Secrets that make Indian food stand out
THE next time you are dining out with family, opt for an Indian restaurant. In a new analysis of more than 2 000 popular recipes, scientists think they might have found out why Indian food tastes so distinctive.
Their verdict is that it does something radical with flavours that differs from what is found in Western dishes, which are often prepared with overlapping flavours. Indian food does not overlap flavours.
Researchers at the Indian Institute for Technology in Jodhpur collected data on recipes from popular online recipe site TarlaDalal.com.
They analysed the ingredients in each dish and how often and heavily ingredients shared flavour compounds – and found this did not happen often.
“We found flavour sharing in Indian cuisine was significantly less than expected,” they wrote.
The make-up of Indian cuisine is more discernible in some dishes than others and seems to be linked to the use of specific ingredients.
Spices usually indicate dishes with flavours that have no chemical common ground.
Specifically, many Indian recipes contain cayenne, the basis of curry powder found in dishes such as red curry, green or massaman curry.
Dishes with cayenne are unlikely to share flavours. The same is true of green bell peppers, coriander and garam masala, which are nearly as common in Indian cuisine.
“Each spice is uniquely placed in a recipe to shape the flavour-sharing pattern with the rest of the ingredients,” the researchers noted.
Indian food is made so appealing by the way the flavours interact. – The Independent.