Incredible India All Over Again – Old and New Favorites

This is really incredible… I traveled to India once again.  Hey, a palm reader actually told me when we were there about 6 months ago that I would return to India many, many, many times in the future.  One down, God knows how many more to go…

This time I went to India with my yoga center group to attend Kumba Mela 2010 in Haridwar – a spiritual celebration held every 12 years where spiritual masters come down from the Himalayas and all over the world to bathe in the River Ganges at specific very auspicious days.  I feel extremely blessed to have been able to be present for such a special spiritual event.

 In the 3 weeks we were traveling through India we visited a few places we’ve been before – Delhi, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Varanasi… but I also visited a few new places such as Mumbai, Ujjain, Maheshwar, Omkareshwar and Indore.  In doing this, I certainly got the chance to savor some of my favorite Indian delicacies and also discovered some new treasures.

Among the tried and true…

American Airlines does not “disappoint” with their Indian Vegetarian Meals in Coach…  White Rice, paneer in a spicy sauce and stewed chickpeas.  I always eat mainly the rice and paneer, but I have sworn I will never travel to India on Coach.  Business-class is definitely in my future and hopefully better food and better movie choices.

    

Breakfasts are my favorites…  I got to try again chole, without the bhature, and dosas.  My favorite dosa filling is the curry potato filling.  They usually give me the sambar and the chutneys, but I eat the dosa and filling alone like that.

 

 

I also got to drink again my favorite tea, chai masala.  I drank it out of regular cups, and in Varanasi, where I learned to enjoy this delicious tea, I drank it out of the traditional clay disposable cup.  And watching the Varanasi sunrise, this was a real treat.

   

Among the new favorites…

In Maheshwar we got to taste a delicious yet very spicy breakfast – Parathas and Cutlets.  Parathas are a sort of flatbread that can be plain or filled with various vegetables.  The first ones were filled with potatoes and scallions.  Here you can see how parathas are made so flat yet filled with so much deliciousness.  Cutlets are a potato/vegetable fritter…  I explained it to locals as vegetable “alcapurria”.  These cutlets were extremely spicy for my taste, but they were very delicious still.  Don’t they look appetizing and where the heck was the plain yogurt??

     

 Last time I visited India I had a watermelon juice every morning.  Well, this time around the popular flavor was Sweet Lime.  A taste smilar to mixing lemon and orange juice, it was available everywhere and very refreshing.  Maybe this fruit was in season in April…

 

In Haridwar we got to try a few new things…  I learned about uttapam, vegetables cordon blue and pohe.  Uttapam is a rice flour pancake with vegetables.  Definitely a savory pancake, but really, really good. 

      

As you can tell, Indians like their fried foods; very much like us Latins, so probably that’s why I was drawn to these vegetable cordon blues – a vegetable fritter with a creamy, cheesy interior.  

Pohe is a flattened rice dish, often served for breakfast.  Mine looked more like polenta or cooked corn flour than rice, but let’s trust the locals that told me I was eating pohe.  My version had petit pois and I had it with some spicy curried potatoes.  Very spicy indeed.  As you can see, I have to supplement my Indian breakfast with some Western corn flakes and banana…  It was ripe even though it looks green.  Believe me…

 

I am super excited of my recent trip to India… we definitely found much more variety of delicious foods than during my first trip 5 years ago.  Stick around so you can learn more about the delicious and interesting food things I encountered.