clove is well known as an aid to digestion. Even clove oil is used for relief from toothaches. Ginger is used as a medicine for cough and cold. Fenugreek leaves are used in treatment of indigestion. Therefore, in India most people prefer to use home remedies for small ailments like cough, cold, indigestion etc.

There are various cooking styles within Indian cooking. The main ones include Punjabi, Guajarati, Goan, Maharashtrian, South Indian etc. It's amazing to see that the same ingredients can be converted into a different dish in a different style. Every style has it's own unique signature ingredient. In Punjabi style, one would see food cooked in butter or ghee. In Goan food, one would see coconut being used frequently. In different countries, you will find different taste for Indian cooking as lots of restaurants have adapted it's taste to suit the local population. Indian cooking also include various sweets which are made for different festivals. For example Puranpoli which is a Maharashtrian sweet dish is made to celebrate the festival of colors, Holi. In most of the regions one common factor in the Indian cooking is the use of bread. It will be known and made differently in different places like chapattis in Maharashtra, fulka in Gujarat, roti in Punjab etc.

One can only imagine the number of recipes one would get under the heading of Indian cooking. In recent times, Indian cooking has adapted more healthy approach realizing the need for recent times. As one would understand that the food can be a cause of a disease as well as cure for one. So the balance between the taste and nutrition is vital and Indian cooks have taken this fact on board.