Cook like a local: India

The best way to get a flavour of India’s diverse cities is to start with their distinctive cuisines – specifically their street foods, from buttery pav bhajis in Mumbai to crisp puchka parcels in Kolkata

Explore this country’s distinctive street foods, from buttery pav bhajis in Mumbai to crisp puchka parcels in Kolkata

Street food is such an important part of India’s food culture that it is available on nearly every corner most of the day and night. Generally made fresh to order, it’s served quickly, extremely cheaply and often very creatively – on the backs of bicycles (or baskets balanced on heads), from hand-pulled carts or at small stalls knocked up with a few bamboo poles and colourful sheets of plastic. Whether it’s scorchingly hot or pouring down with rain, the vendors carry on cooking.

Typical dishes vary from light snacks, like bhel puri and sprouted salads, to more filling meals like chole bhature (chickpea curry served with fried flatbread) and pulao, and are usually packed with a variety of flavours and served with accompaniments like chutneys. India is a vast country, however, with lots of different cuisines, which means street foods also vary from place to place. Not least in the cities of Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai.

For colourful surroundings, the finest filter coffee and south Indian cuisine (dosas, vadas and the best choice of chutneys) head to Chennai. For the best thalis, chaat (savoury snacks, including mouth-watering puchkas – tiny fried semolina parcels filled with potatoes and chickpeas, topped with yogurt, chutney and crunchy noodles) make your way to Kolkata. In Delhi you’ll find the finest flatbreads, and long-established street-food vendors in the old city whose food is so famous that people travel great distances to eat it. Then there’s Mumbai, where street-food dishes from across the country are served from the crack of dawn until beyond midnight. »