- Parsi cuisine
Parsi cuisine is a blend of vegetarian
Gujarati cuisine and non-vegetarianIranian cuisine .Primary meals
The basic feature of a Parsi lunch is rice, eaten with lentils or a curry. Curry is made with coconut and "ras" without, with curry usually being thicker than "ras". Dinner would be a meat dish, often accompanied by potatoes or other vegetable curry. "Kachubar" (a sharp onion-cucumber salad) accompanies most meals.
Popular Parsi dishes include:
* "chicken farcha" (fried chicken)
* "patra ni machhi" (steamed fish wrapped in banana leaf)
* "dhansak" (lamb, mutton, goat or chicken in lentil gravy)
* "sali murghi" (spicy chicken with fine potato crisps)
* "jinga nu pathio" (shrimp in spicy curry)
* "khichri" (rice with leftovers)
* "saas ni machhi" (yellow rice withpomfret fish fillets in white gravy)
* "jardaloo sali boti" (boneless mutton in an onion and tomato gravy with apricots and potato strips)
* "tamota ni russ chaval" (mutton cutlets with white rice and tomato gravy)Also popular among Parsis, but less so elsewhere are the typical Parsi "eeda" (egg) dishes, which include "
akuri " (scrambled eggs with spices) and the "pora" ("Parsi" omlette). Main dishes such as those mentioned above are often served with an egg on top.Traditional breakfasts during the 1930's in Mumbai or in many South Gujarat villages consisted of "khurchan" (offal meats cooked with potatoes in a spicy gravy), and some variant of the ubiquitous deep fried, fried or half-fried eggs. In agrarian communities this would be washed down by copious quantities of coconut toddy, often straight off the tree.
Although in the not so distant past, vegetables were considered a 'poor peoples food', there is a presently a trend towards light eating, no red-meat and even vegetarianism.
Desserts
Common desserts ("vasanu", literally 'sweet dish') include "sev" (vermicelli), "ravo" (semolina). Also popular are "faluda" and "kulfi", both of which are adoptions from the cuisines of the
Irani and Urdu-speaking communities.nacks
Popular parsi snacks include "bhakhra" (deep fried sweet dough) "batasa" (flour and butter tea biscuits) "dar ni pori" (sweetened lentils stuffed in a light pastry) and "khaman na lavda" (dumplings stuffed with sweetened coconut).
References
*
Recipes
* [http://www.gourmetindia.com/pgview.php?id=139 Recipes for a Parsi festival meal]
* [http://www.parsicuisine.com/ Recipes from parsicuisine.com]
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