what to eat in delhi

This North Indian dessert is made of rice flour or ground rice milk and sugar; it has the delicious subtly sweet taste of rice pudding but a creamy smooth texture. Its usually topped with pistachio nuts and served chilled in earthenware bowls. Like the similar kheer phirni is especially popular during Ramadan and in Muslim restaurants.

One of the more interesting things we tasted in Delhi rabri faluda is a sweet rich drink so thick its served with a spoon consisting of vermicelli noodles (faluda same as that in kulfi faluda) and a pasty traditional sweet called rabri made of boiled milk cream sugar nuts and cardamom. The rabri is scooped on top of a glass of faluda then topped with crushed ice and mixed well. Its a very heavy floral drink likely with Persian roots.

This colorful chaat or snack is quite popular in Delhi and other parts of northern India. It consists of kachori small fried bready balls and a variety of other yummy things chickpeas potatoes tomatoes moong sprouts masalas yogurt coriander and tamarind chutneys pomegranate seeds crunchy sev stuffed inside and atop a thin and very crispyfried purilike hollow shell. The various chutneys and yogurt coat the whole affair making it a perfect mix of wet and crunchy sweet and tangy spicy and cooling. In other words: an ideal funtoeat chaat.

Red kidney beans or rajma are not native to India but they show up in this common Punjabi dish paired with rice or chawal. Soupy and hearty its like a Latin American rice and beans with Indian spices.

Its origins lie in eastern India but this simple dairylovers dessert is very popular all over the north including Delhi. Its made of soft balls of sweetened chenna (like a crumbly paneer Indias cottage cheese) soaked in malai or clotted cream flavored with cardamom topped with nuts or dried fruit and served chilled. It wont win points for color but its delicious with delicate sweetness.

A popular Punjabi preparation saag chicken or saag paneer combines a protein of choice with a wellspiced spinach curry made with lots of onion garlic ginger and spices. Its one of the classic North Indian curries with the bonus of feeling relatively healthy.

One of the most widely known and enjoyed Indian snacks samosas are quite popular in Delhi and around North India which in general loves its fried goodies. Though regional variations abound up here samosas are triangular flourbased pastries stuffed with various ingredients such as spiced potato peas onions dal or paneer and then deepfried and served with some sort of chutney. Youll find them as a standalone snack or in chaat for which yogurt chutneys chaat masala and more would also be present and the samosa smashed open. On their own though theyre perfect little pocketpastries for when you just want a small bite

Among Indias myriad sweets made with ghee or clarified butter and specifically those common in Delhi there are halwas and a variety of ladoo (in addition to the everpopular jalebi of course). Within those categories there are many types; halwas for instance are generally either soft and flourbased (such as the puddinglike moong dal halwa) or crunchy/crumbly and nutbased. To simplify well focus on a few local favorites: sohan halwa a nutty Punjabi sweet (made of sprouted wheat flour nuts ghee milk sugar) thats been satisfying Delhi sweet tooths for several centuries; Karachi halwa a soft chewy nutstudded halwa tasting of honey made from dry fruits and originally from Pakistan; and motichoor ladoo a sugarsyrupsoaked ball of fried gram flour ghee milk and cardamom powder hailing from nearby Uttar Pradesh one of the many sweet balls that are called ladoo.

Indian sweets are so numerous and dizzyingly varied the colors! the shapes! the textures! that one look at a typical counter might send a foreigner running to the nearest BaskinRobbins. But dont be intimidated: On this site weve attempted to organize Indias vast mithai (sweets) scene at least the tip of the iceberg by concentrating on two of its basic categories both of them common in Delhi: sweets made with ghee and those made with milk or khoya (also spelled khoa) a semidehydrated milk product. (To further complicate things most of the latter sweets likewise use some ghee but its the milk or khoya that really defines them.) Among others in the khoya corner theres the lovable gulab jamun of course but also the squareshaped barfi (or burfi) popular and tasty; the prevalent milk cake crumbly and well cakelike; and peda a soft doughy delicious ball of sweetness.

Popular across North India and well beyond tandoori chicken is named for the cylindrical clay oven (tandoor) in which the bird is cooked. The generally accepted origin story attributes its invention to a Hindu Punjabi Kundan Lal Gujral who fled Pakistan following the 1947 partition and opened a stillexisting restaurant in Delhi Moti Mahal (see below) only to soon invent both tandoori and butter chicken. Of course its hard to say for sure where the recipe might have come from but its pretty safe to call this a typical Delhi food. The chicken is marinated in curd thoroughly spiced to achieve its trademark scarlet hue and cooked at a high temperature in the tandoor. Most often the meats served in pieces on the bone. If it seems kind of boring because of its familiarity to many of us in the West dont be fooled: When its good and properly spicy its blowyourmind delicious.