The South Indian food is loved by folks because of their simple preparation techniques and the nutrition value which remains intact in their recipes. You can prepare quickly some South Indian recipes without compromising the taste, aroma and nutrition of food. All you need is to arrange the ingredients of the required recipes. Remember, the South Indian Food are very much taste oriented and if you minus one ingredient, perhaps there may be some chance of mission the origin flavor of it. For example a lot people prepare dosa a popular dish of south India without fenugreek seeds in them which reduce the taste of the dosa to a large extent.

Here are few simple yet healthy recipes of South India Food which you can prepare in your home in no time.

Carrot Rice

This is a yummy dish of South India Cuisine and served as quick breakfast or lunch at homes.

The ingredients:
2 cups of basmati rice cooked well. 1 cup of fresh carrot grated and 1 onion chopped finely. 2 green chillies, ½ cuped boiled peas, 1 tabsp urad dal, 1 tbsp cashew nuts, 1 tbsp mustard seeds, salt to taste, ½ tbsp red chilly powder, ½ tbsp turmeric powder, 4 tbsp lemon juice, coriander leaves, oil for cooking and little bit of cumin.

Take a shallow pan and heat 2 tbspoon of oil. Add the mustard seeds, when they strart spluttering add the urad dal and cashew nuts. Sauté the mixture in oil in low flame till they are brown in color and add turmeric powder, chilly powder, and salt. Now mix the grated carrot and boiled peas and sprinkle with water. Keep the pan cover in low flame till the carrots are tender. Now add lemon juice and add the boiled rice to the pan. With a cooking spoon mix the rice well with the stuff in the pan. Cook for another 3-4 minutes in medium flame. Garnish with coriander leaves. The delicious carrot rice is ready.

Chettinad Chicken

This chicken recipe is very popular throughout India because of its preparation style and nutrition value.

The ingredients:
1 kg of chicken washed can cut into bite pieces. Ginger garlic paste, 2 onions chopped, 1 ½ tsp black peppercorns, 1 ½ tsp white poppy seeds, 2 tsp coriander powder, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 2 twigs of curry leaves, 2 tbsp fennel seeds, 4 green chillies, salt to taste, 1 tbsp turmeric powder, 1 tbsp chilly powder, cooking oil, 1 tomato mashed properly and coriander leaves for garnishing.

Smear the chicken pieces in salt, turmeric powder, chilly powder and little oil properly. Heat the oil in a large shallow pan, add cumin seeds, fennel seeds, chopped onion, and fry till they are brown in color. Add the black peppercorns, poppy seeds, green chilies, curry leaves to it and sauté the spices properly. Keep the mixture aside and now add the remaining onion and ginger garlic paste to the oil and fry till they are brown in color. Add the smashed tomato, coriander powder, sauted spices, and rest of powders of turmeric and chilly. Mix the mixture well and if require sprinkle water over it. Now add the chicken and add salt for taste. Fry the mixture in medium flame for at least 6 minutes. Pour some amount of water and cover the lid of the pan and cook for 15 minutes. The gravy would turn almost dry. When the chicken becomes tender and the gravy quite thick put off the flame and cover the lid for another 5 minutes. The Chettinad chicken is ready to be served with hot bun or rice.

Here is a Shahi Mughlai Dish of Delhi and other North Indian places which is in great demand among food buffs.

Biryani Badshahi Recipe

Ingredients:
720 gm of mutton finely cut into bite pieces, 400 gm of rice parboiled, 4 tbsp lime juice, 10 blanched almonds, ½ tbsp mint leaves, 1 cup butter, 1 handful of chopped coriander leaves, ½ tbsp cumin seeds, 1 large sliced onion, 3-4 cardamom, 3 tbsp oil, 5-6 pods of garlic, 3-4 cloves, ginger finely grated, ½ tbsp saffron, 2-3 green chillies chopped, 1 cinnamon, ½ kg curd, 130 mg milk, 4 cups of water.

Wash the rice and boil it in a cooker. Soak the saffron in water. Now fry the sliced onions in the oil till they are brown in color. Put it aside. Fry the garlic, ginger, red chillies and almonds in fresh butter, add mutton to it and salt and stir the mixture well. Add little amount of friend onions to it. Now add water and cook on low flame till the meat is tender and some thick gravy is left. Put curd in a muslin cloth and let the water to drain away. Mix the cardamom, cumin seed, min leaves, chopped chillies, coriander in the drained curd. Strain the saffron water and add lemon juice to it. Add all these to the mutton on the pan and mix well. Now sprinkle half of the boiled rice and spread a layer of friend onion and then the rest of rice over it again. Pour the milk and some butter over it. Cover the vessel and seal the edges with flour paste. Place the can on flame for about 45 minutes. The Shahi Badshahi Biryani is ready for serving.

The other popular Shahi Mughlai dishes of Delhi and North India are – Murg Noorjehani recipe, Shahi Chicken Korma, Nehari, Bakra Tandoor Tangri and others. They are richly prepared with large amounts of butter, clarified butter and other ingredients.

Paneer Butter Masala

What you would require? 
300 gm of paneer, 2 onions chopped (blanched and pureed), ½ cup butter, 2 tbsp coriander powder, 4 tbsp tomato puree, 1 tablespoon garlic-ginger paste, 2 tbsp cashew nuts, 1 tbsp turmeric powder, 2 tbsp kashmiri chilli powder, 1 tbsp garam masala, 1 cup fresh cream and salt for taste.

Cut the paneer into cubes and fry them. Now put them in hot water to keep them soft. Heat butter in a kadai and add the onion puree and sauté till they are light brown in colour. Now add the garlic-ginger paste and sauté for some time. The add kashmiri chilly powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, cashew nuts, tomatoe puree, garam masla and salt. Add little amount of water and sauté.

Now add the paneer cubes and add required amount of water. Cook till the gravy turns semi solid or quite thick. Finally garnish with fresh cream and the paneer butter masala is ready to be served with hot rotis.

Shahi Paneer

What you would require? 
300 gm cheese cut into cubes of bite size. Two onions chopped, 1 tablespoon garlic-ginger paste, 2 green chillies, ¾ tablespoon of turmeric powder, 1 tbsp garam masala, ½ cup cream, ¼ cup dry fruits, ½ tbsp white pepper powder, 1 tbsp red chilly powder, 10 tbsp vegetable oil, ½ cup milk and salt to taste.

Fry paneer in a frying pan till they are light brown in color. Now put them in hot water so that they remain soft. Sauté the dry fruits in the remaining oil in the frying pan. Make a fine paste of onion, garlic-ginger paste, and green chilly in a blender. Fry the mixture in oil and sauté till they are light brown in color. Lower the flame and add white pepper, turmeric powder, red chilly powder, garam masala, and salt. Saute the mixture again for 1 or 2 minutes. Pour the milk, dry fruits and heat till the gravy is thick. Cook on a low flame and then add the paneer cubes. Heat the paneer on the gravy for another 2 minutes. Now add the cream over it. The shahi paneer is ready to serve. Garnish with more dry fruits and serve it with tandori rotis.

Non-Vegetarian Specialty of India: A few Mouthwatering Recipes

Chicken Changezi

This dish is basically a Mughlai dish which is still prepared in the many restaurants of Old Delhi streets, Ajmer in Rajasthan and in some places in Punjab. It would take hardly 30-45 minutes to prepare this dish. You would require collecting all the ingredients and then starting preparing the dish.

Ingredients:
A full undressed chicken cut in fine bite pieces. 4 onions chopped, 2 tablespoon curry powder, ½ cup butter, cooking oil, 1 cup cream, ½ tbsp chilly sauce, 1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste, coriander leaves, chicken masala, garam masala, 2 green chillies and salt for taste.

First put the chicken in a pressure cooker, add some amount of turmeric powder, a bit of salt and coriander leaves. Boil the chicken with two whistles by pressure cooker. Keep the pressure cooker aside and take a large frying pan. Put the half cup of butter and fry the onions till they are little brownish in colour. Now add the paste of garlic-ginger and add all the masalas. Mix the ingredients well and pour 1 cup of water into it. Chop the green chillies and add on the mixture. Cook the mixture for 5 minutes in low steam. When the mixture becomes thick add the chicken from the pressure and mixture the changez well. Add salt to the required amount and pour ½ cup of water on it. Cook for another 10 minutes in low steam. The chicken changezi is ready to be served with hot rotis.

Lamb Dry

Ingredients:
lamb leg cut into bite pieces. Yoghurt, salt to taste, turmeric powder, ghee or butter ½ cup, 1 tbsp chilly powder, ½ tbsp cumin powder, ½ tbsp coriander powder, 2 tomatoes chopped, garam masala 2 tbsp, garlic ginger paste 3 tbspn, 1 big onion chopped.

Mix the lamb pieces with yoghurt and turmeric powder and keep aside for 40 minutes. After 40 heat the ghee in a kadai and add the onion and garlic-ginger paste. Fry them in low steam till they are brownish in colour. Add lamb meat and cook for 10 minutes in medium heat. Add the other ingredients into it except the garam masala and cover and simmer the mixture till the lamb meat is tender. Now add the garam masala and cover it for another 4-5 minutes. Now the lamb dry is ready for serving it with toasted buns.

If there are food items which are traditional to India as well as they have the touch of foreign lands then it has to be the sea-food. Because no other food item prepared in India style has any sort of similarity with western country. But the other recipes have similarity with food prepared in neighboring countries like – Afghanistan (Afghani Chicken), Pakistan (Chicken Chengezi), Nepal (Rice puddings), Bangladesh (Rice and Fish Curries). Thus Indian food with foreign touch is exclusively the sea-food.

Foreign style food prepared in restaurants is not talked about. The food which people of India eat in general is talked about. And the sea food recipes are some which have some amount of foreign touch in them like baking, roasting and use of sauce along with them. Here are few recipes of sea food with foreign touch.

Baked Oyster

You need:
½ cup butter, 2 stalks celery, ½ cup floor, ½ cup sweet green peas, 2 cups of oyster juice, 2 cups of milk, 1 pie shell, 2 tbspoon Red pimiento (Charred) and salt and pepper for taste.

Cut the celery stalks and green pepper into dices. Drain the oysters. Store the oysters and juice. Heat the butter in a pan. Add diced celery and green pepper. Stir it with flour and cook it for 5 minutes. Keep the prepared stuff aside. Mix the milk with oyster juice and cook the mixture till it turns thick. Add salt and pepper. Add the red pimiento and oyster juice. Stir well; pour the mixture into a greased dish. Top the mixture with pie shells. Bake them at 375 degrees till they are golden brown in color. Your baked oyster is ready.

Cheese Prawn

You need:
50 gm of cheese, ¼ kg of prawns (deveined and boiled), 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tbsp chilly sauce, 3 boiled potatoes boiled and mashed,, ¾ mustard sauce, 1 tbsp Soya sauce, ½ tbsp salt, ¾ tbsp pepper powder, 1 tomato chopped, 1 onion chopped and fresh green coriander leaves chopped into fine fishes.

Mix the cheese sauce with prawns. Add the mustard sauce, chilly sauce, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Mix the mashed potatoes and mixture well. Take a baking dish and grease it well with butter. Pour the mixture of potatoes and sauce in it and garnish it with onion and tomatoes. Add the prawns mixed with cheese sauce. Bake it in oven in 200 degree centigrade for 5 minutes. Your cheese prawn dish is ready to be served. Top the plate with coriander leaves and serve it with toasted buns.

An archetypal Bengali considers food an important aspect of daily life. That’s why you will find Bengali food full of variety and having the essence of freshness and experimentation to make them better and best. Fish, Meat, Mix Vegetables, Sweet dishes and other food items are debated and discussed well among Bengali intellectuals. The housewives and cooks of Bengali recipes spend enormous time in their kitchens to prepare delicious dishes. The Bengali recipes are known for their variety. They make perfect combination of all types of vegetables, leafy green vegetables, some raw fruits like raw mango, raw papaya, and dry fruits to prepare different types of recipes.

What again differentiates Bengali recipes from other recipes in India is their extensive use of mustard oil for cooking. Health wise mustard oil is also a good oil to cook and it adds a different kind of flavor to the food cooked. The use of spices too differs, that is they use the same spices which are used throughout India, but their application is different. The specialty of all types of Bengali cooking lies in the use of a particular mixture of spices called Panchphoron, a mixture of five spices – zeea, saunf, fenugreek, mustard seeds, and kalaunji. They also mix some sweet flavors in some recipes for incredible taste and color. Sugar added to mutton recipes or chicken recipes of Bengali provides a very good color to the gravy.

The staple diet of any Bengali is rice, sabji, dal and fish. They prepare different types of fish recipes to relish with rice. A discrete flavor is instructed to the fishes by frying them in mustard oil. They fry the fishes deep brown till they become something crunchy.  Then they cook the fishes in gravy. Whatever you eat, the typical Bengali dishes end with sweets – either misti dahi or rasogolla.

If you ever go into a Bengali market, you will find the fish market crowded with different types of fishes and sea food like – carp, hilsa, salmon, rohu, bhekti, magur, prawns, koi, lataya, singe and other types of nutritious and delicious fishes.

Here is a recipe:

Bengali Style Mutton Dry

You would require:
500 gm mutton for 4 servings, minced garlic cloves, 2 onions finely chopped and blended with garlic and ginger in a blender, turmeric powder, chilly powder, garam masala, meat masala, 1 cup curd, 2 bay leaves, 1 cup mustard oil, salt to taste, and tomato finely mashed.

Before you start the dry mutton recipe, put the mutton into a pressure cooker cutting them into bite pieces and put over the flame till you hear 7-8 whistles. Now put the pressure aside. Take the pan and heat the oil and sauté the mixture of onion-garlic-ginger till the color turns brownish. Add the mashed tomato and sauté in low steam for 2-3 mnutes. Now add all the types of masalas and sauté for another 2 minutes. Add little water to it and sauté for 1 minute. Open the cooker and add the mutton on the frying pan. Add salt of required amount. Add little water and mix them well with the mutton. Cover it and cook for 10 minutes in medium steam. The mutton dry is ready to be served with sauce or toasted bun.

Life without sweetness is boring. Sweets have always been the integral part of Indian cuisine. Perhaps no where in the world you would come across such a variety of sweets that are predominantly available in every nook and corner of the market streets in India. Along with chat-patas the sweet is another favorite item for evening snacks as well as after meal servings. The sweet dishes are different from Western dishes in the sense they are prepared never with the concept of calorie but taste and richness. They aid in digestion and are normally consumed after taking a good meal.

An Indian meal almost remains incomplete without the sweet dishes. Here are few recipes of popular Indian sweets which are available in all corners of the country.

Khir

Ingredients you would require:
milk 2 liters, 4 tablespoon of sugar, 200 gm of pure basmati rice, few raisins, dry fruits, sliced almonds, chopped cahew nuts, a little bit of permitted color if required and bay leaves.

Heat the milk in a large pan and simmer it till it reduces to 3 quarters of its original volume. Now add the rice on it and let it get cooked for 10 minutes. The milk volume will be now reduced to half. Add sugar and heat for 1 minute. It is time to add the bay leaves, raisins, cashew nuts, almonds and dry fruits. Keep stirring while you put the ingredients in the khir. Cook for another 3-4 minutes. The khir is ready. But don’t serve it hot. Khir is usually served when it is cold and the taste of cold khir is very captivating after a good meal.

Rosogulla

Ingredients you would require:
1 kg of cottage cheese, sugar 1 kg, water 1 ½ liters, ghee 5 tablespoons, semolina 2 tbsp, standard-flour 2 tbsp, rose water few drops and cardamom powder. Sometimes permitted color and flavors are also used.

How to Prepare Rosogulla?

Pour the water in a deep pan and add sugar. Boil the mixture for 20-30 minutes till the volume is reduced to ¾.  Put aside the syrup prepared. Now it is time to prepare the rosogulla balls. Take a mid size bowl which can hold the cottage cheese. Add the cottage cheese to ghee, standard flour, semolina, and cardamom powder. Mix the entire ingredients together fine that they form dough. It must be soft enough to make the balls. Knead the prepared dough evenly until your palm becomes oily.

Now you can make the balls of rosogolla using the dough. Make the balls not less than 1 ½ inches of diameter. Add the prepared balls in the sugar syrup and get them cooked again for another 20-30 minutes. Now you will notice the balls turning spongy. Put off the flame and let it cool. After 15 minutes you should add the rose water to it. The rosogullas are ready to be served after one hour.

Indeed the place is known for their variety of vegetarian food styles. Whether you talk of Lapsi which is wheat porridge or the ‘bhujia-roti’ combination, you have something to stuff in your mouth without any sort of hesitation. If you wish to learn about the taste of Rajasthan and its vivid culture which is reflected in the dishes, read the book on Rajasthan Cuisin by Maharani Gayatri Devi.

Rajasthani food is mostly known for the cooking in Royal Kitchens. Food here is a serious business because of the tourists flooding the state almost all the year round. The cooking here has its unique flavor and they use the simplest ingredients in them. Gram flour is widely used in some delicacies like Pakoda, Ghatta ki Sabji, Khata and others. They use bajra and corn to make bread (rotis). The place is also known for Khichri a particular dish prepared by ingredients like – rice, vegetables, ginger, spices, and some amount of butter. Rajasthan is also known for richly snacks like – ‘Daal-Moth’, Papad, Chips and Bhujia.

Here are few things which you always find in Rajasthan:

Lassi

This is natural yoghurt which is churned to remove the butter and make Lassi (buttermilk) a cool beverage served in summer.

Rajasthani Dal-Bati-Churma

This is a common food of Rajasthani people. Daal-Bati is cooked lentils and roasted balls of dough which is accompanies by pickle berries cooked in different methods. The Churma is a sweet dish made of jaggery or sugar in ghee. For taste and variety some ingredients like coconut, khoya and resins are also used.

Frying Puris and Chola

This is also a Punjabi favorite snack. Grams are soaked in water and later on cooked to a delicious stuffy recipe called chola masala which is served with fried white thin breads that puff like balloons when they are put on hot boiling oil in big pans.

The other common things which you would be able to taste in Rajasthan are – sweets having some spicy flavors, jalebis, mithais, faldas and glass of milk served with thick cream.

India is a country which has a history of more than 3000 years and this place has been home to different sects of people from time to time – Buddhists, Hindus (Aryans, Dravidians), Muslims, and many other religions like Sikhism, Jainism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and to name a few. They all dictated food habits to people and the result is present day variety and richness of Indian regional foods.

There are many styles of cooking in India- somewhere there is high use of underground vegetative products like – onion, garlic, and ginger; while at some other regions people avoid them with the belief that such food items increase body heat and keep your head hot all time. From the lap of Himalayas in the North to the Southern tip of Coasts; from the Western Deserts to the Eastern hills you will find hundreds of region style of cooking in India. They are the reflection of their culture, climate, geography and people. But one thing which is very much common to almost all types of cuisines is the use of aromatic and flavor filled spices for which India has been known from times immemorial.

Kashmiri Cuisine

The valley which is often called the Heaven of India leaves you spellbound not only with its scenic beauty, Shikaras (large boated houses), and the brightening ice caps on the mountain; the cuisine of the place also leaves a long lasting impression in your mind. The place is known for some traditional style of Mughal cooking. The people mostly eat here meat of lamb, mountain goats, chicken, mutton, and to some extent buffalo-meat also. The place is known for Rogan Josh, Ristas, and mouth watering deserts like ‘firni’ and green tea called kawah. The dishes here are very rich, nutritious and reminiscent of the history of the place.

Maharastrian Cuisine

Mumbai or the famous Bombay has been the financial powerhouse of India and the second largest film Industry in the world. But the city is a bustling paradise for tourists and people because of the famous Maharashtrian cuisine and the famous Dubbawalas. You find food from very ethnic and regional culture to the eclectic and electrifying international culture. The famous dishes of the place are – Upma, Saar, Modaks, Sabudana Wada, Puranpolu, Vaara Paw, and other types of recipes. You have a comfort while you relish the deserts of the place. Mumbai is one of the renowned places in the world for sea-food.

The other famous regional cuisines of India are Kerala Delite, Tamilian Cuisine, Hyderabadi Cuisine, Bengali Cuisine, Assamese Cuisine, and Punjabi and Delhi cuisine, Rajasthani Cuisine and to name a few which have the vigor and versatility of cooking.

The Indian style of chicken curry has found its place in the menu of internationally acclaimed chef’s recipe books too. India boasts not of single type of chicken curry, but the place is known for its variety of styles of chicken curries. The chicken curry of north is different from East; the West is different from the South and so on and so forth. But there are some recipes which are common to all Indians and they are heartily relished by people all over the world for the taste and richness of nutrition.

Here is a famous and delicious recipe of chicken curry which you can prepare in your home.

Butter Chicken:

You Need:

750 gm of boneless chicken or chicken made into fine pieces. 200 gm of butter, 2 tablespoon of lime juice, ½ cup plain yoghurt, ½ cup cream, 2 tablespoon peanut oil, I big onion chopped, 1 cup tomato puree, 1-1/2 tablespoon Cayenne Pepper, salt for taste, 1 tsp chilly powder, 1 tsp cumin grounded, 1 tsp cornstarch, ginger garlic paste, 2 tsp garam masala (powder of spices like cloves, cardamom, etc.), 1 tsp chicken masala and required amount of water.

Heat 2 tsp of peanut oil and add the chopped onion in medium heat till the color turns light brown. Now add the butter, lemon juice, garlic ginger paste, garam masala, chicken masala, chilly powder, cumin, bay leaf, into the mixture and stir the mixture for one minute. Mix till the aroma comes quite hard. Now add the tomato puree and cook for another 2 minutes. It’s time to add yoghurt and cream to this mixture and mix them well. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes. Add salt, black pepper and cayenne to this mixture and remove the pan.

Now take one large frying pan and pour the remaining peanut oil on it. Cry the washed chicken on the oil till it is brownish in color. Reduce the heat and add all the masalas that are left. Put 1/3rd of the persuaded sauce prepared into ti and cook till the liquid becomes more viscous. Now add the rest of the sauce and add required amount of water into it. Cook till the liquid gets reduced and there is thick gravy in the pan. Remove the pan from heat and put little amount of butter and cream over the prepared curry. The butter chicken is ready.