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Data-Crunching Indian Recipes

117 points by cgoodmac 12y ago

dkhenry 12y ago
This may come as a surprise to some, but there are lots of people who don't think Indian food is delicious. I would be really interested if scientists have distilled something as subjective as your pallet and refined it to a formula.
- splat 12y ago
  There is, in fact, quite a science of producing foods that have pleasing tastes. They call the optimum combination of flavors the "bliss point": http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary...
  - res0nat0r 12y ago
    Salt, Sugar, Fat is a great book about this: http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/0812982193 http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/081298... That might be linked in the article, but even clicking thru via a google search it is locked down now so I can't check.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      Those foods are hyper-appetizing but they're not what most people call delicious.
      - res0nat0r 12y ago
        That comment is more about how companies create and hook us on mass market food using those three properties in the book title. There also is specifically a lot of talk about food chemistry and their use of the "bliss point".
- f055 12y ago
  I concur. For one, I find Indian food pretty bad, too much spices, too much ingredients, and everything tastes like curry ;)
  - moron4hire 12y ago
    Understand that "curry" is a style of dish, about as specific as "stew". It doesn't automatically imply a specific flavor or set of flavors, just as "stew" doesn't automatically imply meat and potatoes, even if they do feature frequently in many stews. Are you perhaps thinking of turmeric or cumin? They feature heavily in a lot of different curries and are particularly strong and distinct in flavor.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - amalag 12y ago
    There is no such thing as "curry" for an Indian cook. That is an Indian restaurant thing for westerners.
  - vram22 12y ago
    Curry in India means, colloquially, just any dish with some gravy. Not gravy as in Western cuisine, which is made separately and poured onto some food (or kept on the side), but gravy as in, a dish that is somewhat liquid-y. Whereas (I think) in British slang, curry means any (quite) spicy (as in pungent) Indian or South Asian dish.
    - mc32 12y ago
      In both Japan and China curry means a kind of dish made with a blend of Indian spices. They are usually liquidy. In Thailand they mix coconut milk into a spice blend. Japanese curry tends to be less spicy. My point is curry is an international dish with lots of regional variation and each has its own authenticity.
  - vram22 12y ago
- ganeumann 12y ago
  The headline is a bit clickbait-y, but the referenced paper is interesting. Main idea is that people have been saying that pleasing combinations have overlapping flavor profiles, but Indian food is characterized by strong negative food pairings.
  - GalacticDomin8r 12y ago
    > The headline is a bit clickbait-y Calling it "a bit" is a bit of a minimization.
- noir_lord 12y ago
  Not a fan of indian food at all but I like some Chinese food. Mostly what I like is 'traditional' English/North European cooking (pork, beef, veggies, potatoes etc) and some Italian (but again the simpler dishes).
  - magic_beans 12y ago
    :/ Boring. Spice is good!
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  There are lots of people with bad opinions.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  > pallet This word and 'palate' are so overloaded.
- evandev 12y ago
  Actually, the startup[0] I work for has found a way to quantify subjective flavor space. We use data science, machine learning, and advanced algorithms to analyze human sensory. We're focused on the craft beverage market as of right now, mainly in quality control and flavor profiling. [0] https://www.gastrograph.com https://www.gastrograph.com
  - rjett 12y ago
    Gastrograph looks very interesting. I run a coffee shop/roastery and the industry has been in need of a tool like this for awhile. I'll be checking you guys out at some point. Glad I saw this!
- Htsthbjig 12y ago
  India is enormous. It is a continent with totally different climates. There are lots of different food variants there. I find some of its food delicious, some I can't eat because it has so many spices. Lots of Western flavors come from India, like custard from cinnamon,hamburger pepper in the meat or ketchup(an indian dish imitation), or Spanish paella from saffron.
  - amalag 12y ago
    Yes this article and the recipes sound mostly north Indian centric. For instance there is no such thing as Indian curry. It is a western word for some mixture of spices and ingredients. If you say "I like Indian food, I love curry" they will understand you nothing about Indian food. Curry is what a restaurant will call something when someone asks what the dish is. Another example is that in western India they hardly use garam masala. It is much more north Indian centric. The main ingredient in garam masala, cloves, can be very overwhelming.
    - negamax 12y ago
      Indian curry and its usage is annoying. That's the farthest you can ever go from Indian food.
    - avighnay 12y ago
      Actually the article uses Coconut Chutney to illustrate which is very much a south Indian staple accompaniment.
      - amalag 12y ago
        The word "chutney" is not even in the article. It just talks about putting onions with coconuts and curry leaves. And in fact you will find that the vast majority of coconut chutney does NOT have onions. Curry leaves are interesting, they are not used in Bengal. In spite of Bengal being tropical like parts of South India.
- vacri 12y ago
  Every cuisine has people that don't like it, but some are more popular than others.
- g10be 12y ago
  This is aka. foodpairing, a nice illustrated example of the principle is this one of pear & ginger: http://blog.foodpairing.com/2015/02/pear-ginger/ http://blog.foodpairing.com/2015/02/pear-ginger/ There is also a tool available w/ +1500 ingredients (mainly aimed at chefs & bartenders)
c0nsumer 12y ago
I'd love to see a tool that allows one to input ingredients and see flavor overlaps. It'd be really interesting to use this with one's favorite foods and use it to build recommendations for others.
- scribu 12y ago
  The tricky part would be getting the molecular breakdown for each ingredient. I'm not sure if that sort of data is readily available.
  - athenot 12y ago
    It could model what happens in a smoothie blender (with no heat and assuming no oxydation) but it would not account for the reactions occurring during cooking. Thinks like the Maillard reaction[0], breakdowns of various oils, etc. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
  - jp555 12y ago
    I'd think you'd only need a breakdown of the taste receptor stimulating compounds. But even then whether food tastes good or not is very complex and goes WAY beyond taste receptors. There's the obvious smell and the way it looks, but even the sounds around you while eating, how hungry you are, what your drinking, the temperature of your beverage, the room's light levels, temperature, and humidity, and even the height of the table, what kind of chair you're sitting in, and the texture of your napkin will affect how you perceive the taste of a meal.
- sporkenfang 12y ago
  This would be handy if matched against a database of recipes: e.g., I'm craving something that tastes like x, here are y recipes that taste a lot like x based on their ingredients and flavour profiles, but are (perhaps subtly) different; this way you could have some variety in what you cook and still feel as if you ate what sounded good.
- uberstuber 12y ago
  Something like The Flavor Bible [0] but in a database would be really nice. [0] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316118400/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=3521939033&ref=pd_sl_81fgm99dk7_e http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316118400/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=3521...
up_and_up 12y ago
Interesting read! My wife practices ayurveda so we eat a lot of Indian food. In terms of the flavor profiles they mention in the article, ayurveda has a concept of the 6 tastes: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, astringent and bitter. A well-balanced meal should include all the tastes. I am not sure how much ayurveda has influenced "Indian" style cooking, but I assume quite a bit. Maybe someone else can weigh in on it. And yes it does require quite a number of ingredients. Example, the breakfast I just made included: Poha (flattened rice), mushrooms, coconut flakes, onions, green beans, almonds, potatoes, apples, cilantro, mustard seeds, hing, turmeric powder, cumin powder, salt, lime, chilis, coconut oil Took about 20 mins to prepare.
- amalag 12y ago
  Indian style cooking used to mean ayurvedic cooking. Nowadays it is a bit more modern and not so healthy. For instance the poha recipe you shared is quite traditional (except for the mushrooms and apples). The 6 tastes are definitely more prominent in Indian cooking. Most Indian people will enjoy a nice bitter preparation. That is not something which is common in western cooking. North Indian cooking is younger because of the Moghul/Persian influence.
- vram22 12y ago
  >I am not sure how much ayurveda has influenced "Indian" style cooking, but I assume quite a bit. Maybe someone else can weigh in on it. As amalag says (sibling comment), quite a bit, though less nowadays (because of traditional knowledge fading somewhat, time needed to make such food properly, work pressure, fast food, and increasing popularity of Western and other cuisines). There are a few books that talk about this, i.e. how traditional Indian food recipes incorporate Ayurvedic principles, for health (and taste :). One such book that talks about this a little, IIRC, is "Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution" by Dr. Robert Svoboda, who studied Ayurveda in India. http://www.drsvoboda.com/prakriti-bk.htm http://www.drsvoboda.com/prakriti-bk.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Svoboda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Svoboda
- shiggerino 12y ago
  Ayurvedic? Isn't that the one with the heavy metals? Maybe spice up the dish with some methylmercury seasoning salt.
seivan 12y ago
Beware, amateur science incoming! Sugar. Sugar is what makes food delicious. It comes in various shapes, most notable (for me) is potato, rice and bread. I can eat that stuff... FOREVER. Indian food has a lot of it. Rice, bread and in the sauces. Just my two cents.
- Mikeb85 12y ago
  It's so much more than just sugar/starch. After all, Goat curry is just as delicious as say, Aloo Gobi...
- bps4484 12y ago
  But sugar/starches are present in LOTS of foods. The question is: what makes indian different? Do you think it has even more sugar/starches than other foods? It doesn't seem like it to me but maybe I'm wrong.
- chengiz 12y ago
  This is utter nonsense. A very few cuisines such as Gujarati use noticeable amounts of sugar. A large majority of Indian curries at most have a small amount of sugar, not enough to be discernible to the palate, but helps blend the flavours together. It is nothing like barbecue/meat sauces in the west where the second major ingredient is sugar.
  - ars 12y ago
    He means that potato, rice and bread and equivalent to sugar. They sort of are from a nutritional point of view, and I guess he means from a flavor point of view as well.
    - chengiz 12y ago
      Indian curries do not necessarily have potato or any starch.
      - seivan 12y ago
taylorwc 12y ago
Slightly OT: reading this near to lunchtime was a huge mistake. Edit: because now I'm craving Indian food, not because there's something unappealing about it.
astazangasta 12y ago
Fuck empiricist reduction. So sick of this bullshit epistemology trying to break us down to equations.
- PeterWhittaker 12y ago
  I'm assuming you don't believe in evolution, then? Because if you do, if you accept the reality of evolution, genetics, the slow accretion of complexity through purely random changes, some of which are positive, etc., then EITHER you implicitly accept reductionism OR you must explicitly state how it is we are not just chemistry. We are piles of complex chemistry, and not much more. In fact, nothing more, according to our best reproducible, documentable, shareable, practical, implementable knowledge. (As opposed to slippery mystical knowledge which is hard to reproduce, document, share, do anything practical with, etc.)
  - astazangasta 12y ago
    Actually you are dead wrong. Not only do I believe in evolution, I have a PhD studying evolutionary biology (mostly mammalian phylogenetics). Yes we are piles of chemistry. "Not much more" is an empiricist conceit, as is reproducibility. But thanks for making the chauvinism of empiricist epistemology clear via your comment. You are exactly who I am complaining about, the asshole who sees people in love and thinks, "hmm, oxytocin."
    - nether 12y ago
      You seem rustled.
      - PeterWhittaker 12y ago
        Me? Nope, never been stolen in my life. :-> Seriously, not bothered in the least. Just curious why someone would question empiricism, reductionism, etc., given how successful they have been for us in so many areas. Especially on a site like HN, when hacking is ultimately about curiosity and discovery - and those tools, empiricism, reductionism, analysis, synthesis, etc., the whole modern package of modern science, are the best tools we have for discovery, for satisfaction of curiosity. They're not perfect, but they are far better than many alternatives folks espouse (mysticism, anti-rationality, etc.). Can we explain everything? Of course not! Not yet, anyway. Are there any reasons in principle why we will not be able to, eventually? Hmm, well, if there are, we will discover those reasons using those same tools of investigation and exploration, e.g., there may be things that we determine we can never explain for reasons of computational complexity - it's just impossible to get there from here, or for reasons of incompleteness, etc.
michael_h 12y ago
'Labor intensive cuisine'? No more labor intensive than any other cuisine. Most of the time it's: stir things to brown them a bit, add the liquid part, and let it simmer unattendend for a while. EDIT: Milk, butter, bread, and rice, meanwhile—all of which are hallmarks of Western cuisine I'm wondering if the author has ever even been to an Indian restaurant.
- scott_s 12y ago
  Regarding your edit, I think you are misinterpreting the author. The point of the article is that Indian food tends to pair flavors which are not alike, unlike Western food, which tends to pair flavors which are alike. However, in Indian food with milk, butter, bread and rice, they tend to be pairing flavors that are alike - similar to what Western food does in general, and the author pointed out that those are staples in Western food.
  - michael_h 12y ago
    The way it is worded, it sounds like he trying to imply that 'milk, butter, bread, and rice' are not staples in Indian food. The main thesis is that Indian food is tasty because it uses flavors that do not overlap. Adding a caveat for milk, butter, bread, and rice of: "When any of those ingredients appeared in an Indian dish, there was a good chance there would be a lot of flavor overlap." kind of obliterates the main thesis. Am I misreading? SubEDIT: Awwww, looking at the source paper, they count 'ghee' as completely separate from 'butter'. Rice still seems pretty staple-y though. EDIT EDIT: Wait, Table S3 lists 'rice basmati' with a frequency of occurrence of 69, but Table S4 lists 'rice' with a frequency of occurrence of 256. This smells of improperly sanitized data.
    - scott_s 12y ago
      I can understand how one would interpret it that way - implying that milk, butter and bread are not staples in Indian food - but I don't think that's the case. The wording is confusing, but I think we get the most consistent meaning interpreted my way. Whether or not that interpretation actually represents reality, however, is a different matter.
myth_buster 12y ago
The new-age cuisines, those created by the celebrity chefs and fusion food-trucks, are optimizing on this trait, which is roller-coaster flavor ride with every bite.
GalacticDomin8r 12y ago
I like Indian tacos.
sigzero 12y ago
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!
q2 12y ago
As far as I know, most of the Indian food is not "fast food" category i.e. you need to have patience and heart to prepare and it takes real effort and you need to have patience to sit and eat comfortably rather than eating on the way or eating while walking ...etc. It naturally helps health. This may or may not be the case with other cuisines.
- bluedino 12y ago
  Indian food is huge as takeaway/takeout.
bluedino 12y ago
It's delicious (in restaurants) because of the copious amounts of cream, oil, and butter (well, ghee) used. No mystery there!
- amalag 12y ago
  Most of the sauces are very similar, a tomato base with some cream thrown in. You start to get really sick of it.
moron4hire 12y ago
I think emphasis on the ingredients used is short-sighted. Cooking technique can drastically alter the flavor of ingredients. There is a reason we brown meat, and it's not to "lock in juices" or some such nonsense. There is a reason we let stews, well, stew so long. Dry aging beef isn't just a game of musical chairs for entertainment reasons. There is a reason awesome ramen soup takes more than 24 hours to make. It's why you can't just add smoke flavor and color to neutral spirits and get whiskey. It's why you can't add liquor and acetals to grape juice and have wine. It's all about giving time for various enzymatic processes to do different types of work on the food. I suspect that the slow, stewing cooking methods typical of Indian curries allows the proteins in the meats used to break down and create a significant amount of glutamic acid, the chemical responsible for the "umami" or "savory" flavor. While this article is very interesting, it's very far from the whole story.
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
It doesn't come with its own cardboard microwave holder?
aceperry 12y ago
What??? They've missed the essential ingredient of good food. You have to add some love to it before it can become great food!
grandalf 12y ago
Indian food is one of the oldest cuisines in the world -- created in a region with abundant crops and flavors, it represents the pinnacle of human cuisine. Each recipe is tens of thousands of years old and has been refined into what it is today. That's why it's do delicious.
nullp 12y ago
Similar paper on the subject, broadly breaks down other regions and has a similar finding that 'western' food shares flavor compounds while others do not. http://www.nature.com/srep/2011/111215/srep00196/full/srep00196.html http://www.nature.com/srep/2011/111215/srep00196/full/srep00...
jpatokal 12y ago
> More specifically, many Indian recipes contain cayenne, Cayenne is a city in French Guiana. "Cayenne pepper", on the other hand, is a specific cultivar of the red chilli pepper that's not really used in India (although lots of other varieties are). > the basis of curry powder that is in dishes like red curry, green curry, or massaman curry. Those are all Thai curries, not Indian ones!
Geekette 12y ago
"The takeaway is that part of what makes Indian food so appealing is the way flavors rub up against each other." The article seems to be a missive from the Capt Obvious dept, just apparently "datafied" with some study. I did not learn anything new from it, neither do I agree that Indian cuisine is necessarily more complicated compared to cooking from other regions of the world. Glad some people somewhere enjoyed the exercise of collating ingredients and flavours, I guess.

117 points by cgoodmac 12y ago

This may come as a surprise to some, but there are lots of people who don't think Indian food is delicious. I would be really interested if scientists have distilled something as subjective as your pallet and refined it to a formula.

splat 12y ago
There is, in fact, quite a science of producing foods that have pleasing tastes. They call the optimum combination of flavors the "bliss point": http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary...
- res0nat0r 12y ago
  Salt, Sugar, Fat is a great book about this: http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/0812982193 http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/081298... That might be linked in the article, but even clicking thru via a google search it is locked down now so I can't check.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Those foods are hyper-appetizing but they're not what most people call delicious.
    - res0nat0r 12y ago
      That comment is more about how companies create and hook us on mass market food using those three properties in the book title. There also is specifically a lot of talk about food chemistry and their use of the "bliss point".
f055 12y ago
I concur. For one, I find Indian food pretty bad, too much spices, too much ingredients, and everything tastes like curry ;)
- moron4hire 12y ago
  Understand that "curry" is a style of dish, about as specific as "stew". It doesn't automatically imply a specific flavor or set of flavors, just as "stew" doesn't automatically imply meat and potatoes, even if they do feature frequently in many stews. Are you perhaps thinking of turmeric or cumin? They feature heavily in a lot of different curries and are particularly strong and distinct in flavor.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- amalag 12y ago
  There is no such thing as "curry" for an Indian cook. That is an Indian restaurant thing for westerners.
- vram22 12y ago
  Curry in India means, colloquially, just any dish with some gravy. Not gravy as in Western cuisine, which is made separately and poured onto some food (or kept on the side), but gravy as in, a dish that is somewhat liquid-y. Whereas (I think) in British slang, curry means any (quite) spicy (as in pungent) Indian or South Asian dish.
  - mc32 12y ago
    In both Japan and China curry means a kind of dish made with a blend of Indian spices. They are usually liquidy. In Thailand they mix coconut milk into a spice blend. Japanese curry tends to be less spicy. My point is curry is an international dish with lots of regional variation and each has its own authenticity.
- vram22 12y ago
ganeumann 12y ago
The headline is a bit clickbait-y, but the referenced paper is interesting. Main idea is that people have been saying that pleasing combinations have overlapping flavor profiles, but Indian food is characterized by strong negative food pairings.
- GalacticDomin8r 12y ago
  > The headline is a bit clickbait-y Calling it "a bit" is a bit of a minimization.
noir_lord 12y ago
Not a fan of indian food at all but I like some Chinese food. Mostly what I like is 'traditional' English/North European cooking (pork, beef, veggies, potatoes etc) and some Italian (but again the simpler dishes).
- magic_beans 12y ago
  :/ Boring. Spice is good!
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
There are lots of people with bad opinions.
cbd1984 12y ago
> pallet This word and 'palate' are so overloaded.
evandev 12y ago
Actually, the startup[0] I work for has found a way to quantify subjective flavor space. We use data science, machine learning, and advanced algorithms to analyze human sensory. We're focused on the craft beverage market as of right now, mainly in quality control and flavor profiling. [0] https://www.gastrograph.com https://www.gastrograph.com
- rjett 12y ago
  Gastrograph looks very interesting. I run a coffee shop/roastery and the industry has been in need of a tool like this for awhile. I'll be checking you guys out at some point. Glad I saw this!
Htsthbjig 12y ago
India is enormous. It is a continent with totally different climates. There are lots of different food variants there. I find some of its food delicious, some I can't eat because it has so many spices. Lots of Western flavors come from India, like custard from cinnamon,hamburger pepper in the meat or ketchup(an indian dish imitation), or Spanish paella from saffron.
- amalag 12y ago
  Yes this article and the recipes sound mostly north Indian centric. For instance there is no such thing as Indian curry. It is a western word for some mixture of spices and ingredients. If you say "I like Indian food, I love curry" they will understand you nothing about Indian food. Curry is what a restaurant will call something when someone asks what the dish is. Another example is that in western India they hardly use garam masala. It is much more north Indian centric. The main ingredient in garam masala, cloves, can be very overwhelming.
  - negamax 12y ago
    Indian curry and its usage is annoying. That's the farthest you can ever go from Indian food.
  - avighnay 12y ago
    Actually the article uses Coconut Chutney to illustrate which is very much a south Indian staple accompaniment.
    - amalag 12y ago
      The word "chutney" is not even in the article. It just talks about putting onions with coconuts and curry leaves. And in fact you will find that the vast majority of coconut chutney does NOT have onions. Curry leaves are interesting, they are not used in Bengal. In spite of Bengal being tropical like parts of South India.
vacri 12y ago
Every cuisine has people that don't like it, but some are more popular than others.
g10be 12y ago
This is aka. foodpairing, a nice illustrated example of the principle is this one of pear & ginger: http://blog.foodpairing.com/2015/02/pear-ginger/ http://blog.foodpairing.com/2015/02/pear-ginger/ There is also a tool available w/ +1500 ingredients (mainly aimed at chefs & bartenders)

c0nsumer 12y ago

I'd love to see a tool that allows one to input ingredients and see flavor overlaps. It'd be really interesting to use this with one's favorite foods and use it to build recommendations for others.

scribu 12y ago
The tricky part would be getting the molecular breakdown for each ingredient. I'm not sure if that sort of data is readily available.
- athenot 12y ago
  It could model what happens in a smoothie blender (with no heat and assuming no oxydation) but it would not account for the reactions occurring during cooking. Thinks like the Maillard reaction[0], breakdowns of various oils, etc. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction
- jp555 12y ago
  I'd think you'd only need a breakdown of the taste receptor stimulating compounds. But even then whether food tastes good or not is very complex and goes WAY beyond taste receptors. There's the obvious smell and the way it looks, but even the sounds around you while eating, how hungry you are, what your drinking, the temperature of your beverage, the room's light levels, temperature, and humidity, and even the height of the table, what kind of chair you're sitting in, and the texture of your napkin will affect how you perceive the taste of a meal.
sporkenfang 12y ago
This would be handy if matched against a database of recipes: e.g., I'm craving something that tastes like x, here are y recipes that taste a lot like x based on their ingredients and flavour profiles, but are (perhaps subtly) different; this way you could have some variety in what you cook and still feel as if you ate what sounded good.
uberstuber 12y ago
Something like The Flavor Bible [0] but in a database would be really nice. [0] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316118400/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=3521939033&ref=pd_sl_81fgm99dk7_e http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316118400/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=3521...

up_and_up 12y ago

Interesting read! My wife practices ayurveda so we eat a lot of Indian food. In terms of the flavor profiles they mention in the article, ayurveda has a concept of the 6 tastes: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, astringent and bitter. A well-balanced meal should include all the tastes. I am not sure how much ayurveda has influenced "Indian" style cooking, but I assume quite a bit. Maybe someone else can weigh in on it. And yes it does require quite a number of ingredients. Example, the breakfast I just made included: Poha (flattened rice), mushrooms, coconut flakes, onions, green beans, almonds, potatoes, apples, cilantro, mustard seeds, hing, turmeric powder, cumin powder, salt, lime, chilis, coconut oil Took about 20 mins to prepare.

amalag 12y ago
Indian style cooking used to mean ayurvedic cooking. Nowadays it is a bit more modern and not so healthy. For instance the poha recipe you shared is quite traditional (except for the mushrooms and apples). The 6 tastes are definitely more prominent in Indian cooking. Most Indian people will enjoy a nice bitter preparation. That is not something which is common in western cooking. North Indian cooking is younger because of the Moghul/Persian influence.
vram22 12y ago
>I am not sure how much ayurveda has influenced "Indian" style cooking, but I assume quite a bit. Maybe someone else can weigh in on it. As amalag says (sibling comment), quite a bit, though less nowadays (because of traditional knowledge fading somewhat, time needed to make such food properly, work pressure, fast food, and increasing popularity of Western and other cuisines). There are a few books that talk about this, i.e. how traditional Indian food recipes incorporate Ayurvedic principles, for health (and taste :). One such book that talks about this a little, IIRC, is "Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution" by Dr. Robert Svoboda, who studied Ayurveda in India. http://www.drsvoboda.com/prakriti-bk.htm http://www.drsvoboda.com/prakriti-bk.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Svoboda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Svoboda
shiggerino 12y ago
Ayurvedic? Isn't that the one with the heavy metals? Maybe spice up the dish with some methylmercury seasoning salt.

seivan 12y ago

Beware, amateur science incoming! Sugar. Sugar is what makes food delicious. It comes in various shapes, most notable (for me) is potato, rice and bread. I can eat that stuff... FOREVER. Indian food has a lot of it. Rice, bread and in the sauces. Just my two cents.

Mikeb85 12y ago
It's so much more than just sugar/starch. After all, Goat curry is just as delicious as say, Aloo Gobi...
bps4484 12y ago
But sugar/starches are present in LOTS of foods. The question is: what makes indian different? Do you think it has even more sugar/starches than other foods? It doesn't seem like it to me but maybe I'm wrong.
chengiz 12y ago
This is utter nonsense. A very few cuisines such as Gujarati use noticeable amounts of sugar. A large majority of Indian curries at most have a small amount of sugar, not enough to be discernible to the palate, but helps blend the flavours together. It is nothing like barbecue/meat sauces in the west where the second major ingredient is sugar.
- ars 12y ago
  He means that potato, rice and bread and equivalent to sugar. They sort of are from a nutritional point of view, and I guess he means from a flavor point of view as well.
  - chengiz 12y ago
    Indian curries do not necessarily have potato or any starch.
    - seivan 12y ago

taylorwc 12y ago

Slightly OT: reading this near to lunchtime was a huge mistake. Edit: because now I'm craving Indian food, not because there's something unappealing about it.

astazangasta 12y ago

Fuck empiricist reduction. So sick of this bullshit epistemology trying to break us down to equations.

PeterWhittaker 12y ago
I'm assuming you don't believe in evolution, then? Because if you do, if you accept the reality of evolution, genetics, the slow accretion of complexity through purely random changes, some of which are positive, etc., then EITHER you implicitly accept reductionism OR you must explicitly state how it is we are not just chemistry. We are piles of complex chemistry, and not much more. In fact, nothing more, according to our best reproducible, documentable, shareable, practical, implementable knowledge. (As opposed to slippery mystical knowledge which is hard to reproduce, document, share, do anything practical with, etc.)
- astazangasta 12y ago
  Actually you are dead wrong. Not only do I believe in evolution, I have a PhD studying evolutionary biology (mostly mammalian phylogenetics). Yes we are piles of chemistry. "Not much more" is an empiricist conceit, as is reproducibility. But thanks for making the chauvinism of empiricist epistemology clear via your comment. You are exactly who I am complaining about, the asshole who sees people in love and thinks, "hmm, oxytocin."
  - nether 12y ago
    You seem rustled.
    - PeterWhittaker 12y ago
      Me? Nope, never been stolen in my life. :-> Seriously, not bothered in the least. Just curious why someone would question empiricism, reductionism, etc., given how successful they have been for us in so many areas. Especially on a site like HN, when hacking is ultimately about curiosity and discovery - and those tools, empiricism, reductionism, analysis, synthesis, etc., the whole modern package of modern science, are the best tools we have for discovery, for satisfaction of curiosity. They're not perfect, but they are far better than many alternatives folks espouse (mysticism, anti-rationality, etc.). Can we explain everything? Of course not! Not yet, anyway. Are there any reasons in principle why we will not be able to, eventually? Hmm, well, if there are, we will discover those reasons using those same tools of investigation and exploration, e.g., there may be things that we determine we can never explain for reasons of computational complexity - it's just impossible to get there from here, or for reasons of incompleteness, etc.

michael_h 12y ago

'Labor intensive cuisine'? No more labor intensive than any other cuisine. Most of the time it's: stir things to brown them a bit, add the liquid part, and let it simmer unattendend for a while. EDIT: Milk, butter, bread, and rice, meanwhile—all of which are hallmarks of Western cuisine I'm wondering if the author has ever even been to an Indian restaurant.

scott_s 12y ago
Regarding your edit, I think you are misinterpreting the author. The point of the article is that Indian food tends to pair flavors which are not alike, unlike Western food, which tends to pair flavors which are alike. However, in Indian food with milk, butter, bread and rice, they tend to be pairing flavors that are alike - similar to what Western food does in general, and the author pointed out that those are staples in Western food.
- michael_h 12y ago
  The way it is worded, it sounds like he trying to imply that 'milk, butter, bread, and rice' are not staples in Indian food. The main thesis is that Indian food is tasty because it uses flavors that do not overlap. Adding a caveat for milk, butter, bread, and rice of: "When any of those ingredients appeared in an Indian dish, there was a good chance there would be a lot of flavor overlap." kind of obliterates the main thesis. Am I misreading? SubEDIT: Awwww, looking at the source paper, they count 'ghee' as completely separate from 'butter'. Rice still seems pretty staple-y though. EDIT EDIT: Wait, Table S3 lists 'rice basmati' with a frequency of occurrence of 69, but Table S4 lists 'rice' with a frequency of occurrence of 256. This smells of improperly sanitized data.
  - scott_s 12y ago
    I can understand how one would interpret it that way - implying that milk, butter and bread are not staples in Indian food - but I don't think that's the case. The wording is confusing, but I think we get the most consistent meaning interpreted my way. Whether or not that interpretation actually represents reality, however, is a different matter.

myth_buster 12y ago

The new-age cuisines, those created by the celebrity chefs and fusion food-trucks, are optimizing on this trait, which is roller-coaster flavor ride with every bite.

GalacticDomin8r 12y ago

I like Indian tacos.

sigzero 12y ago

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!

q2 12y ago

As far as I know, most of the Indian food is not "fast food" category i.e. you need to have patience and heart to prepare and it takes real effort and you need to have patience to sit and eat comfortably rather than eating on the way or eating while walking ...etc. It naturally helps health. This may or may not be the case with other cuisines.

bluedino 12y ago
Indian food is huge as takeaway/takeout.

bluedino 12y ago

It's delicious (in restaurants) because of the copious amounts of cream, oil, and butter (well, ghee) used. No mystery there!

amalag 12y ago
Most of the sauces are very similar, a tomato base with some cream thrown in. You start to get really sick of it.

moron4hire 12y ago

I think emphasis on the ingredients used is short-sighted. Cooking technique can drastically alter the flavor of ingredients. There is a reason we brown meat, and it's not to "lock in juices" or some such nonsense. There is a reason we let stews, well, stew so long. Dry aging beef isn't just a game of musical chairs for entertainment reasons. There is a reason awesome ramen soup takes more than 24 hours to make. It's why you can't just add smoke flavor and color to neutral spirits and get whiskey. It's why you can't add liquor and acetals to grape juice and have wine. It's all about giving time for various enzymatic processes to do different types of work on the food. I suspect that the slow, stewing cooking methods typical of Indian curries allows the proteins in the meats used to break down and create a significant amount of glutamic acid, the chemical responsible for the "umami" or "savory" flavor. While this article is very interesting, it's very far from the whole story.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago

It doesn't come with its own cardboard microwave holder?

aceperry 12y ago

What??? They've missed the essential ingredient of good food. You have to add some love to it before it can become great food!

grandalf 12y ago

Indian food is one of the oldest cuisines in the world -- created in a region with abundant crops and flavors, it represents the pinnacle of human cuisine. Each recipe is tens of thousands of years old and has been refined into what it is today. That's why it's do delicious.

nullp 12y ago

Similar paper on the subject, broadly breaks down other regions and has a similar finding that 'western' food shares flavor compounds while others do not. http://www.nature.com/srep/2011/111215/srep00196/full/srep00196.html http://www.nature.com/srep/2011/111215/srep00196/full/srep00...

jpatokal 12y ago

> More specifically, many Indian recipes contain cayenne, Cayenne is a city in French Guiana. "Cayenne pepper", on the other hand, is a specific cultivar of the red chilli pepper that's not really used in India (although lots of other varieties are). > the basis of curry powder that is in dishes like red curry, green curry, or massaman curry. Those are all Thai curries, not Indian ones!

Geekette 12y ago

"The takeaway is that part of what makes Indian food so appealing is the way flavors rub up against each other." The article seems to be a missive from the Capt Obvious dept, just apparently "datafied" with some study. I did not learn anything new from it, neither do I agree that Indian cuisine is necessarily more complicated compared to cooking from other regions of the world. Glad some people somewhere enjoyed the exercise of collating ingredients and flavours, I guess.