Real Indian curry as served in India

Hello dear curry lovers.

Had another major debate of great importance on the weekend regarding what to expect while traveling through India (mere hypothesis, no traveling plans made). Have not been to India nor lived in England (MajorB does not hold a british passport) . What can one expect? Is the curry in India really that much hotter than in Europe/Munich? Would a normal European be able to eat the stuff? I like spicy food but prefer still being able to taste the different ingredients. What were your experiences with real Indian curries?

The reason for this debate was that I would love to go to India one day. And yes, a large part of my life does revolve around cooking and eating.

I was under the (possibly false) impression that the hottest curries are to be found in the UK. I am often wrong, though. At any rate, this page at least has some interesting things to say about curry history.

There's apparently a "hotness" gradient across India, being hotter in the north and getting progressively milder to the south (I could have that backwards). But of course I've never been there - this is just what I've heard.

Well I wouldnt agree to that..on the contrary certain south Indian states such as Andhra Pradesh have a much hotter cuisine than most of the north Indian states.

I wouldnt comment on which part of India would u would find the most delicious food but I am sure that while eating in any food joint in India you would realise their is much more to Indian food than Red chilli powder. Everything from the fragrence , colour, taste is more elaborate and vivid than what you would find here. ( deriving from the fact that almost any thing u order in a particular restaurant here tastes almost identical cos' they use the same curry paste for everything)...

@ipj-
I think you do have it backwards. What i've heard is that the reason for the spicyness in lots of cultures is that it would mask the taste of spoiling meat. From my understanding, it is hotter in the south of india then the north, thus the need for more spice, as the meat would spoil faster.

correct me if I am wrong.

I would agree that there is much more variety to the food in India (and I only visited the top left bit) than in the homogenised Indian restaurants in the UK, and that means in the use of spices rather than in "degrees of hotness".
But since you ask about hotness, as a generalisation I found the food in India not to be as hot as its generic counterpart in the UK.

You may very well have it right. I thought it was the way you described, but an Indian guy recently told me it was the other way around...I guess it depends on the region, as Rahul said.

The consumption of meat per unit population must be minimal in India. We have a lot of non vegetarian dishes but most of the families eat meat not more than once a week. ..and again I dont think or know anyone who would eat spoiled meat camouflaged in spices...In india people go to butchers who usually give u fresh meat ( chicken/lamb or fish) and I am positive its much fresher than the chemically preserved frozen meat ( specially the lousy fish) that one can buy here...now coming to point of why south indian people eat more spicy food, one could attribute certain theories to that but i need to delve u into history & demographics of India which could be too extensive ..

To all, dhanya-waadh for all your replies thusfar.
@Rahul
Gives me hope what you described there. Am thinking of living in India at some point of my life and am allergic to chilli(!) of all things. Woe betide! Still eat it in large amounts, suffering all the way.

Ack! You poor dear...

I heard the (i found to be very logical) explanation that the food is "hotter" in the south because that is where the hotter spices naturally grow.

The use of chilli is not to mask the taste of rotting meat. We are talking about India, not Jupiter. I have however heard that it acts as a natural preservative, which may be one reason why "curry" was developed in the first place. I'm sure that Roots or Electrobuzz or a few others can enlighten on that one.

I also like a curry (in which I use the British definition to mean any Indian dish) in which I can taste the individual ingredients. That seems to be less the case in the UK at least, where only a hot curry is a good curry. "The hotter the better" seems to be the motto. Nuff sed.

As for vegetarian dishes, I found that there is much more vegetarianism in India than here, mostly due to economics. You will find meat dishes in restaurants although they will offer a higher proportion of veggie dishes than here. If you get invited into a home then you'd have to be a particularly honoured guest to get meat (that's my experience). I went to eat with one family and they were proud to be able to offer eggs. I was honoured and the food was yummy

Jupiterians eat rotting meat? Weirdos. They must have good immune systems.

@Jeeves

As a vegetarian I would have to disagree. I find the curry here to be tasteless and bland. Not just in terms of how spicy it is but in general flavour as well. I once had a vegetable curry here and they had pureed it!!! It was like spinach and tomato soup on rice.

In Britain I agree that it is spicier but at least I can still taste the individual ingredients.

Once said in Munich to make it very hot British style and I think they just stuck half a kilo of chilli powder in it. Couldn't taste a thing except chilli. Admitedly I have only tried about 10 Indiand restaurants in the years I have been here but never once could I award one more than 1.5 out of 10.

@Wibble - Jeeves is comparing UK curry to that in India, not Munich.

Well our Indian forum members are keeping very quiet about this. I was hoping for more Indian people to share your views on this. I think the best Indian restaurant in Munich is Tandoori. I have, like I said, never had a curry in England but know that many English people love to eat very spicy Indian food. I was told on the weekend by a German that I would most likely not be able to eat anything in India with my chilli allergy and traditional Indian cooking - as done in India - being so much spicier than what I have ever been able to eat. That's why I was wondering whether I should skip the idea of spending a part of my life in India, which I would love to do.

IPJ is right and maybe I shouldn't be, because the original question was to compare with Europe/Munich, not the UK. My bad.

Otherwise I once more cannot quibble with Wibble.

this ones not much of help but my 0.002 c worth


thats crap crap crap.. i come from Goa which i would say is full of sugar and spice and all things nice    but a German friend of mine with a weak stomach come to India and stuck to all food without spice..he just loved it all.. from sea food to meat to vegetarian to even just plain potatoes.. India has a huge cusine which varies from sour,sweet, spicy (though i would have to strike out the bland option)

but there is something from everyones palet!!!


never ever ever give up that idea of going there! will be a shame.. which part of India are u planning to go to by the way?

When I was just a poor student who had run away from home to live a life of sex, drugs, alcohol, rock 'n' roll and depravity (oh yeah, nearly forgot... and education), I got digs in West London with an Indian woman and her 9 year old son. Her name was Ashra, and she had come to the UK from an Indian coastal town. She gave me my first samosa (at the time I thought a Saturn V rocket had launched in my mouth!), and within a month I was hooked on currys. Never found anything like that here in Munich... and not often in the UK.

Damn! I miss curried fish.

was busy all day with work and just saw this thread... will add my 2 cents in the morning... got to hit the bed now...

'Buzz

I was in India about 3 years ago, and the food was varied. I ended up, out of a weird day trip having diner at some peoples house north of Bombay, but just south of Gujurat, and the food was nice, not terribly hot, but tastey. Then I went to Puna, and enjoyed 2 days of Veggie food, again not terribly hot, but very tastey none the less. I spent then about 1.5 weeks in Goa, and almost died at a buffet with some pork vindaloo (just had to try it!). At restaurants you can get hot if you want, but it wasn't as hot as what I have had on a curry night! Most the food was enjoyable, and very tastey, enjoyed tasting the food with the different spices.
2 weeks there and not a problem with the tummy!

in the south, where i travelled (kerala, up through mysore to mumbai), you have chinese food options in just about every restaurant, in case you get sick of indian food, just as a by the by
i travelled with a french friend who can't stomach spicy stuff, and she loved the food (and she ate apparently the best mousse au chocolat she'd ever tasted in a very reasonably priced mumbai restaurant, fine praise indeed from a parisienne)
personally, i had to ask for it extra hot because they just assume a european woman will want a milder curry - the food was great, but generally not as hot as in the uk
we didn't get any food poisoning, either
i would go live there like a shot, i fell in love with india

Carm's food experiences in India agree with mine (apart from the vindaloo - I never got to Goa).
My stomach was perfectly stable too (though my gf's wasn't for a couple of days).

Well, that does sound good! Reading this thread and all the descriptions of what to expect has sure made my mouth water.

No fixed plans made yet. But I am now already thinking about this because if I do go it will be in a couple of years already, would be relocating and would need a lot of planning. I would love to live in Asia for a couple of years and can think of no better place than India. Can you? I am very much a city girl but grew up next to the ocean and would love to do so again in the future. Maybe I could find something like this in India as well.

BTW: my stomache isn't that sensitive, I am only allergic to chilli and like I said, I ignore it and live with the consequences(no pain, no gain). Eat chilli almost every day in some form, my doctor told me to eat chilli once every three months at the most and I'm still alive and kicking.

Goa baby Goa!!! (im sure the rest of the Indians will struggle to give me - Karma)
Its a good start to habituate slowly into the Indian culture as it has a bit of a western feel to it, Everyone speaks English as well as portuguese! Beaches all around..
Though i would say that a lot of places in India e.g. Rajasthan are surely worth a cultural visit...though it would take time to adjust to living there!

Goa. From what I've heard my impression of Goa is of European tourists having turned an otherwise beautiful place into an outdoor pub. Is it not that bad afterall? Otherwise I am all game for Goa!

Id agree to that, though the tourists are mostly concentrated in certain areas not all over!!

i had the samosa at "Sher e Punjab", a restaurant just outside the HBf. it was 6 € and very very light(ly spiced, i mean), compared to the original one's you get in india. anyways, there was also some kind of curry on it, which made it tastes a bit sweet-sour, all in all nice. i advice you to try this just for the sake of having something that is indian and different, but not if you really want to eat some hot & spicy indian food.

THe thing with curries is that it is not only the amount of actual spices put into the curry but also the point being how it is prepared. In a typical punjabi (region of india i am from) curry, you need to really cook the pureed onions with a small amount of oil, then adding spices in a delicate order, not all at once. The first ingredient is salt, followed by red chilli pepper (not the generic paprika powder sold at German shops). Then make sure it is really cooked, but not burned, use the stove on low, and let the flavor introduce itself. Then you can add the other spices and ingredients such as cinnamon, black pepper, garam masala (an indian concoction of many spices, litterally translated as hot spices), and then cover the pan so that the curry steams and cooks slowly. But i forgot one thing. Add a couple of green chilies beforehand, that way, its really spicy. then add chopped tomato, as per taste, to give full flavor. Then you can add the chicken or lamb or whatever. That ensures spicy curry. I am not a cook, but i learned this from my mom who learned it from my grandmother. So it should prove useful, cheers.

Dont forget that pitcher of ice water, you might need it!!!

IT was probably only a chutney, meaning a topping of sort. Not really a curry.

the samosas there are really stale..didnt like them..havent had good samosas here

true.
at that time i was really hungry, and didnt care much about the taste. but, now that you remind me, yeah, the quality did suck ...

Wot? Not even yer own homemade ones? (He said fishing for an invite)

Goa is gorgous, loved it, I acutally changed my plans and stayed there instead of heading up to Delhi. I did also notice alot of Chinese food on menues, and did eat a chinese meal when there, as I just wanted a change.

We ate in the Market in Mumbai one day, I know, you shouldn't eat from a street vendor, but our theory was we just bought antibiotics from the Chemist, and it was cooked in oil, for a long time, so, what the hey? It was some sort of Samosa/pakora type thing, don't really want to know, or care at this point, but had some sauce to dip and it was fine.

This is strange, in Thailand for instance the food you buy from the small street vendors are very tasty and very fresh. They prepare it in front of your eyes. When I traveled through Thailand I often ate like this. In India its unhygienical to eat from a street vendor? Debbie? Vishalarora? So many people do it.
@Vishalarora

You also write that you are not a cook. I hope that you can answer this question for me, though. Only two months ago have I frequently started preparing Indian dishes. I have however experienced that when I prepare the chicken in the way you mentioned, the chicken never really turns very soft. I have rarely had soft chicken in an Indian restaurant. Is this the normal way you guys and girls like your chicken? I only get my chicken really soft if I pre-fry the chicken in hot oil, take it out and return it to the curry later in the same order you described. Any comments? Thanks!

There are thousands of curries in India if you move all the way from up north to Kanyakumari. And the tastes range from sweet in Gujarath to hotter than Mexican heat wave in Andhra Pradesh, Vidarbha and North Karnataka. There is enough variety to be a pleasant surprise to anyone. Almost all big states have more than one distinct cusines. India is worth visiting for its food alone, more so because it's hard to get the real Indian food outside India.

My theory about Indian food, Mexican food or German food is simple..

If you want to eat the authentic cuisine, you got to goto that country... why?

Because, the soil in which the Veggies grow differ from place to place. The taste of a vegetable depends on the soil in which it grew..

So, a veg curry made of vegetables grown in my region tastes different from the veg curry made of vegetables in this country.. So, people living for generations in a place created a cuisine, which can be experienced only in that region...

Ok, now, you know, why people make fun of me and my theories, which, I have in plenty about every matter under the sun and above the sun...

@simpleboy

It's a good theory.

I accidentally bumped on to this thread and just realised how much i am missing food in Germany. Does anyone know of a place to get real Indian food? is there any place for south Indian food? The samosas I have had here so far have been some generic spring roll filling in a triangular soggy oil- raw dough mixture. And i think i ended up paying 4 euros for the bloody things. They cost Rs 2.50(about 5 euro cents) back home at my Uni, another 2.50 for chai, the very basis of civilised living.

Anyway does anyone know of any way to get (real) Indian food in Munich, is there a gurudwara somewhere?

Yes, there is a Gurudwara in Munich. I went there once with an Indian friend on a Sunday - they have a religious meeting first then afterwards everyone eats together.

by the way OP, which part of India are you going to. If you specify that then u may get a better feedback.

Genuine South Indian food is not served by any restaurant in Munich on a regular basis. The food served in Kandy (SriLankan restaurant in Grosshadern) is very similar to South Indian cuisine.

FWIW after growing up in the UK eating curry there at every opportunity, learning to cook it myself, moving to Munich and being deeply disappointed, then spending six months in India in Bangalore and travelling a bit I have to say there's not such a great difference between curry that you can get in the UK and curry you can get in India. Generally the genuine article in India, if cooked in a decent restaurant, is more flavoursome and interesting than even the best curry in the UK and I assume this is to do with the availability and quality of the fresh spices. And in India a decent restaurant is not necessarily expensive, I had some fabulous meals with meat too, no negative side effects afterwards, and even in Bangalore centre for less than 2 euro and veggie curries for less than half that.

Food in India is very regional, with pockets of very hot food and many areas where it's very lightly spiced. Generally it's hotter in the South, although this is far from an accurate generalisation as there are areas up North where they love chilli too. The variations are endless and it's worth checking out what you like and then looking around - even rice dishes like biryani (where the rice, meat & veg are all boiled together) can be very hot. Also restaurants cooking food from other regions are popular in India, my favourite restaurant in Bangalore was the Bombay Post which cooked Mughlai food.

As I've said before - I've never eaten decent Indian food in Munich and got annoyed trying to find it. In almost all restaurants here they make a generic curry sauce and throw (far too few) lumps of meat into it, changing only a few spices to differentiate each dish. All shite.

I know an Indian girl here at work who says that the Taj Mahal at the end of Nymphenburgerstr near Rotkreuzplatz serves genuine North Indian cuisine, just like back in India.

Just wanted to add my views here..

I feel that Indians themselves might have not ate all the kinds of food available in various states in India.Here,I emphasize that evry regional food has its own flavour.Some people add red chilli powder and some fresh green chillies to get that hot taste.Some dont add masalas and some do..

As the above post says depending on which part of India you are travelling you can get appropriate feedback and suggestions as to what to avoid and what to eat there...

@ aks


You Said it!

I am really surprised!! Not once have I felt satisfied after eating at an Indian restaurant here. Nothing like back home. The closest were a couple of restaurants in London.

We tried one in Markt Schwaben last Monday.Told the cook to make the curry like he would at home.Was good but they also have a special on stating that Monday is ladies night and when accompaning a female they eat free.Was not stated that on Bank holidays this does not apply.Was pissed off.Spoilt a good meal.Anyway also heard that what used to be the 'Jasmin Garden ' in Erding has now been taken over by two indians from England.Will be checking that one out soon too.Watch this space.

I think that goes to show how ellusive real Indian food is. Someone could come from India and cook their stuff exactly as they did back home, and still another Indian would come up and say that's not how he's used to it. As long as it tastes good, who cares?

@Hutcho, yes I get jaundiced by the comments: you can't get decent curry here. I'm a self professed curry addict, who's eaten curry in India, Sri Lanka, England, and lots of other places.

And I think you can get a damn fine curry here. Not like Rajeev's Mum used to make, but it never is, is it?
You can also get a totally crap curry here, and beleive me, I've had many of those. However the Taj Mahal has never managed to serve me crap.

And I'm off soon to try the newest South Indian in Nürnberg.