The Stories Behind Your Favorite Dishes: Origins and Evolution
India is known for its wide variety of delicious foods from different regions. Indian people have a strong bond to their traditional dishes and enjoy eating them. In this blog post, I’ve mentioned a list of the top 10 famous dishes that are loved across India by different culture people. I’ve also gone through their origins and shared stories about their traditional recipes. So, let’s start exploring the stories behind your favorite dishes:
BIRYANI
Biryani is a famous Indian dish that’s known all around the world. Biryani is not just a food, it’s an emotion for every Indian.
It starts with long-grained rice, like basmati, that’s cooked with delightful spices like saffron. Then, you layer it with either chicken, fish, or vegetables and a thick gravy. The dish is covered up, and its lid is sealed with dough. After that, the biryani is cooked slowly over a low flame. This is the kind of dish you save for special occasions. This special dish is part of every occasion or celebration in every Indian family.
But very few of us know how Briyani became such an important part of our lives. There’s a lot of debate, theories about its origins, but most people think it was brought by mughals as a simple rice and meat dish. As it journeyed, different recipes for biryani were born, especially in places where there was a strong influence from Muslim cuisine. Briyani is most famous in Hyderabad in southern India, but you can also find it along the southern coast.
Today, Biryani is eaten in various flavors like vegetable Biryani, jackfruit Biryani, and non-veg Biryani. However, the traditional way of cooking Biryani still exists in our villages, and most people prefer the original, traditional Biryani.
PANEER TIKKA
Imagine having a plate filled with yummy sticks of soft cheese, sprinkled with spices and roasted with onions and peppers! That’s paneer tikka for you, a favorite snack of every Indian that comes straight from North India. Just like its non-vegetarian family, chicken tikka, paneer tikka gives us a mouth-watering and hearty option to enjoy, but with a vegetarian twist.
One of the things that makes paneer tikka really special is that its recipe hasn’t changed much over the years. Why so? Because people just love the classic taste! It’s made with paneer, a milk product found in India, which is soaked in a mixture of spice to give up all the good Indian flavors. Then, it’s roasted over coals to give it that nice, yummy feel.
So, when you are having a paneer tikka, you are enjoying a dish that has kept its traditional taste alive, winning hearts with its simplicity and delightful flavors, in very bite.
MASALA DOSA
Dosa is the heart of South India. There is no house in South India where dosa is not eaten but there are very few of them who know that dosa came into existence as a sin.
Let’s go back in time to where the famous dosa comes from, a place called Udupi. Once a Brahmin cook decided to try something a little daring since they weren’t allowed to have alcohol. He tried making something with his own rice in replacement of alcohol but it didn’t go as planned. Instead of throwing it away, he spread it on a hot pan. This little experiment was seen as a bit naughty, almost like a small “sin”, which is called “dosa” in Kannada, and that’s how this dish got its name! From an attempt to break the rules, it turned into a delicious treat that we now know as “dosa”.
Now, let’s talk about masala dosa, a crispy, yet soft that has won hearts of millions. It’s a simple yet healthy dish made from rice and pulse. What’s really cool is that it’s both gluten-free and dairy-free, making it a great choice for many people.
To make this yummy, the rice and pulse are soaked for a bit, then blended to create a smooth mixture. This mixture then gets to rest overnight, turning into a batter that has a slightly lemon like taste, perfect to wrap around a filling of spicy potatoes. When you take a bite, you get a delightful mix of crispy edges and a soft center filled with tasty potatoes, making each bite a small celebration of flavors and textures!
BUTTER CHICKEN
Imagine having a dish so creamy and delightful that it melts in your mouth with each bite. That’s butter chicken for you! While no one knows exactly how this dish came about, it is believed to have started in India, evolving from a traditional chicken curry recipe that became richer as time went on.
Now, here’s a little interesting story about its name. There was this restaurant owner who used to call this special dish “butter chicken” as a secret code word. This was a clever way to chat with his suppliers without breaking any rules set by the English at that time. Cool, isn’t it?
Over the years, this delicious dish has won over many hearts with its creamy tomato sauce and little pieces of chicken. Nowadays, you can find many different versions of butter chicken all across India. Some are made with a touch of cream with a flavor of species while others feature chicken cooked in a clay pot. No matter which version you try, one thing is for sure – it’s a comforting, rich, and absolutely yummy dish that people can’t get enough of!
