My Favorite Indian Meals

I Love Indian food

The vibrant colours, rich aromas and complex flavours of Indian food mean there are many reasons to love this spice-laced cuisine. However, if I had to choose only five, which I must for this column, the reasons below draw me back to the subcontinent literally and in the kitchen.

5 reasons I love Indian food

1) India is a jolly big place

The sheer size of India means a wealth of different climates and environments, which means not just 19 or so different regional cuisines but also the fact that everything from coconuts to peppercorns varies in flavour from coast to coast. It's the same in cities like Mumbai where you'll find the local Marathi cuisine living beside onion-free Gujarati food from the north and Mangalorean cuisine from the south. So basically calling something ‘Indian' is about as specific as calling a cow a ‘mammal'.

2) Spice not spicy

Once Indian food was prized in the West for its heat alone but in the last decade we've started to understand it's the combination of spices that makes Indian cuisine special rather than just the heat of dried red chilli. Oh, and that a teaspoon of curry powder just won't cut it. It can be as simple as poaching apricots with green cardamom pods or making a tandoori marinade for chicken thighs out of lemon, yoghurt and garlic with turmeric, cumin, coriander, cloves and cardamom.

3) Indians are sweet and sour

Much is always made about the spice and heat of Indian food but it's the clever use of sourness that impresses me most. Yoghurt or curd is a staple on many tables. While on the Mangalore or Konkan coasts in the west not only do they use yoghurt, lemon juice and vinegar, but also tamarind, mango and sourness from two fruit trees related to the mangosteen. From one comes powdered kokum (made from the dried skins of the fruit), and from the fruit of the other, a sticky, dark and smoky kachampuli or Coorg vinegar. Few things are better than fried chicken tossed in this tangy local vinegar or, continuing the theme, the sourness of a properly fermented lentil batter that adds tang to those crispy pancakes called dosa.

4) Street food

While rich dishes such as chicken korma, creamy with pounded ingredients including cashew, come from the royal courts, some of India's best dishes come from far humbler places. Every city in India has its favourite street food, whether it's the crisp, puffed cups of semolina filled with potato, chickpeas and tamarind called panipuri or lacy orange sweet fried jalebi, the burrito-like kati rolls of Kolkata, or the stuffed flat breads called parathas in Old Delhi.

5) Naan

Indians love their bread - unleavened chapati, flaky paratha - but foremost amongst these are those puffy tandoori-cooked naan whether brushed with ghee or stuffed with dried fruit and nuts in the Kashmiri style. All I really need to be happy is a good rogan josh and basket of garlic naan.