Parsi cuisine refers to the traditional cuisine of the

Parsi Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...

s of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

Primary meals

The basic feature of a Parsi lunch is rice, eaten with

lentil The lentil (''Lens culinaris'' or ''Lens esculenta'') is an edible legume. It is an annual plant known for its lens-shaped seeds. It is about tall, and the seeds grow in pods, usually with two seeds in each. As a food crop, the largest pro ...

s or a

curry A curry is a dish with a sauce seasoned with spices, mainly associated with South Asian cuisine. In southern India, leaves from the curry tree may be included. There are many varieties of curry. The choice of spices for each dish in trad ...

. Curry is made with coconut and ''ras'' without, with curry usually being thicker than ''ras''. Dinner would be a meat dish, often accompanied by

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

es or other vegetable curry. '' Kachumbar'' (a sharp onion-cucumber salad) accompanies most meals. Popular Parsi dishes include: * ''Chicken Farcha'' (Fried chicken appetizer) * ''

Dhansak Dhansak is a popular Indian dish, originating among the Parsi Zoroastrian community. It combines elements of Persian and Gujarati cuisine. Dhansak is made by cooking mutton or goat meat with a mixture of lentils and vegetables. This is served ...

'' (Lamb, mutton, goat, chicken or vegetables in a mixed lentil or toor daal gravy served with brown rice) * ''Patra ni Machhi'' (Fish - Pomfret or Surmai stuffed heavily with green coconut chutney and wrapped in a banana leaf - steam cooked.) * ''Sali Murghi'' (Spicy chicken with fine fried matchstick potatoes) * ''Saas ni Machhi'' (Yellow rice with

pomfret Pomfrets are perciform fishes belonging to the family Bramidae. The family currently includes 20 species across seven genera. Several species are important food sources for humans, especially ''Brama brama'' in South Asia. The earlier form of ...

fish fillets in white sauce) * ''Kolmi no Patio'' (Shrimp in spicy tomato curry) * ''Jardaloo Sali Boti'' (Boneless mutton in an onion and tomato sauce with apricots and fried matchstick potatoes) * '' Khichri'' (rice with toor daal or moong daal) * ''Tamota ni Ras Chaval'' (mutton cutlets with white rice and tomato sauce) 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"

omelette In cuisine, an omelette (also spelled omelet) is a dish made from beaten eggs, fried with butter or oil in a frying pan (without stirring as in scrambled egg). It is quite common for the omelette to be folded around fillings such as chives ...

). Also, vegetables like

okra Okra or Okro (, ), ''Abelmoschus esculentus'', known in many English-speaking countries as ladies' fingers or ochro, is a flowering plant in the mallow family. It has edible green seed pods. The geographical origin of okra is disputed, with su ...

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

and others are often cooked with

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s on top. Traditional breakfasts during the 1930s 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 include ''sev'' (vermicelli), ''ravo'' (sweet semolina pudding) and ''malido'' (a nutty fudge). Also popular are ''faluda'' and ''kulfi'', both of which are adoptions from the cuisines of the Irani and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

-speaking communities. Wedding feasts traditionally include ''Lagan nu Custard''.

Snacks

Popular parsi snacks include ''bhakhra'' (deep fried sweet dough), ''batasa'' (tea biscuits), ''dar ni pori'' (sweetened lentils stuffed in a light pastry), ''doodh na puff'' (milk froth) and ''khaman na ladva'' (dumplings stuffed with sweetened coconut).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Parsi Cuisine Indian cuisine by culture Indian cuisine by state or union territory

Primary meals

Desserts

Snacks

See also

References

Further reading

External links