Indian Food Vocabulary

with illustrated vocabulary, word definitions and example sentences

Photo: Indian cuisine, with appetizers, meat and vegetable dishes, flatbreads and steamed rice

When thinking of Indian food, many people think of curries and rice. But there's much more to Indian food than this. There are dozens of regional Indian cuisines, each with its own special dishes. To make it easier to understand Indian cuisine, it's often divided into two main types; North Indian and South Indian. In many cases they use different cooking methods, different ingredients, and even different spices. For example, wheat-flour flatbreads are common in the North while in the South rice is more common. This is because North Indian food was greatly influenced by Middle Eastern cuisines of the Islamic Mughal Empire in which flatbreads were the staple foods, while South Indian food is more like traditional Hindu cuisine of ancient India in which rice was the staple food.

Ordering and etiquette

Three of the world's major religions - Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism - developed in ancient India, and Islam was introduced when North India was conquered by the Mughal Empire in 1526. Each of these religions has its own set of rules about food, and because Indian meals usually include many dishes that are shared, ordering is complicated if people of different religions are eating together. In Hinduism the cow is a sacred animal, so most Hindus don't eat beef. Eating pigs is strictly forbidden in Islam, and most Muslims also refuse to eat other animals unless they're killed in a certain way. Jains never eat meat of any sort, and many don't eat onions, potatoes or garlic either, while many Buddhists also prefer a vegetarian diet. In fact, it might be best to let others order an Indian meal unless you know everyone's religion, or unless you're only ordering vegetarian dishes that everyone can eat like potato and cauliflower aloo gobi or a simple dish like dal that only contains lentils and spices.

Using the fingers to eat is common in India, and foreigners are welcome to eat this way too. But if you eat with your fingers, you must never touch the food with your left hand. Hold it between the fingertips of your right hand or scoop it up with a piece of flatbread. Try to eat without putting your fingers in your mouth or licking them. Wash them instead in one of the small bowls of water on the table.

Appetizers

Even though Indian meals aren't normally served in separate courses like European meals, many Indian restaurants now list their dishes in this way. They offer traditional Indian snack foods as appetizers. These can include deep-fried pakoras of various kinds such as vegetable pakoras and cheese-filled paneer pakoras. Paneer is an Indian cheese similar to cottage cheese, and if you see this word in a dish's name it means it contains this cheese. Other popular snack foods now served as appetizers include deep-fried bhajis and samosas of various kinds, some with a meat filling and others with a vegetable filling. Many Indian restaurants also serve kebabs as an appetizer these days.

Main courses

Most restaurants in India serve main course dishes from one region only, but Indian restaurants in other countries usually serve dishes from both North and South India. North Indian dishes include many that came from Mughal cuisine like korma in which meat or vegetables are braised with yoghurt or cream, and many that are cooked in a large clay-pot oven called a tandoor. These include roasted tandoori chicken and a dish called chicken tikka in which marinated pieces of boneless chicken are grilled on a skewer inside a tandoor oven. Pieces of chicken tikka are also used in a spicy North Indian curry called chicken tikka masala that's often flavoured with a mix of spices called garam masala.

Tandoor ovens are also used for baking thin, round flatbreads like tandoori roti as well as thicker, longer flatbreads like nan and its popular variants garlic nan and the spicy lamb-filled keema nan. Not all Indian flatbreads are baked, however. Many are fried in shallow pans, including plain roti or chapati, a staple food that's often topped with Indian butter or ghee. Another is paratha which can be plain or stuffed with vegetables or paneer. Flatbreads like these are made with wheat flour, a staple in the North, while the South's very thin and crisp papadums are usually made from lentil flour instead.

The pancake-like dosa is also from South India, as are main course dishes like madras curry and many other curries made with a wide range of ingredients. Curries in the South are eaten with rice rather than bread, and rice is also found in biryani dishes between layers of chicken, mutton, beef, fish or mixed vegetables. Rice is also cooked along with meat or vegetables in a spicy broth to make many kinds of pilau. Biryani and pilau dishes are good choices if you don't like food that's too hot and spicy, but if you love spicy food, try a hot vindaloo curry and you should be satisfied.

While sharing dishes is normal when a group of people eat Indian food, it's also possible to order a meal for one person. You can do this by ordering a food platter called a thali. Both meat-based and vegetarian thalis are available, and they usually include a main dish like korma or curry as well as some dal, a hot chutney and some cooling yoghurt plus rice and rotis or papadums. And you'll also get some dessert, of course.

Desserts and Indian drinks

There are hundreds of delicious Indian desserts, and most restaurants serve quite a few. Some of the most popular are a soft pudding made with coconut or banana or carrot called halva, a creamy rice and milk pudding called payasam, and a very sweet dessert called gulab jamun in which soft dough-like balls are soaked in a sugary syrup. But the most popular dessert of all is probably a very rich traditional Indian ice-cream called kulfi. It comes in many flavours, and if you get the chance try one of the more traditional ones like rose, saffron, cardamom, mango or pistachio.

Indian meals are best enjoyed with traditional Indian drinks. In hot weather cool drinks like coconut water, a palm nectar drink called neera and the spicy jal-jeera are popular. In cold weather a cup of hot tea or chai that's made with milk, sugar and spices is a good choice. A great drink for all seasons is a yoghurt shake called lassi. You can order sweet lassi, salty lassi or a fruit lassi like the very popular mango lassi.

Illustrated Indian Cuisine

aloo gobi

chapatis

chicken biryani

chicken tikka masala

dal

garam masala

garlic nan

ghee

halva

Indian spices

lamb pilau

madras curry with lamb

mango lassi

masala dosa

onion bhajis

papadums

paneer parathas

potato pakoras

samosas

tandoor or tandoor oven

tandoori chicken

a thali

vegetable korma

vindaloo paste