Incredible India

"Incredible India" is the tag line for Indian tourism but I actually hadn't heard it until a girl started speaking to us through the window whilst we were in a traffic jam in the middle of some small country town and she said "Welcome to incredible India" and then followed with 20 questions and ended with "I love you, I love you all" whilst blowing kisses as the car started to move again. Apparently she was extremely excited about having the opportunity to speak to some white people! In general, the people of India were very welcoming (and curious) just like this girl. We had some girls come up to us on a train journey and shyly ask our names and then sit down and speak to us for an hour whilst their parents looked on fretfully, thinking that their daughters were annoying us. To thank us for talking to them they came back and gave us some deep fried and seasoned spinach leaves (which were delicious) and some traditional Indian sweets made from milk curd.

For those of you who don't know I went on a work trip to India for 10 days and just now and finally feeling well enough to contemplate talking about food. I met some terrific people like the girls I mentioned above and ate some amazing food. Sadly, I didn't take any photos of the food, to be honest I was too busy trying not to get some kind of food poisoning to think about anything else. Fortunately I didn't and managed to actually pick up my illness when I got back to Australia but that is another story. What I am actually trying to write about is ways to cook more authentic Indian food. Now as I was told by the locals Indian food is very different from region to region so this advice is really only on how to cook more authentic southern Indian food (probably central southern if you ask the locals). So other than adding a healthy dose of salmonella and cooking amongst live animals in a very unhygienic kitchen to make your Indian food more authentic your should:

• Firstly add more chilli!!! This is the most important aspect. I never knew how much chilli was in Indian food. I think every meal I ate had at least one type of chilli in it. When we asked for mild the food seemed to have been cooked with several dried chillies (which you are actually meant to eat - not pick out like I did). So add some dried chilies. If you can handle the heat add fresh chillies, jalapenos and any other type of chilli you fancy.
• Secondly, add peppercorns. Again I think nearly every dish I ate had peppercorns in it. Even when you are serving you rice it seems traditional to stir through some peppercorns (I think the rice may have actually been cooked with the peppercorns).
• Thirdly, use long grain rice. I did not come across any fancy types of rice, everything was the normal long grain rice, both in the really cheap and really expensive restaurants. So forget that Indian aromatics rice you can buy at the supermarket.
• Finally if you are cooking with meat, buy meat on the bone and dice through the bone and then cook - so your meal with have normal bite size chunks of meat but some will still be attached to the bone (I am not particularly fond of this practice though).

If you want to eat in the traditional Indian style make sure you have lots of Indian breads to serve your meal with and then eat with your hands. Do this by using the bread to wrap up your food and pop it in your mouth. Oh and this should be done one handed as Indians only eat with their right hand (it is impolite to eat with your left - so have fun trying to tear off pieces of bread one handed!). One final tip is to go vegetarian - most Indian food is vegetarian. Actually India is a vegetarians paradise. On the menu at restaurants their is actually a sub heading for non-vegetarian items - not the other way around like in Australia. So happy Indian eating everyone :) 

"The Rice bowl of India" is what the locals call this region. When we asked Monique, one of the girls we met on the train what the best thing about India was she said rice. That pretty much sums up the idea of the rice bowl of India!