Indian
Puran Poli (Flatbread Rolled Thin Around a Sweet Lentil Paste)
A sweet flatbread from Maharashtra: split chickpeas cooked down with jaggery into a stiff paste, sealed inside a very soft dough and rolled out thin on top of that, then cooked on a griddle. Mauritius's dholl puri warns that a wet filling bursts under the pin and uses a dry crumb instead. Puran poli keeps the paste and changes the balance: the filling is cooked until it is as stiff as the dough, the dough is made soft with oil, and the two roll out as one.
Khichdi (Rice and Split Mung Dal Cooked to the Same Point)
India's everyday one-pot: rice and hulled split mung dal put in together and taken off together. Other dishes that cook a grain and a pulse in one pot work around the fact that the pulse takes far longer, by soaking it overnight or boiling it first. This one removes the problem instead, by choosing a pulse whose clock already matches the rice, and finishes with cumin fried in ghee and poured over.
Batata Vada (Spiced Potato Balls in Chickpea Batter)
Maharashtra street food: boiled potato folded through a tadka of mustard seed, turmeric, ginger and green chilli, rolled into balls, dipped in a chickpea-flour batter and deep-fried. Wheat batters are under-mixed on purpose; this one is beaten hard for the opposite reason — besan builds no gluten to toughen, and the air beaten into it is what makes the shell light. Same filling as a samosa, opposite oil temperature.
Rasam (Thin Tamarind and Pepper Broth)
A thin South Indian broth: tamarind extract simmered with tomato, crushed garlic and black pepper, let down with the water from cooked toor dal, taken off the heat the moment it froths, and finished with mustard seeds and curry leaves fried in ghee and poured over. Eaten poured onto rice or drunk from a cup. That its sourness is tamarind's tartaric acid — neither a vinegar nor a ferment — decides most of the order it is made in.
Barfi (Reduced-Milk Fudge)
The Indian sweet made by stirring milk down for hours and then setting it. Every sugar confection on this site so far works at stopping crystals from forming — lokum with invert sugar, nougat with glucose and honey, tanghulu by driving out all the water. Barfi wants crystals, and wants them very small. How you stir it as it cools decides how big they get, and that size is the texture of the sweet.
Pav Bhaji (Mumbai Mashed Vegetable Curry with Buttered Rolls)
The Mumbai street food that started as a mill workers’ lunch: vegetables cooked on a wide iron griddle and crushed with a masher as they go. This site’s samosa page tells you to crush the potato by hand because a masher bursts the starch into glue, and the mashed potato page warns that working the starch turns it gluey. Pav bhaji is the dish that wants exactly that. And because mashing keeps exposing new surface to a very hot plate, the same movement that makes it finer is also what drives the water off.
Rasgulla (Chhena Balls Boiled in Syrup)
An eastern Indian sweet: milk curdled with acid, the fresh curd kneaded into balls and boiled in a thin sugar syrup. Almost everywhere else on this site curdling is the failure you are trying to avoid; here it is step one. Acid is what gives you a curd to lift out and shape at all. And unlike almost every other syrup sweet the balls are not soaked but cooked in the syrup, which is what makes them swell to double and take it right through.
Chapati (Whole Wheat Flatbread)
Wholemeal flour, water and salt: the daily bread of the Indian subcontinent, made from three ingredients. There is no yeast and no baking powder in it, yet on the fire it balloons into a sphere — water in the dough flashing to steam and forcing the two surfaces apart. When that works the bread is hollow and pulls into two soft layers; when it does not, you have a hard biscuit.
Vindaloo (Goan Pork in Vinegar and Garlic)
Goa's pork braise, marinated overnight in a paste of vinegar and garlic. Grinding the spices in vinegar rather than water is the dish itself: it descends from the way Portuguese ships carried meat without it spoiling, so the vinegar is structure rather than seasoning.
Rogan Josh (Kashmiri Braised Lamb)
Kashmir's braised lamb. The name is not about red gravy: rogan is fat and josh is intense heat, so it describes cooking in fat over fierce heat. The colour comes from Kashmiri chilli, not tomato — and the traditional version contains no onion, no garlic and no tomato at all.
Masala Dosa (Fermented Rice Crepe with Potato)
South India's breakfast: rice and urad dal ground together, fermented overnight, spread thin on a hot pan and folded around a potato masala. The crispness comes from the fermentation, not from the cooking — an under-fermented batter will not crackle on any pan you own.
Samosa (Punjabi Potato and Pea Pastry)
India's defining snack: potato and pea folded into a triangle and fried. The pastry decides it, not the filling — a stiff dough with plenty of fat rubbed in, fried nearly twenty minutes in barely-warm oil, is what produces a shell that shatters instead of bending.
Aloo Gobi
A beloved Indian vegetarian curry of potato (aloo) and cauliflower (gobi) cooked down with turmeric, cumin, and spices. A "dry" curry with no gravy, cooked till tender and fluffy — great with rice or naan and chapati. One pan, and fully vegan.
Naan
India's beloved leavened flatbread, made soft and chewy with yogurt in the dough. No tandoor needed — a screaming-hot skillet bakes it beautifully at home. Perfect for scooping up butter chicken and curries.
Tandoori Chicken
Chicken marinated in spiced yogurt, then roasted hot so the edges char while the inside stays juicy — India's iconic grill. No tandoor oven needed; an ordinary oven or air fryer delivers that red, fragrant result at home.
Palak Paneer
An Indian vegetarian curry of paneer cheese simmered in a smooth spinach gravy. Blanch the spinach briefly to keep it vivid green — serve with rice or naan (tofu works if you can't find paneer).
Chana Masala (Chickpea Curry)
A classic Indian vegetarian curry of chickpeas simmered with onion, tomato, and spices. With canned chickpeas it's a 30-minute one-pot dish — hearty with rice or naan.
Dal (Lentil Curry)
India's everyday comfort food — lentils simmered soft with turmeric, then finished with a 'tadka', spices bloomed in hot ghee or oil and poured over. One pot from a bag of lentils, vegetarian yet protein-rich. Serve with rice or naan; with a few spices, anyone can make it.
Biryani (Chicken)
India's celebrated layered rice dish — yogurt-and-spice marinated chicken and 70%-cooked basmati layered with saffron, fried onions, and herbs, then sealed and steamed low (dum). A fragrant, festive one-pot.
Butter Chicken (Murgh Makhani)
India's beloved curry — yogurt-and-spice marinated chicken, seared then simmered in a silky tomato-butter-cream gravy. Deep red, smooth, and gently sweet; made for naan or rice.