Indian Food Information

The use of a tandoor oven is very important in traditional North Indian cooking, and many breads and dishes were designed especially for these clay ovens. This includes many famous Punjabi and North Indian foods: paratha, naan, kulcha, roti, and other exiting breads; and tandoori lamb chops, chicken tikka, tandoori chicken, seekh kabab, tandoori prawns, reshmi kabab, and a variety of other dishes. Only a few of us these days, however, are lucky enough to have our own tandoor. This article will look at a few alternatives we can use in its place.

Tandoori food has a distinctive smoky flavour that is produced because of the clay oven’s design. Heat in a tandoor is generated from lit coals at the base of the oven (which has a similar shape to a pot-belly stove). As the food inside it cooks, its juices drop down onto these hot coals, producing deliciously flavoured smoke that is the signature of the tandoor.

Naturally, it is difficult to find an exact equivalent of a tandoor, but we have a few options. Barbecues can be pretty good, especially where cooking can be done over a grill that lets food juices run onto the burners or coals. The effect isn’t quite that of the tandoor, but the resulting flavour is a fair approximation.

You could choose a conventional oven to cook ‘tandoori’ dishes. The similarity here is that both the oven and the tandoor have an enclosed space where heat is trapped, but the former does not produce the trademark smoky flavouring of real tandoori food. This method is the best alternative for cooking tandoori breads (naan, roti, kulcha etc), when a tandoor is not available because the bread is surrounded by heat.

A grill can be used when cooking food like lamb chops or chicken tikka even though the concept of grill cooking is really the reverse of tandoori cooking. A grill does not have an enclosed space and food is heated by elements from above. Nevertheless, tasty food can still be achieved. The grill is good for quick cooking (ie when the barbecue is not an option).

Overall, the most suitable alternative to a tandoor is a coal-fueled barbecue when you wish to do some North Indian style cooking. Even so, tandoors are far easier to buy in the West lately, so if tandoori-style food regularly graces your menu, it may well be worth making the investment.

About the Author

Laliey Singh trained as a chef in India before moving to Australia where he now lives with his wife and son. You can find more of his cooking articles, along with video demonstrations, recipes and tips, online at http://www.cooking-with-gusto.com

A lot of South Asian children and youngsters worldwide are moving from an Indian diet to a predominantly western format diet. These changes coupled with metabolic syndrome lead to the development of early diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

South Asians have very different dietary habits. Their diets are rich in carbohydrates and many of them are vegetarians. A typical Indian diet consists of chapattis and rice in every meal and would mostly be eaten with lentils or vegetables; in contrast to a western diet that is predominantly meat based and has lesser emphasis on carbohydrates. They mostly prefer cooked hot meals and like to prepare their own food. This means that an Indian Diet is not just a set of different ingredients but a different eating pattern altogether. Many westerners cannot follow an Indian diet because it is extremely spicy and full of pungent and strong flavors. Most Indian diets, if planned well, are healthy because they are high in fibres and provide a healthy mix of carbohydrates and proteins in every meal. They also included a lot of pulses, milk and milk products, and vegetables.

A study published by the American Lung Association has found that Indian children living in England whose diet consisted largely of foods from their native country were less likely to have symptoms of asthma and allergy than Indian youngsters who ate a primarily Western diet.

Indian diets tend to contain more vegetables, less meat and fewer additives and packaged and processed foods than the traditional British diet, said Dr. Britton, of the Division of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Nottingham in England. The findings were similar for children eating vegetarian and non-vegetarian diets.

A study led by researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto have found that a diet high in low-glycemic foods improved both Diabetes control and cardiovascular risk factors. A diet rich in nuts, beans and lentils have been found effective in lowering blood sugar levels in people with Type 2 diabetes, according to a new study.

According to a study, the Indian diet encompasses diversity unknown to most other countries, with many dietary patterns emanating from cultural and religious teachings that have existed for thousands of years. The role of turmeric (haldi/curcumin), a common Indian curry spice, cumin, chilies, kalakhar, Amrita Bindu (traditional Indian Ayurevedic antioxidant supplement containing extract of several plants (long pepper & nigrum, ginger, nutgrass/cocograss, chitrak and caltrop) and various plant seeds are known for their apparent cancer preventive properties.