50 Fun Facts About Indian Food

Which Delhi restaurant, run by Punjabi refugees from Peshawar, is credited with inventing butter chicken?

Moti Mahal, opened in Delhi's Daryaganj by Kundan Lal Gujral and his partners after Partition in 1947, is credited with inventing butter chicken and with popularising tandoori chicken.

Which slow-cooked Hyderabadi stew of pounded wheat and mutton gained GI status in 2010?

Haleem, a thick Hyderabadi stew of wheat and mutton pounded for hours into a paste, was granted geographical indication status in 2010 and is a Ramadan staple.

How hot can a tandoor oven get?

A tandoor can reach about 480°C, around 900°F. The vase-shaped clay oven is heated by charcoal or wood and kept lit for long stretches.

Tandoori chicken is marinated in spices and what before it goes into the oven?

Yogurt and spices marinate the chicken, often overnight, before it is skewered and roasted in the tandoor; red chilli or food colouring gives the traditional colour.

Biryani is thought to descend from a rice dish from which cuisine?

Biryani's name comes from the Persian birinj biryan, 'fried rice', and the dish is thought to have developed from Persian pilaf in the Mughal court kitchens.

Vindaloo takes its name from a dish brought to Goa by which European colonisers?

The Portuguese brought carne de vinha d'alhos, pork marinated in wine vinegar, to their colony of Goa; vindaloo is the Goan rendering of that Portuguese name.

Rogan josh is a signature dish of which Indian region's cuisine?

It is a mainstay of the wazwan feast and gets its red colour from Kashmiri chillies and alkanet. The name is Persian for oil and stew.

Which cooking technique defines a korma?

Korma is defined by braising with yogurt, stock and spices until the meat is tender; the Mughlai dish was later softened into the mild, creamy korma of British takeaways.

A dosa is a South Indian crepe made from a fermented batter of rice and what?

Lentils, hulled and soaked, are ground with rice and left to ferment overnight, which gives the thin, crisp dosa batter its slight tang.

An idli recipe appears in the Manasollasa, a 1130 CE encyclopedia compiled by a king of which region?

Karnataka: Someshwara III, the Western Chalukya king who ruled from Kalyani in present-day Karnataka, compiled the Manasollasa, whose iddarika recipe is an early ancestor of the idli.

The word samosa comes from an old word, sambosag, meaning what?

Sambosag meant 'triangular pastry'; the stuffed snack travelled into India from Central Asia and the Middle East, and the Arabic sambusak shares the same root.

What is the main difference between the two flatbreads, naan and chapati?

The first is leavened, the second is not: naan rises with yeast or a starter and is baked in a tandoor, while chapati is an unleavened dough of atta and water cooked dry on a griddle.

Chapatis are made from atta, which is milled from what?

Whole wheat: atta is wholemeal flour milled from the entire wheat kernel, bran included, which is kneaded with water and rolled thin for chapatis.

Traditional papadums are made from the flour of which bean?

Black gram, or urad dal, is ground into the flour for traditional papadums, which are rolled thin, dried, then deep-fried or toasted over a flame until crisp.

How is paneer made?

Paneer is made by curdling milk with an acid like lemon juice or vinegar, then pressing the curds; being fresh and unaged, it holds its shape when cooked.

What is ghee?

Ghee is clarified butter: butter simmered until its water evaporates and the milk solids brown and settle, leaving a pure, long-keeping fat that withstands high heat.

What does 'garam masala' literally mean?

Garam masala literally means hot or warm spices: garam is 'hot' or 'warm', a warming effect in Ayurvedic terms rather than chilli heat, and masala is a spice blend.

Masala chai is made by brewing which kind of tea in milk and water with spices?

Black tea, usually strong CTC (crush-tear-curl) Assam leaves, is boiled with milk, water, sugar and spices such as cardamom and cloves to make masala chai.

What are dals?

Dals are dried, split pulses: hulled, halved seeds of legume plants that cook quickly without soaking into the everyday stew that shares their name.

What does the Hindi word 'thali' literally mean?

Thali literally means a plate or tray; the word came to stand for the whole meal of small dishes arranged in bowls on the round metal platter.

By what other names is the street snack pani puri known?

Golgappa and phuchka are the same snack under its northern and eastern names: a hollow fried puri stuffed with a savoury filling and dunked in spiced tamarind or mint water.

Vada pav, a fried potato dumpling in a bread bun, is the most famous street snack of which city?

Mumbai: vada pav, a batter-fried spiced fritter pressed into a soft bread roll with chutneys, is sold from stalls outside the city's railway stations and is claimed as Mumbaikar identity.

Which two Indian states have both won geographical indication status for their versions of the rasgulla?

West Bengal got 'Banglar rosogolla' in 2017 and Odisha 'Odisha rasagola' in 2019, after a long feud over who invented the syrupy cheese ball.

Dhokla, a steamed savoury sponge, is native to which state?

Gujarat: dhokla is made from a fermented batter of rice and split chickpeas, steamed into a spongy cake and tempered with mustard seeds and curry leaves.

Gulab jamun is made mainly from khoya. What is khoya?

The balls are fried at low heat and soaked in syrup flavoured with cardamom and rose water. Gulab means rose.

How is jalebi batter formed before it is fried and soaked in syrup?

Jalebi batter is piped in pretzel-like spirals straight into hot ghee, then the crisp coils are dunked in sugar syrup; the name comes from the Arabic zulabiya.

Kulfi originated in which century, in Mughal-era Delhi?

Kulfi dates to the 16th century, when Mughal court kitchens in Delhi packed sweetened thickened milk flavoured with pistachio and saffron into metal cones and chilled them in ice and saltpetre.

The word chaat comes from a Hindi verb meaning what?

Chaat comes from the Hindi verb chaatna, 'to lick', as in licking your fingers; the tangy snack family is usually traced to the streets of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.

Kheer, or payasam, is what kind of dish?

Kheer is a rice pudding: rice simmered slowly in milk with sugar or jaggery, often with cardamom and nuts; the name comes from the Sanskrit kshira, milk.

Which spice, the dried stigmas of a crocus flower, is farmed at Pampore?

Saffron is the dried stigma of Crocus sativus; each flower yields just three threads, and Pampore near Srinagar grows most of India's crop.

Sambar, the South Indian lentil stew, is cooked with tamarind broth and which pulse?

Pigeon peas, toor dal, are the pulse in sambar: cooked soft, then simmered with tamarind broth, vegetables and a roasted spice blend called sambar podi.

Turmeric belongs to which plant family?

Turmeric belongs to the ginger family, Zingiberaceae; like ginger it grows as a rhizome, which is boiled, dried and ground into the deep yellow powder that colours curry powder.

Which Central American country is a top-three cardamom producer alongside India and Indonesia?

Guatemala became the world's largest cardamom producer after a German planter introduced the Indian spice to its Alta Verapaz highlands before the First World War; almost the whole crop is exported.

Asafoetida, or hing, is used in Indian cooking as a substitute for which two ingredients?

Garlic and onion: asafoetida's sulphurous smell, nicknamed 'devil's dung', mellows in hot oil into a savoury allium-like flavour, which is why Jains and others who avoid alliums rely on it.

The word basmati comes from Sanskrit roots meaning what?

Fragrance present: basmati comes from Sanskrit vasa, fragrance, with a suffix meaning 'having', so the name means 'fragrant'; India's export authority requires a milled grain length of at least 6.61 mm.

In 2007 Guinness World Records certified which Indian chilli as the world's hottest?

Bhut jolokia, the ghost pepper of Assam and Nagaland, topped one million Scoville units when Guinness certified it in 2007; hotter Trinidad and Carolina peppers later took the title.

Which foods did European colonisers introduce to India from the New World?

Tomato, potato and chilli all came from the Americas after Columbus and reached India with European traders; cashew, pineapple, peanut and papaya arrived the same way.

Chicken tikka masala, 'a true British national dish' per Robin Cook, is thought to have been created in which city?

Glasgow: Ali Ahmed Aslam of the Shish Mahal restaurant claimed to have invented it in the 1970s, improvising a creamy spiced sauce for a customer who found his chicken tikka too dry.

The balti, cooked and served in a bucket-shaped bowl, was developed in the 1970s in which English city?

Birmingham: the balti emerged in the 1970s in the city's Pakistani-run restaurants, and the cluster of balti houses around Sparkbrook and Balsall Heath became known as the Balti Triangle.

What do the famous dabbawalas of India's biggest city deliver?

Hot lunches to workplaces: thousands of dabbawalas collect home-cooked tiffins late in the morning, move them by bicycle and train to offices across the city, and return the empty tins by afternoon.

Pav bhaji began as a fast lunch for whom in Mumbai?

Textile mill hands: pav bhaji is said to have begun in the 1850s as a quick lunch for the city's cotton-mill workers, a mashed-vegetable curry cooked on a tawa with plenty of butter.

A Kerala sadya, the Onam feast of two dozen or more dishes, is traditionally served on what?

A banana leaf holds the sadya: each of the two dozen or more dishes has a fixed spot on the leaf, with pickles at the top left, so servers can see what needs topping up.

Bhel puri, Mumbai's favourite beach snack, is built on a base of what?

Puffed rice, murmura, is the base; crunchy puris and sev go on top with chopped vegetables and tamarind and mint chutneys, the whole thing tossed just before eating.

Mysore pak, the fudge-like sweet from Karnataka's royal kitchens, is made mainly from what?

Gram flour, besan, is roasted in ghee and stirred into sugar syrup; palace cook Kakasura Madappa is said to have improvised it for Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV and named it on the spot.

Litti, a roasted wheat ball stuffed with roasted chickpea flour, is a staple of which state?

Bihar: litti chokha, wheat balls filled with sattu served with a mash of roasted aubergine, is the state's signature dish, also eaten across eastern Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.

The Tamil rice dish pongal, cooked for the harvest festival of the same name, literally means what?

Pongal means 'to boil over' in Tamil: as the milk rises in the pot, onlookers shout 'Pongalo pongal!'; venn pongal is savoury and sakkarai pongal is sweetened with jaggery.

Bebinca, the 'queen of Goan desserts', is traditionally baked with how many layers?

Traditionally 7 to 16 layers: each layer of coconut-milk, egg-yolk and flour batter is grilled before the next is poured on, which is why this Goan Christmas cake takes hours.

Which Maharashtrian moth-bean curry was named the world's tastiest vegetarian dish in 2015?

Misal pav from Aaswad restaurant in Dadar won the Foodie Hub world award for tastiest vegetarian dish in 2015; the spicy moth-bean usal is topped with farsan and eaten with bread rolls.

Lassi, the Punjabi yogurt drink, is traditionally served in a clay cup called what?

Kulhar: the unglazed, disposable clay cup, also used for chai, lends lassi an earthy note; in Punjab the drink was traditionally made from water-buffalo milk.

Fans of poha, the flattened-rice breakfast, celebrate International Poha Day on which date?

7 June is marked as World Poha Day, especially in Indore, whose steamed poha is famous; the flakes are made by parboiling, drying and rolling rice.