Das - Healthy Indian Fusion Soups, Salads and Snacks

Preface

Soups and salads are incredible food for healthy living. However, as we all know eating them regularly not only becomes boring, after a few short weeks it becomes almost impossible. Most folks turn away from soups and salads after a brief interval.

For several years I have been experimenting with a variety of recipes for soups and salads in order to continue eating them regularly. I have also created several dishes for snacks and main courses based primarily on Indian ingredients but often using ingredients from other ethnic food. Indian food has a variety of herbs, spices and flavors that not only makes food very interesting but also preserves and enhances nutritional values while providing incredible flavors and taste. Many Indians are vegetarian. This has resulted in excellent use of a variety of vegetables, herbs and spices to enhance flavor and increase nutritional value. Primary sources of proteins used in Indian dishes are lentils, soy beans and paneer (a kind of cottage cheese).

However, typical Indian foods also suffer from heavy use of cream, butter, oil and fat. Often these same flavors and ingredients are used in many dishes resulting in similar taste. Sometime overuse of spices, especially hot spices, takes away the actual flavor of food.

In my dishes, I have primarily used Indian spices and ingredients, however I have adapted to locally available ingredients whenever appropriate. I tried to minimize use of butter, cream and other fats as much as possible. My focus was to create dishes that can be easily cooked in an average kitchen. Also I wanted to create dishes which can be consumed every day. A number of dishes are either low-calorie, or low-calorie options are provided so that diet or health-conscious people can also consume them regularly.

While Indian cuisines have a large variety of ingredients and incredible recipes, other cuisines like Chinese, Thai, Filipino and Mexican cuisines are also very rich in flavor. I have adopted several dishes in my book from other ethnic cuisine. I modified each dish and infused it with some Indian influence, however I tried to preserve the original ethnic flavors. Most of the ingredients used in this book will be readily available either in local food supermarkets or in Indian,South Asian or international groceries.

Some dishes included are those which are now more or less Indian, however they were adopted from other cuisines and over time became Indian. When I have presented an original dish, generally I have modified it to make the food simple and healthy.

This book is about simple, healthy and flavorful recipes using ingredients mostly available in local supermarkets, Indian or Asian stores. Its not about creating a super-duper fancy five-star restaurant dish. While most recipes do not require any culinary skills or training, some recipes may require a few trials before they become perfect.

Descriptions about many ingredients are presented in Appendix A and Appendix B.

Soups are becoming increasingly popular in Indian Cuisine. Although soups have become very popular recently they have been in existence for hundreds of years in both North Indian and South Indian cuisine. Tadka Daal, Rasam, Sambhar are all different variations of soups used in Indian cuisine.

Lack of popularity of soups earlier in the Indian cuisines were due to the assumption that soups are primarily a meat dish. Lately though soups are becoming very popular. For vegetarian soups, the bases are lentils or tofu (soya beans) or paneer. Chicken is the primary meat used in non-vegetarian soups.

Most of the soup recipes presented here use primarily Indian ingredients, but sometimes they are inspired or influenced by other ethnic soups.

If you are making a soup for a group of people and a few folks need hot and a few mild then prepare the hot sauce based on following formula

2 tsp. sriracha sauch + 1 tsp. habanero sauce + 1 tsp. red chili powder + 1 tbs. lemon juice.

Adding this sauce to your soup for those who want it will make it spicy as well as preserve and enhance the flavor.

Lentil or Mulligatawny soup is one of the most commonly available soups in Indian restaurants. This soup is not only very flavorful, it is also one of the highly nutritious soups. This easy-to-make soup is also very high in protein and vitamins. Feel free to replace any type of lentils not available with a locally available kind.

This dish can be used as an appetizer or can also be used as a main dish with rice or bread.

Ingredients

Preparation

1. Boil 4 cups of water in a pan and add all the lentils. Boil for 15 minutes.

2. Thinly chop onion, tomatoes, green pepper and bok choy.

3. Heat oil in a pan and add cloves, cinnamon, onion and ginger. Fry for 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, green pepper and bok choy. Fry for 3 minutes.

4. Add boiled lentils into pan; add salt and boil for 5 more minutes.

5. Serve hot and add hot sauce if needed.

Calorie Counter

Spinach is one of the most nutritious vegetables and is commonly available everywhere. While extremely nutritious and healthy, unfortunately spinach lacks flavor and is hard to consume raw or cooked for long time due to its bland taste and flavor. By use of flavorful spices and herbs this soup is an ideal contrast of tasty and flavorful but is still extremely healthy. Addition of ajwain, cilantro, cloves and other strong spices enhances flavor of spinach.

This soup is very high in vitamins and also is especially good for digestion. This vegetarian soup is low in calories and is a very good choice for folks on a diet.

Ingredients