Indian Recipes
351 recipes found
Sri Lankan Dal With Coconut and Lime Kale
"Red lentils are the king of weekday cooking," said Meera Sodha, the British cookbook author. In this robust dish, she turns to quick-cooking red lentils, deepening their flavor with fried green chiles, garlic and ginger. It's not traditional to serve the kale on top, but it turns a simple dish into a luxurious, complete meal: Just add hot rice and a spoonful of yogurt on the side.
Gajar Halwa (Carrot and Cardamom Pudding)
The recipe for this Indian dessert comes from the North Carolina chef Cheetie Kumar, and it instantly transports her to her mother’s kitchen around Diwali, the air rich with the aroma of fragrant carrots, caramelized milk and cardamom. The carrots are cooked down to be incredibly tender, but they still maintain some texture; the milk becomes jammy. If eaten warm, it’s like a really decadent warm cereal or oatmeal; if served cold, it’s like rice pudding, cool and sweet. The crunch of the toasted nuts make it the perfect meal-ender or tea time snack. If your carrots are bland, increase the sugar accordingly; the sweetness of the carrots makes a huge difference in the finished pudding. Some people prefer a looser halwa, but Ms. Kumar loves the caramelized notes that emerge when the pudding is cooked a little longer.
Bhatti da Murgh (Indian Grilled Chicken With Whole Spices)
Adapted from the chef Chintan Pandya of Adda Indian Canteen in Long Island City, Queens, this fiery, aromatic recipe calls for marinating whole chicken legs in yogurt, ginger-garlic paste and ground spices, then coating them in cracked whole spices before roasting. The ground spices imbue the meat with flavor while the whole spices add pungency and a wonderful crunch. At Adda, Mr. Pandya cooks these in a tandoor. But you can roast them in your oven, or cook them on the grill using indirect heat and a baking sheet. In either case, brushing the sizzling chicken skin with plenty of melted butter is the key to its rich taste and burnished crispness.
Cauliflower, Cashew, Pea and Coconut Curry
While this curry from Meera Sodha’s cookbook “Made in India” is rooted in tradition and complexly flavored, it’s also easy enough for a weeknight. She transforms cauliflower from a humble vegetable to a rich centerpiece with the addition of cashews, coconut, fresh ginger and a flurry of spices you’re likely to have in your pantry. Serve with rice for an exceptionally good vegan supper.
Tomato and Fennel-Seed Pickle
Though mango and lime pickles are easy to find on the shelves of Indian grocery stores, home cooks in India pickle all varieties of fruits and vegetables, including tomato. India’s pickle queen, Usha Prabakaran, documented this tomato pickle, flavored with a generous amount of fennel seeds. It’s capable of adding flavor and heat to breakfast, lunch or dinner. Asafoetida has a pungent smell out of the jar, but mellows as it cooks and gives the pickle its personality — don’t skip it!
Chakundari Chicken Tikka
Roasted Cauliflower, Paneer and Lentil Salad
The Indian cheese paneer doesn’t typically show up in salads, but this one from food writer Nik Sharma’s cookbook, “Season,” involves cutting paneer into cubes and roasting it alongside cauliflower for about 25 minutes (though doing so for longer wouldn’t hurt). Paneer maintains its structure in heat, so its skin will come out of the oven charred, its insides still soft. You’ll stir the paneer and cauliflower with green and black lentils, cooked and drained, and scallions, resulting in a pleasing jumble of textures. Drizzle it with a cilantro-lime dressing, which gives the salad a tart kick.
Sambhar Masala
Raghavan Iyer, the author of "The Turmeric Trail" and teacher who was born in Mumbai and came to the United States as a young man, says there as many sambhar masalas as there are kitchens in south India. The spice mix is used to flavor sambhar, the ubiquitous thin stew of Southern India. If you can’t find the curry leaves, you can leave them out, but it’s worth it to search out a South Asian or international grocery or order some online. Use it in curries, stir-fries or simple dishes of roasted or grilled vegetables. It can be rubbed onto meat before grilling or stirred into mashed potatoes enriched with melted butter. The recipe can easily be doubled and keeps well. Do not refrigerate as it will cake.
Spicy Grilled Chicken With Tomato-Cucumber Relish
Chicken thighs meet with a mellow mix of Indian spices and are grilled into weekend dinner excellence. In Indian cooking, most spices are toasted before they’re used, a process that brings up their aromatics and mellows and rounds their flavors. Here they’re then rubbed onto chicken thighs and grilled, which gives them an additional smokiness that pairs beautifully with the tomato-and-cucumber relish.
Chicken Tikka
Traditionally, Indian chicken tikka — skewered boneless chicken pieces that have been marinated in assertive spices and cooling yogurt — is cooked in a clay tandoor oven, stacking layers of smoke upon layers of spice. But this murgh tikka recipe from Chintan Pandya, the chef and a partner at Unapologetic Foods, a New York restaurant group that runs Masalawala & Sons, Dhamaka, Semma and Adda Indian Canteen, captures the essence of the dish with the convenience of an oven. Juicy chicken thighs are marinated twice: The first marinade is a quick 10-minute rest in salt, vinegar and ginger-garlic paste, while the second is a 3- to 4-hour dip in yogurt punctuated with deggi mirch (a vibrant red chile powder), garam masala and turmeric. Don’t expect the yogurt to mute the flavors: It adds a level of creaminess, but the spices dominate this dish. — Alexa Weibel
Cucumber and Chili Raita
Curried Summer Squash Soup With Yuba and Cilantro
Butter Chicken
Butter chicken is a great, ever-evolving, cross-continental dish found in Delhi, London, New York, Perth and most points in between. In its purest form, it is yogurt-and-spice-marinated chicken dressed in a velvety red bath comprising butter, onions, ginger and tomatoes scented with garam masala, cumin and turmeric, with a cinnamon tang. This version was adapted from Amandeep Sharma, a young kitchen hand at the restaurant Attica, in Melbourne, Australia, who used to make it for staff meal. It is wildly luxurious. Serve with basmati rice and mango chutney, with papadums or naan if you can find them, with extra rice if you cannot.
Tandoori Steak
Tandoori Mushrooms
Cucumber Raita
Serve this raita as a refreshing side dish with grains or with any curry. Or enjoy it on its own for lunch.
Tomato Salad on Cumin-Spiced Yogurt
This simple tomato salad is ready in minutes, and works best with a mix of ripe tomatoes from the market that are delicious enough to eat raw. Layered on cumin-spiced yogurt, and slathered in a bright herb dressing, it’s hearty enough to have as a late summer meal with a piece of grilled bread. The recipe comes from chef Preeti Mistry, who ran a restaurant in Oakland called Juhu Beach Club, inspired by her unique experience as an Indian-American born in London to Asian parents from East Africa, raised in the American Midwest, who was cheffing in northern California.
Green-Tomato Chutney
Sabut Raan (Roast Leg of Lamb)
This recipe for a whole roasted leg of lamb comes from the cookbook author Sameen Rushdie, who wrote "Indian Cookery," the classic published in Great Britain in 1988. On Sundays, after a matinee at the Metro Cub Club in Bombay, the Rushdie family often sat down to a special lunch of roast lamb. In this version, the yogurt marinade turns into a rich sauce as it mixes with the braising liquid in the oven. Ms. Rushdie still turns to the dish as the centerpiece of a dinner party, because it can be set up ahead of time and cooked in the oven. The leg is trimmed of all fat, so it’s important to keep it moist: For the first couple of hours of cooking, keep it covered, with some water in the pan, then uncover and let the surface brown a little at the end.
Curried Cauliflower, Potatoes and Peas
Spicy-Sour Potatoes With Cumin
Mustard Peas (Rai Walli Mattar)
Grilled Skirt Steak With Smoky Eggplant Chutney
This crusty, succulent steak is flavored with a powerful mixture of coriander, cumin, mustard seed, chile powder and cinnamon. Take care not to overcook the meat; rare to medium rare guarantees tender beef. For even more flavor, serve the steak with a smoky eggplant chutney, which comes together quickly.
