A Beginner’s Guide to Cooking Indian Cuisine
Tired of your typical food routine? Ready to jump into a new culinary voyage that will wake up your taste buds? Awesome! Indian food is a great solution to enhancing your pallet. Indian cuisine can be intimidating, especially if you don’t understand the variation of spices, verbiage, and meals. But there is nothing to stress about, Indian food is rising in popularity around the world and it’s time you take the leap too. We will be your guide through this exciting experience of cooking Indian Cuisine!
Understanding the Variation of Indian Cuisine
Did you know that India means Land of Spices? India eats, breathes and lives spices.There is a lot to understand when it comes to Indian Cuisine, so let’s get started.
With our surplus of spices, we are able to create 6 different flavors. Everyone knows and loves the taste of salty and sweet, but in Indian cuisine, there’s so much more! Say hello to the additional tastes of bitter, sour, astringent and spicy. These are flavors we use to create negative food pairings and it’s a huge reason why Indian food is so loved.
Positive and Negative Food Pairings
You may be wondering what a negative food pairing is… Well, everything we eat is composed of flavor molecules. Some foods have matching underlying molecules, which are paired together to create positive food pairings. For instance, the ingredients to make a pizza; bread, tomato, and cheese are all positive food pairings.
In contrast to positive food pairing, there are also negative food pairings, which are flavors you would not expect to be paired together. For example, a common negative food pairing dish in the Western culture, is watermelon and feta. This dish combines sweet watermelon flavors with the tangy taste of feta. At first glimpse, it seems outrageous, but once you try it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
Other Spice Uses
In the Indian culture, don’t just cook with our spices, we use it for medicine too. For example, turmeric is used for treatment of arthritis, heartburn, stomach pain, diarrhea, intestinal gas, stomach bloating and even loss of appetite. Cinnamon is another spice that is tasty, as well as medicinal. It helps increase insulin action, which helps to regulate treatment for those with type 2 diabetes. The health benefits don’t end there, cardamom is a spice that primarily helps with digestion, but also doubles as a breath freshener and even has cancer fighting effects.
What Makes Indian Food So Different?
Think Indian cuisine couldn’t get any better? The ingredients are more than just tasty, they’re all natural and healthy! Quality ingredients lead to quality food. Knowing what is in your food and how it can affect your body is very important. You don’t have to worry about feeling bad when Indian eating food.
Indian cuisine has numerous essential spices, and they can be hard to keep track of. We’ve broken down the top five for you:
- coriander seeds
- black mustard seeds
- cayenne pepper
- turmeric
- cumin seed.
Some other words to keep in mind and understand are curry, masala, and chutney. Although each of these terms are traditional Indian sauces and spices, none have a right or wrong “recipe.” They are all open to the customs and preferences of the individual families!
What is Curry?
Originally, the term “curry” meant a meat or vegetable that is cooked in a spiced gravy with rice. However, over the years the term has evolved. Now, curry comes in many forms paste, powder, roux cubes, and leaves. Countries all over the world have made their own version of curry. For example, there is Thai curry, Japanese curry, Indian curry, plus so much more.
What is Masala?
Masala is one of the most popular spices used in Indian cooking. Masala is a blend of ground spices, that can come in powder or paste form. It is almost always gluten free, vegan and/or vegetarian. There is no specific recipe to make masala, so the chef can decide what to include and what not to. However, the key ingredients of masala are black pepper and hot spices. It gives a taste of floral notes, warmth, sweetness, and heat, and is added to the dish at the end of cooking.
What is Chutney?
Chutney is paired on the side of almost all Indian dishes. Prepared fresh or cooked, it is a combination of vegetables, fruits and spices. But the flavors and textures vary.
Chutney can be prepared as a dry base or sauce, and can be anything from a yogurt dip to ground up peanuts. It can also be mistaken for a relish or jam, although it has its own classification. It is open to your own imagination and creativity.
An Art
Cooking Indian cuisine is an art form. Upholding tradition and family recipes are of highest importance in our culture. Since there are no set recipes it is important that families keep their cooking traditions strong. Everyday the meals are well thought out and planned in advance. Cooking is how the families spend quality time together. We believe in quality time over quality food, although that doesn’t show in their recipes! The meals are elaborate and consist of multiple dishes. It is more than cooking it is culture.
Indian Cuisine Made Easy
Unfortunately, preparation can be time consuming, especially when mixing so many ingredients in such little amounts. After a long day of work and errands, you’re worn out and you don’t want to spend hours cooking in the kitchen.
That’s why Sambar Kitchen is an amazing solution for you. Pre-made spices and sauces make it quick, easy and convenient to cook authentic Indian cuisine. The authenticity is in the spices and sauces, which makes them ready to add to any dish, to give it that Indian flair.
With Sambar Kitchen’s authentic Indian sauces and spices, you and your family can have a homemade Indian meal within minutes! We make cooking Indian cuisine, fun, easy and yummy.
Sambar is not only a company that provides all natural ingredient Indian sauces and spices, but it is a movement – encouraging families to eat all natural and healthy! You only have one body. You shouldn’t be filling it with un-natural fillers. It is time you eat tasty food that your body will thank you for.
Shop our all natural ingredients inspired from family recipes today.