1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (222 page)

With its wide array of flavors, the Parsi kitchen offers more than enough pleasures to keep a restaurant in booming business. Sadly, few such eateries can be found outside Gujarat and its environs—which means your best bet may be finding a gifted Parsi home cook near you, and keeping her close.

Where:
In Mumbai
, Ideal Corner, tel 91/222-262-1930; Café Britannia, tel 91/222-261-5264;
in Artesia, CA
, Woodlands, tel 562-860-4000,
woodlandsartesia.net
.
Mail order:
For food-grade rose petals and rosewater, amazon.com.
Further information and recipes:
Parsi Food and Customs
by Bhicoo J. Manekshaw (1996);
The Cooking of India
by Santha Rama Rau (1969); for Parsi recipes,
parsicuisine.com
;
sanjeevkapoor.com
(search parsi);
saveur.com
(search parsi style scrambled eggs);
food.com
(search ekuri).

A favorite for weddings and Diwali.

Smooth, rich, and creamy, the classic Indian dessert
phirni
(sometimes spelled
firni
) is a delicate pudding made with rice flour and milk and flavored with that warm and sweet Indian spice, cardamom. A specialty of Muslims, with origins in the sweets of ancient Persia and the Middle East, phirni is also a Punjabi favorite, particularly well represented at wedding banquets and during the festival holiday Diwali.

The Indian version of rice pudding, velvety phirni is made with rice flour instead of rice grains, or occasionally with almond flour. Comparatively subtle, phirni isn’t nearly as sweet as some of the other traditional Indian desserts—namely
kulfi
and
jalebi
(see listings
here
and
here
)—which often seem cloying to uninitiated palates. If the phirni is not flavored with the classic cardamom, it may be perfumed by the gentle aromas of rosewater or saffron.

In India, phirni is almost always served in small earthenware or terra-cotta pots called
shakoras
(sometimes spelled
shikoras
) that are virtually impossible to find outside of the country. The vessels are believed to imbue the pudding with a special, earthy flavor. Ceramic ramekins or what Americans call custard cups are equally suitable.

Further information and recipes:
Madhur Jaffrey includes the recipe for her mother’s phirni in her memoir
Climbing the Mango Trees
(2007);
Sanjeev Kapoor’s Khana Khazana
by Sanjeev Kapoor and Alyona Kapoor (2002);
Classic Indian Cooking
by Julie Sahni (1980);
seriouseats.com
(search phirni rice pudding);
indianfood.about.com
(search phirni).
See also:
Anoush Aboor
;
Rizogalo
.

With its bright orange rind, the Rangpur lime looks a lot more like a tangerine, and it’s commonly mistaken for one, too. But the fruit’s botanical name,
Citrus
x
limonia
Osbeck, as well as another commonly used moniker, kona lime,
provide a better indicator of its flavor. Prized for its sour, orange-colored juice and floral aroma, the Rangpur is actually part lemon, part mandarin, but its tart juice may be substituted in any recipe that calls for limes, particularly pies and cocktails, for a flavor that is more complex, pure, and agreeably astringent. These qualities make it well suited to glazes for roasted meats.

Native to India, the rangpur grows on tall, slender trees. The fruits are also cultivated in California and Florida, and are harvested from November through the end of winter. Rangpurs don’t come cheap—they cost about $10 per pound, yielding approximately seven limes. Even so, with one in hand you will be in for a decidedly enticing treat. As an exotic replacement for conventional lime, try Tanqueray’s Rangpur Gin; with its powerful bite, the spirit makes for an exhilirating gin and tonic.

Where:
In New York and Chicago
, in season, Eataly,
eatalyny.com
; Dean & Deluca, tel 800-221-7714,
deananddeluca.com
.;
in New York, Washington, DC, and Boston
, Baldor,
baldorfood.com
.
Mail order:
For dwarf trees, Four Winds Growers, tel 877-449-4637,
fourwindsgrowers.com
.
Further information and recipes:
fruitsinfo.com
(search rangpur);
specialtyproduce.com
(search rangpur).

Puris use the same dough as roti, but are fried.

For many of us, the word
bread
conjures up loaves that are rectangular or round, but such shapes have nothing to do with the ingenious hot and grainy marvels turned out quickly in India. All are closer to what might be considered crêpes, wafers, or pancakes, and get their nutty fragrances and flavors from wheat flours, fine or coarse. A few require yeast for leavening, but most are made of dough that is allowed to ferment to ensure a light finish and a complex flavor. Ideally suited to dipping into
sambals
, chutneys, and curries, these breads—roti—are almost always made to order. And whether prepared in a tan-door oven, on a griddle, or in the deep-fryer, they are best eaten fresh and hot.

Roti, also known as chapati, is an unleavened pancakelike whole wheat bread, that is cooked on an iron griddle known as a
tava.
One of the most basic of all Indian breads, it resembles a cross between a tortilla and a pita, and is often buttered on one side.

Another well-known Indian bread is naan, a flat and chewy white bread reminiscent of pizza crust. It has a pleasingly pully texture and a nicely charred patina, a result of being baked on the stone walls of a tandoor oven. The richest of Indian breads, naan is made with white flour, yeast or other leavening, eggs, milk, salt, and sugar. A variation on naan can be stuffed with fillings of potatoes, onions, or nuts and raisins, in which case it is called
kulcha
.

Phulka
, a puffed-up round made with whole wheat flour on an iron griddle, is a nicely bready accompaniment to main courses.
Puri
, or
poori
, differs from chapati only in that the rounds are deep-fried, so that the resultant puffs have a deep, rich brown, and shiny surface.

The snackable
kachori
takes a trip back into the deep-fryer as well, for small, crisp rounds of bread stuffed with a pungent combination of black lentil dal, hot chile flakes or powder, and cumin seeds. (A similar dough, deep-fried into chewy rounds, results in what are called
bhatura
.)
Paratha
is another member of the fried bread family, forming golden-brown, flaky, layered rounds, although this one gleams after being fried in ghee on a tava griddle.

Where:
In Delhi and environs
, Sagar Ratna,
sagarratna.in
;
in Delhi
, Karim’s Hotel, tel 91/11-2326-9880,
karimhoteldelhi.com
;
in New York
, Tamarind Tribeca, tel 212-775-9000,
tamarindrestaurantsnyc.com
;
in Boston
, Maharaja, tel 617-547-2757,
maharajaboston.com
;
in Cambridge, MA
, Punjabi Dhaba, tel 617-547-8272,
royalbharatinc.com
;
in Washington, DC
, Masala Art, tel 202-362-4441,
masalaartdc.com
;
in Chicago
, Jaipur, tel 312-526-3655,
jaipurchicago.com
;
in Houston
, Kiran’s, tel 713-960-8472,
kiranshouston.com
;
in Los Angeles
, Mayura, tel 310-559-9644,
mayura-indian-restaurant.com
;
in San Francisco
, Amber India, tel 415-777-0500,
amber-india.com
;
in Toronto
, Udupi Palace, tel 416-405-8189,
udupipalace.ca
.
Retail and mail order:
At multiple locations across the U.S.
, for lentil and rice flour, Patel Brothers,
patelbros.com
;
in New York
, for rice, chickpea, and wheat flours, Kalustyan’s, tel 800-352-2451,
kalustyans.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Classic Indian Cooking
by Julie Sahni (1980);
An Invitation to Indian Cooking
by Madhur Jaffrey (1973);
Indian Cooking Unfolded
by Raghavan Iyer (2013);
More Indian Breads
by Kanchan Kabra (2010);
Easy Roti Recipes
by Ajala Sing (2014);
cookstr.com
(search chapatis, naan);
indianfood.about.com
(search kulcha; paratha; poori).
Tip:
When they come with an order of Indian takeout, these breads suffer a bit from being wrapped while hot and often wilt, losing some of their appealing texture.

Comforting, restrained, and marvelously aromatic, this soft stew of slowly simmered lamb cooked with a melting, satiny spinach sauce gets its palate-whetting aroma and subtle heat from generous quantities of ginger and garlic, hints of coriander and turmeric, and a mass of tender, well-sweated onions. As is traditional in many of India and Pakistan’s deeply flavorful specialties, before being incorporated with the other ingredients the spices are gently fried in plenty of oil to coax out the full breadth of their flavor.

Saag gosht
dates back to the days of the seventeenth-century Mogul Empire, when Muslims ruled the country. This explains why a very similar preparation is popular in both Pakistani and Persian cuisines. The word
saag
in Hindi technically means any sort of greens, but most especially spinach, and back in those days the vegetables might include mustard greens, which have been cooked in clay pots in parts of India since 2000
B.C.
Today the greens are almost always spinach. The protein varies—chicken, beef, and shrimp are frequent favorites—but
lamb is the meat of choice and for good reason, as its texture and gamy overtones highlight the spinach’s silkiness.

The seductive stew is generally served with plain rice pilaf and a good Indian bread such as a roti (see
listing
), which provides a foil for its richness and a vehicle for sopping up its soothing sauce.

Where:
In Boston
, Maharaja, tel 617-547-2757,
maharajaboston.com
;
in Cambridge, MA
, Punjabi Dhaba, tel 617-547-8272,
royalbharatinc.com
;
in Chicago
, Jaipur, tel 312-526-3655,
jaipurchicago.com
;
in Houston
, The Bombay Brasserie, tel 713-355-2000,
thebombaybrasserie.com
; Kiran’s, tel 713-960-8472,
kiranshouston.com
;
in Los Angeles
, Mayura, tel 310-559-9644,
mayura-indian-restaurant.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Classic Indian Cooking
by Julie Sahni (1980);
An Invitation to Indian Cooking
by Madhur Jaffrey (1973).

Tandoori
murgh
(chicken) gets its name from its cooking vessel, the tandoor oven, but the succulent red-stained specialty owes its fame and ubiquity at least partially to its hue. What gives the meat that trademark blush? It might just as easily be paprika, red chile powder, or food coloring, the last being the colorizer recommended by the actress and grande dame of Indian cuisine, Madhur Jaffrey.