Before we arrived in India, Troy and I were discussing if we should go vegetarian while we are here. There are a few reasons to why we wanted to do this, and the main reason is to try and not get sick while we are here. I know that this is probably enviable but I think there’s more of a chance of getting sick by eating the meat than if we don’t. I have been trying to eat lest meat back home so for myself I didn’t think this would be too much of an issue, however Troy loves his meat so I thought he might struggle a bit. The best thing about India and going vegetarian is all the dishes are so yummy, you really don’t need to eat meat.
Most Indian’s don’t eat meat but you can see from the menus (especially in the larger areas like Delhi, Mumbai, Goa, and Jaipur) that they cater for the Westerns. There is always a non veg version on the menu for those who cant live without meat and plenty of seafood in the south regions. From what I have seen so far some of the curries are a little different to back home – but still delicious – and this might be because we are in different regions (also because I don’t usually order vegetarian options from Indian restaurants back home) but for Delhi, the Uttar Pradesh region (where Agra is) and the Rajasthan region, they include a lot of cottage cheese (paneer) in them. At first I was a little hesitant but after our first one I was hooked. The cottage cheese is a little different here, it is more like tofu and most of the vegetarian dishes will include it. Other options I haven’t really seen on the menus are spicy dishes like vindaloo and rogan josh, sorry Ollie haven’t been able to try one yet but all the other curries can be just as spicy if you ask.
Pushkar was quite different to the other cities as all the restaurants we went to, only offer vegetarian. They do cater with continental food but there is no meat at all on the menu. It is also quite difficult to get beer as well here (this the the case for most of Rahasthan), we were able to get beer in our hotel room but not when we went out for dinner, and even when we did order beer from our hotel room, they needed to run out and collect it,they didn’t have it readily available or cold. We did see that some places would give you beer but it had to be in a tea cup or hidden away. Once we hit Mumbai and Goa, this wasn’t the case and they were happy to supply anyone beer!
We have been very good so far with the food and I haven’t eaten meat the entire time. Troy had one slip up in Jaipur and had to try the tandoori chicken but didn’t think it was that good anyway. We have also had curry or Indian food for breakfast, lunch and dinner except for 1 day in Mumbai when we went to Pizza on the Bay and I tried some pasta. Pasta in India isn’t the best, like most places in Asia, the sauce was too sweet but it did have some spice to it.
With all the great food we have been trying I have wanted to do a cooking class and finally got the chance in Udaipur. We went with Spice India and Vijay was our chef.We were able to choose the 10 dishes we wanted to try and we went with the following dishes –
Veggie Pakora – these are a small appetiser which are usually shared as an afternoon snack.
Masla Tea – Delicious Chai Tea
Dal Fried – a type of dal, we included spinach in ours
Malai Kofta – small potato balls with a mild sauce, paneer, yoghurt on top
Khichdi – this is a rice dish, similar to a biryani
Chapatis – 3 different styles
Aloo Paradha – stuffed potato chapati
Plain Paradha
Plain Chapati
Mixed Veggie Curry, &
Havla – a sweet dessert, which has a similar texture to couscous but was delicious.
All of the food we tried on the cooking class was made from scratch and even though some of them were deep fried (Veggie Pakora) Indian food isn’t as bad they they say it is for you. They use a little bit of oil and the rest is usually cooked on a wok (or stainless steel bowl).
The start of the cooking class was spent discussing the spices which are used in all Indian cooking. All households in india will have at least one spice box which contains the following spices –
Salt
Aniseed
Red Chilli powder
Coriander
Turmeric
Garam Masala (this is usually a mixture of different spices that the holdhould makes up) &
Cumin Seeds
These spices are used in all cooking in India. These spice boxes are available in all cities in India and I am going to try and source one before we leave. They only use organic spices in these boxes (which are airtight) and will last up to 3 years. The chemical ones will only last 6 months and don’t taste as delicious as the organic ones.
A few other ingredients are used in indian cooking –
Chai Masala – this is only used for chai tea and most household will create their own. Vijay uses the following spices in his – black pepper, clove of cinnamon, nutmeg, dried ginger, green cardamon and saffron.
Kasturi Methi (not available in Australia) – is a green spice and is used for the smell and aroma of indian curries.
Agno Mota (not available in Australia) – is a white spice and is used for the taste and flavour of curries. These are both not necessary to make delicious curries but it will add a greater depth to indian cooking. The only dish we made with these was the mixed veggie curry and all the other dishes tasted just as good.
Chickpea flour – this is the main flour used in most indian dishes, especially anything deep fried. This is just dry chickpeas grounded.
Onion Paste
Garlic Paste and
Ginger Paste
These are used in all curries and and are simply blended with a little water and will usually last a week.
This cooking class was a great opportunity to try the Indian cooking style and it was fantastic to be taken into Vijay’s home to learn how to cook. We had his family around and got to feel like we were part of the family. I would highly recommend Spice India Cooking Classes to anyone who wants to give their hand at Indian Cooking.
My favourite dishes since we have been here are dal (any style, they are all delicious), paneer palak (spinach with cottage cheese) and Aloo Paradha (this is a traditional Indian breakfast dish). Another great dish in india is a Thali. This is a tray with a couple of different curries, rice, potato and a naan. This is great dish to try different dishes and not getting to much. This was our first Thali at Elephanta island in Bombay.
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