BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Indian Food What is your all-time favorite Indian dish & why??

So glad you enjoy it Kate, both North & South :-)

I saw this thread a while ago, but wanted to really think about what my favorite Indian dish might be before posting. Alas, I cannot choose one!

I was first introduced to Indian food about 15 years ago when I went to an Indian buffet in Denver with some colleagues. I ate so much it hurt! I love food with flavor and nothing compares to the flavors in Indian food.

Since that time I have tried Indian restaurants across the country...anytime I go anywhere I look for vineyards and Indian restaurants (weird, I know). I was doing some consulting work in Indiana a few years ago and one of the people I was working with happened to be Indian. I asked him if he could recommend a good Indian restaurant and he invited me to his home! His wife cooked a HUGE meal of several different dishes. I got to ask them a ton of questions about various spices and a lot about India. They even gave me some different spices to take home. It was a wonderful day!

I stopped consulting a short time after that and was working at a company that consulted with a large Indian company. I became friends with one of their consultants who came over to the US for training and he went with me to several book stores to hunt down a cookbook that had authentic Indian recipes. I use it all the time.

I have even befriended the owners and staff at my favorite Indian restaurant here in Colorado Springs. They have given my 6-year-old daughter and me tours of their kitchen, let us make naan in their big clay ovens and shared one of their recipes with me, which I have promised not to share. Even my daughter loves the food and she is unbelievably picky!

I've decided I can't pick one favorite. I love chutneys and pickles, curries and Naan. Everything has so much flavor, but the flavors are so different. I just love it all. I guess I'm obsessed!

I would have to say Samosas, Butter Chicken, Naan, Mango Lassi - that's my standard order at my local Indian restaurant. My husband always orders new dishes or the specials so I get to sample those too! I LOVE INDIAN FOOD!!!

I love shrimp with spices from Julie Sahni's classic cookbook. I have found that I can also substitute chicken breast. For a vegetarian dish, I sub in Quorn cutlets. This dish is known at our house as Yellow Chicken or Yellow Shrimp, since it is colored with turmeric. EVERYBODY loves this, even our kids who usually don't like Indian food.

Those bread pakoras look delish, but they look like a sometime treat, since they are fried!

We haven't had Indian food in quite a while due to the pandemic. We used to cook it a lot at home but fell out of the habit. Maybe it's time to start that up again! I adore palak paneer.