A signature dish of the South Indian city of Chennai, this spicy chicken recipe is flavored with fennel seeds, curry leaves, and urad dal, the skinned split black lentils that are a popular ingredient in southern India. Get the recipe for Chettinad Pepper Chicken (Koli Milagu Masala) ยป
Tender lamb simmers in a fiery sauce in this recipe from Ahdoo's Hotel in Srinagar, Kashmir. It is one of 30 or so lamb dishes that composes the 36-dish Kashmiri celebration feast called the wazwaan, a legacy of the 15th-century Turko-Mongol conquerer Timur. He brought with him to Kashmir 1,700 skilled workers, including cooks; today, their descendents, the wazas, butcher whole lambs, breaking them down for dishes such as this succulent, spicy stew. This recipe, from Ahdoo's Hotel in Srinagar, first appeared in our August/September 2014 special India issue with Betsy Andrews' story Perfect Union.
This Bengali dish is adapted from At Home With Madhur Jaffrey (Knopf, 2010). Serve with cooked white rice. This recipe first appeared in SAVEUR Issue #140, along with Madhur Jaffrey's story Making it Work.
This recipe, from Madhur Jaffrey's A Taste of India, is part of SAVEUR's November 2017 cookbook club. Though we've tested this recipe in the SAVEUR test kitchen, we present it in its original, unedited form from the book.
Says Jaffrey:
"This earthy dish has a delightful flavour which comes from roasting the grains of dal before cooking them in water. In Bengal, it is generally served with rice and a fried vegetable โ such as Delicious Fried Morsels โ as a first or second course. You may serve is as part of any Indian meal."
The word vindaloo is a garbled pronunciation of the popular Portuguese dish carne de vinha d'alhos (meat marinated in wine-vinegar and garlic), which made its way to India in the 15th century along with Portuguese explorers. In Goa the dish was tweaked, incorporating chiles, tamarind, black pepper, cinnamon, and cardamom. When it was exported to England, it became another hot curry, losing its vinegar tang and spice complexity, but this version stays close to the Goan original. It first appeared in our August/September 2014 special India issue with Lizzie Collingham's story Fired Up.