The first thing to know about Indian food is that there is standard Indian fare, and there is truly fine Indian cuisine. Standard Indian fare will use decent quality ingredients, and a mass of spices to give the food a very strong flavor. Fine Indian cuisine uses the finest ingredients – lentils, chickpeas, rice, nuts, the freshest vegetables, and highest quality cuts of lamb, chicken, and seafood. These ingredients are mixed with the freshest “masala” – spices – to create subtly textured flavors. The chefs of India House have spent over 15 years, since the restaurant’s founding in Denver, mastering their superb Indian recipes.
The second thing to know about Indian food is that there is a rich variety of selections for vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike: for vegetarians, a nice Navrattan Korma, Saag Paneer or Channa Masala polished with a fine bottle of wine will delight; for non-vegetarians, a Chicken Tandoori, Boti Masala, or Gosht Vindaloo will entice. We’ll get into a bit of a primer on Indian cuisine for those not yet initiated, but suffice it to say that the many and varied choices for vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike will thrill the palates of all.
Fine Indian cuisine can be a bit intimidating for the uninitiated, as can any new and foreign cuisine. When eating Indian food, don’t be afraid to experiment, but here are some decisions you should consider regarding your choice. The first decision is whether you would like a vegetarian or non-vegetarian dish. For vegetarians, India House provides a wide variety of tasty dishes made from ingredients such as chickpeas, lentils, potatoes, rice, nuts and fresh fruits and vegetables. For non-vegetarians, you have many diverse entrees to choose based upon lamb, chicken, duck, venison, quail or seafood.
The second choice you will need to make with fine Indian cuisine is whether you prefer a tandoori or kebab, or a “curry.” Tandoori and kebabs are notable in that they don’t usually include a curry, which simply means “sauce.” A curry, on the other hand, is not a dish made with curry powder, as many might think – any Indian food served in a sauce is a “curry.”
A kebab has the ingredients skewered and grilled over a charcoal fire. A kebab typically is either lamb, chicken or eggplant with or without additional vegetables such as onions, potatoes, etc. A kebab is not typically cooked or served in any sauce.
Tandoori dishes are cooked in a tandoor: a clay oven (sometimes called a Bhatti). A tandoori dish is cooked in this clay oven over a charcoal fire. The tandoori is often spiced with a mix of “masalas” (spices) which may include cayenne, red chili powder and / or paprika (giving tandoori dishes a distinct reddish tint), garlic, ginger, cumin and other spices. Some Tandoori may have a yellowish-orange tint to it from tumeric. Tandoori dishes are typically served without a curry, although there are curry (“sauce”) dishes that are made by first cooking the meat or vegetable in the tandoor, and then adding sauce. Both are distinctive in that they have that wonderful, smokey, wood-fired hint to them.
Tandoori dishes include Tandoori Murgh (Murgh refers to chicken, in this case breast and legs); Murgh Tikka (“tikka” is bits or cubes of chicken), Swordfish Tikka, and Tandoori Prawns.
In some Indian restaurants, “curries” are made by throwing spices in with water and all the other ingredients to make a particular dish – a pot of chicken curry here, another of lamb vindaloo there. This approach not only prevents the flavors to mature and blend in the sauces, but also over-saturates and mushes the ingredients; many restaurants will try to overcome a lack of subtle blending and seasoning of their dishes by relying on heavy spicing. This approach is never used when cooking fine Indian curries, which relies on the subtle layering of flavors for the perfect dish in three distinct stages – making the sauces; cooking the meat and vegetables; and finally, combining the two and spicing to taste. A fine Indian curry is much like a fine French dish, with the main ingredients cooked and spiced to taste, then the sauce is added to accentuate the flavor.
The meat and / or vegetables may be cooked in the tandoor or on the stove – whole chicken, lamb shanks, quail, venison and seafood such as shrimp and swordfish are delivered fresh, where our chefs make the cuts required for various dishes. Potatoes, eggplant and spinach, lentils, chickpeas (garbanzo beans) and other legumes and nuts are also fresh and organic. For certain dishes the main ingredients are cooked on the stove; in others, the tandoor is used which gives the meat and vegetables a subtle but distinctive, wood-smoked flavor you can taste beneath the curry.
As I said earlier, the word “curry” means, simply, sauce. There are two basic sauces used in fine Indian foood – these are always made individually, prepared separately from other ingredients making up any given entree. The first sauce is an onion- and tomato-based sauce, and the other is tomato-based. Chili powder tends to blend very well with the onion-based sauces, while cream is often added to tomato-based sauces. In general, then, those dishes made from onion-based sauces may tend to be more spicy than tomato-based sauces – as you will see, however, when fine Indian food is cooked properly, the spiciness of the dish is not defined by the sauce, but by the preference of the diner.
Good Indian sauces use an abundance of garlic and ginger, and also cumin, coriander, tumeric and a blend of 20 or 30 spices called Garam Masala. Other spices are added to these curries – in a good Indian restaurant, always to taste – such as chili and cayenne to “spice” up the sauce for your dish. In other cases, some sauces will have cream added to them, which tends to make the flavor milder. Yoghurt and Paneer (cheese) are also added to some sauces – at India house we make everything “from scratch,” including our sauces, yoghurt and paneer.
Once the base of your entree has been cooked, the curry is added – sometimes a dish may call for only one of the onion- or tomato-based sauce, but more typically a curry is made from a blend of the two; a “curry” may be several parts tomato-based sauce to onion sauce, while a Vindaloo may be several parts onion to one part tomato. By carefully blending the two main curries, adding spices, cream and / or paneer, a remarkable variety of subtle tastes blend to make a perfect dish.
Finally, some people may avoid Indian food because they believe it is too “spicy,” and by “spicy” they mean spicy hot. Fine Indian food is most assuredly very flavorful – exotic and subtle tastes combining to make for some of the most savory food you will ever have. It is true that some dishes, particularly curries, can be spicier than others, and to be sure, if you want a very flavorful, very “hot” dish, try a Gosht Vindaloo and ask your waiter not to back off on the chili. But the key to fine Indian food is not that it be so hot it renders your taste buds useless – a good Indian chef can spice your dish to taste (and be skeptical of the quality of those that cannot); the key is to combine unique flavors to create delicious food. If you don’t like “spicy hot” dishes, you might be surprised at the distinctive and delightful flavors of a cream-based curry such as a Makhani Murgh (notice the hint of smoky wood-fired chicken underlying the curry – the chicken is cooked in the tandoor) or a Saag Paneer. In any case, when prepared properly, Indian food can and should be spiced to your taste – ask your waiter for a recommendation, and also let them know if you would like flavorful but mild, or “knock your hat off” vindaloo.
We pride ourselves on the quality and freshness of our food; we believe that once you taste fine Indian cuisine, you’ll keep coming back to explore all of the savory flavors our exotic dishes have to offer.
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