Famous Indian Food Found In Little India Penang

         
BANANA LEAF DISHES

What is banana leaf rice?

It’s a traditional method of serving rice dishes on banana leaves instead of plates that was brought over to Malaysia during the migration of South Indians. A unique dining experience, it will tickle your taste buds with all kinds of flavours, while filling your tummy with contentment.

A typical serving of banana leaf rice:

1. Banana leaf

Banana leaves contain large amounts of polyphenols, a natural antioxidant. When hot food is served on it, the food absorbs the nutritional benefits. The leaf also imparts a subtle aroma that makes food more fragrant.

2. Curry

Banana leaf rice is best savoured when it is drenched with curry. Most places will offer a range of curries, with a choice of chicken, fish or dhal.

3. Assorted vegetables

Different types of vegetables are placed at the top half of the leaf. The types of vegetables available depend on the cook. They usually consist of a combination of cucumber raita, spinach, beans, cabbage, potatoes and chutney.

4. Side dishes

For a more filling meal, side dishes can be ordered. Some of the most popular dishes are mutton curry, fried squid, chicken 65 and fried fish.

5. Rasam

A spicy and sourish soup, rasam helps to stimulate the appetite and aids in digestion.

6. Tairu

Tairu is a fresh yoghurt that helps tone down the spiciness of other dishes. 

7. Dried Chillis

Crispy, salty and a little spicy, dried chillis add extra flavour to this meal. 

8. Papadam

A thin, disc-shaped dough made from dried lentils and spices, papadam is highly addictive and is served as an accompaniment to the meal.

Sweets

Northern and southern Indian sweets are known for their calorific levels of sugar, but the sweetness level of the confectioneries featured here safely range from mild to moderate. We wish to make sure that you don’t miss out on these goodies especially during this Deepavali season!

Here are 11 Indian sweets ranging from the classic to the latest creations that you can find at Little India, George Town.

Track down these goodies as you train your sights and ears along the boisterous streets of Lebuh King, Lebuh Penang, and Lebuh Pasar, where high decibel beats of Bollywood music would compel any visitor to break into a dance in the middle of the street!

1. GULAB JAMUN

Often referred to as Indian donuts, gulab jamun are deep-fried dumplings that are soaked in a sugar syrup laced with rose water. Intensely sweet, just one small dumpling will be enough to satisfy your craving .

2. JALEEBI

Sweet, sticky and irresistible, jaleebi are deep-fried Indian sweets that are soaked in sugar syrup. The batter is commonly made of chickpea flour and the yellow color is derived from saffron or - sometimes - artificial colorings.

3. KHEER 

A creamy Indian rice pudding laced with cardamom, kheer is often prepared with sliced blanched almonds and raisins. It is commonly enhanced with saffron for very festive occasions such as Diwali or weddings.

4. LADOO

These ball-shaped sweets are often made of either chickpea flour, semolina or ground coconut depending on the region. The batter is cooked into a paste and rolled into balls once cooled.

5. RASMALI

An intoxicatingly aromatic dish of cottage cheese dumplings steeped in cardamom-infused milk syrup. Rasmalai hails from West Bengal but is enjoyed throughout much of India.

My Favourite Indian Food

                     
  
                      My Favorite Food

Chicken Briyani

This is a delicious Indian rice dish which is often reserved for very special occasions such as weddings, parties, or holidays such as festival. It has a lengthy preparation, but the work is definitely worth it. For biryani, always use long grain rice. Basmati rice with its thin, fine grains is the ideal variety to use. Ghee is butter that has been slowly melted so that the milk solids and golden liquid have been separated and can be used in place of vegetable oil to yield a more authentic taste.It is popular throughout the subcontinent and among the diaspora from the region. It is generally made with spices, rice, and meat.

Ingredients:

• 300g basmati rice
• 25g butter
• 1 large onion
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  , finely sliced
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 cardamom pods
• small cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 4 skinless chicken breasts, cut into large chunks
• 4 tbsp curry paste (we used Patak's balti paste))
• 85g raisin
• 850ml chicken stock
• chopped coriander and toasted flaked almonds to serve         
  

Method:

1. Soak the rice in warm water, then wash in cold until the water runs clear. Heat butter in a saucepan and cook the onions with the bay leaf and other whole spices for 10 mins. Sprinkle in the turmeric, then add chicken and curry paste and cook until aromatic.
2. Stir the rice into the pan with the raisins, then pour over the stock. Place a tight-fitting lid on the pan and bring to a hard boil, then lower the heat to a minimum and cook the rice for another 5 mins. Turn off the heat and leave for 10 mins. Stir well, mixing through half the coriander. To serve, scatter over the rest of the coriander and the almonds.

My favorite food is indian food and my favorite dish in indian food is chicken briyani. i like to eat indian food because i have been eating it since my childhood and i am fond of eating spicy food. i have been to many countries in this world and i have tried many things,but still i consider indian food to be my food. some people like to eat things which are expensive and they feel that the things which they eat or like are recognized worldwide.I like to eat things which are delicious and the food which i have been eating since my childhood. 

Types of Indian Food

Thosai
Here is the recipe of Plan Thosai, probably the easiest recipe you will find. I have previously shared a few recipes for different types of Thosai, like the Instant Tomato Thosai, Neer Thosai, Paneer Thosai and Masala Thosai.

Ingredients:

3 cup rice (chawal)
1 cup split black gram lentil (urad ki dhuli dal) 
1 tsp salt (namak) 
1 tsp fenugreek seeds (dana methi) 
oil as required

How to make plain Thosai:

• Soak rice, dal and dana methi for 6 hours.
• Then grind them to a fine thin batter by adding little water.
• Add salt to it and leave it covered for 12 hours for fermentation.
• Now heat a non stick tawa and spread 1 tbsp of the batter on the whole of the pan.
• Grease all the corners and then cook it on the other side also.
• Put little water on the tawa and wipe it with a clean cloth before making each thosai.
• Serve them hot with hot sambhar and chutney.

Plain Thosai are light and easy to make.They are hassale free and yummy to eat.Thosai is a popular snack that usually comes with curry and dhal and often a coconut chutney to dip into. 

Appam

A South- Indian speciality, Appams are essentially a fermented rice and coconut lace pancake (also referred to as hoppers) with a thicker spongey center. They are delicately sweet, light ‘n crispy along the edges and fluffy ‘n soft in the center. Perfect for mopping up traditional Kerala stews and curries.Traditionally, appams are made by soaking rice over night and grinding it into a smooth batter along with cooked rice, fresh coconut or coonut milk and it’s fermented by toddy ( a crude palm alcohol). But toddy is not commonly available yeast makes a good substitute for it or you can also use baking soda instead. The appams are cooked in a special appam pan called appam chatti.

Ingredients needed: 

Raw rice - 1 cup
Par boiled rice - 1 cup
Fenugreek seeds - 1 tsp
Urad dal - 2 1/2 tbsp (whole urad dal without skin)

Coconut milk -3 tbsp
Cooking soda or appam soda - 1/2 tsp
Appam pan (also called appa chatti)

Appam preparation:

Soak raw rice, par boiled rice, fenugreek seeds and urad dal for 10-12 hours.(I soaked it from morning 6 to evening 6 pm, then ground it and fermented it overnight)

After 10 hours, ground it to a fine paste. Add salt and mix it well with your hands. I ground it with warm water.The batter should be of thinner consistency than thosai batter. Store it in an airtight container, leave it for another 10 hours or overnight to ferment. In the morning the appam batter would have raised nicely.

Before making appams, add coconut milk, appam soda and mix well. Keep it aside for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes- appam batter  can be used to make soft appams.

Appam is a type of pancake made with fermented rice batter and coconut milk. It is a common food in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Malaysia. It is eaten most frequently for breakfast or dinner.

IDLI

Idli is a traditional breakfast in South Indian households. Idli is a savoury cake that is popular throughout India and neighbouring countries like Indian,Sri Lanka and Malaysia.The cakes are made by steaming a batter consisting of fermented black lentils and rice.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup of whole, skinned urad dal / ulutham paruppu / uzhunnu parippu
• 4 cups of idli rice
• Salt as needed
• Water as needed
• A wet grinder or powerful blender
• 
  
• INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Step by Step Pictures to Make Idli:
2. Wash the rice until the water runs clear. Soak in enough water to cover it by 3 inches and leave aside for 3-4 hours.
3. Once the rice has been soaking for 2.5 to 3 hours, wash the urad dal and soak it for 30 mins or so. Amma tells me soaking urad dal for too long is not necessary and it may lose its "potency". Make sure there's enough water for it to absorb and swell - the urad dal requires more water than the rice.
4. Wash and prepare your grinder. Add the soaked urad dal...
5. and a generous amount of water to get it started. I usually add about 1 cup and see how that goes but this will totally depend on the quality of urad dal you use. My recurrent mistake was always not adding enough water to grind the urad dal.
6. It will take about 15 mins for the urad dal to be ground smooth. When you take a little batter and rub between fingers, it should be smooth and flowy. As the urad dal grinds, it will rise and turn fluffy. This is perfect.
7. Transfer the urad dal batter to a large enough container and set aside. You don't have to wipe the grinder clean of the batter. When you grind rice, it will automatically get 'cleaner'.
8. In goes the soaked rice next.
9. Rice doesn't need as much water as the dal so add about 1 to 1.5 cups and see if it gets thick as you grind. When rice grinds, it will absorb the water so test in between and keep adding water as you go, a little at a time. Grind rice to a smooth pate too and this takes me around 25 mins or so in my grinder.
10. Once done, add this to the urad dal batter and top off with some salt. Mix gently so that the rice and dal get combined well.
11. The consistency should be fluffy and the batter should fall down easily from your spoon as you mix it.
12. Set aside this batter in a container that is only filled halfway with the batter to allow room for rising during fermentation.
13. The urad dal would have risen to the top leaving the heavier rice batter at the bottom so you need to mix it uniformly before making idlis.
14. Pour into greased (I use gingelly oil or Indian sesame oil) idli moulds and steam for 10-12 mins for super soft and spongy idlis.

Idli is personally my favorite snack. It’s usuaslly eaten during the hours of breakfast and always seen alongside sambar and chutney. Light on the stomach and deep fully fun to eat, idli makes a great on the go snack. Idli and sambar are inseparable. I also like to eat idli with gun powder. Mixed with a little ghee (clarified butter) or sesame oil and you have yourself an addictive combination.

Capati

Capati, also known as roti . Capati is an unleavened flatbread from the Indian most popular in India. Capati is a thin pancake of unleavened whole-grain bread cooked on a griddle. Capati is a bread made of whole wheat flour. It is usually served with a curry, but it is very versatile it can be used just like regular toast, or as a side to many dishes. Generally, Chapatis are made using wheat flour, but you can also make different types of chapati recipes with various stuffings as well as combination of flours.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour, plus more for rolling
• Big pinch fine sea salt
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup olive oil, vegetable oil, melted butter, or ghee

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Put one cup of flour in a bowl. Add half a cup of water and mix with a spoon. When there is no more water visible, stop mixing. Cover the bowl and let it rest for 30 minutes.
2. After 30 minutes, add the salt, gently mix the dough for 2 minutes, just enough to gather the dough into one piece. Cover the bowl and set aside for 30 minutes.
3. Divide the dough into lime size balls. Set an iron pan on medium high heat. Let it become hot. Take a dough ball and generously dust it with flour. Roll the dough into a 4 inch round on a flat smooth surface using a rolling pin. Place the chapati on the hot griddle. Let it cook for 10-15 seconds until bubbles starts to form on top. Flip the chapati and cook for 30 seconds more. Gently press on top of the chapati to make the chapati fluff up. Flip one more time and press on top. Chapati should beautifully fluff up. If making phulkas, just flip on direct flame and it will fluff up.
4. Line a bowl with cotton towel. Place the cooked chapati on the bowl and cover with a towel. Chapati will stay beautifully soft for a long time.

One of the most famous and versatile of Indian dishes, the Chapati is a favourite with kids and adults alike.For overweight & obese people, chapati is a better choice as it contains more fibers.