Indian cuisine saves time. Many items can be cooked in crockpots, in a pressure cooker or in electric pans. Beans can be soaked overnight. The whole wheat dough for chappatis and rotis can be made ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator. Full menus can be prepared within half an hour. Indian Cuisine is also very easy to prepare and we have included many easy recipes.

Since traditionally we cook with tastes rather than with recipes, Indian cuisine has very wholesome tastes designed to satisfy not only the taste buds but also the human physiology.

Note: Lentils and beans combined with rice or wheat form complete proteins that have all of the eight amino acids.

Featues of Indian Cuisine
Spices
Spices are an integral part of Indian food. This does not mean that Indian dishes are always hot. It does mean that they are well seasoned and aromatic. There are some hot dishes especially in the South of India, but, overall the dishes of India are skillfully prepared with the cook having a mastery over the properties of spices and how they are blended. The cook will use cooling spices as well as warming spices, bland spices as well as pungent spices, sweet spices as well as hot spices. The cook will also use spices for color and healthful properties. Most cooks in India also know how to use spices seasonally. In everyday cooking in India spices are used very sparingly or the dishes are seasoned with very few spices and are supplemented with fresh herbal seasonings.
Oils
In India, ghee (clarified butter) is favored for frying and seasoning. This is because it can take very high temperatures without becoming rancid unlike virgin oil or unrefined cooking oils. Besides ghee, mustard oil is also used in Bengal and coconut oil is used in the south. Sesame oil is also used especially in sweets.
Condiments
Fresh herbal chutneys, dried fruit chutneys and hot pickles complement an Indian meal. These small additions to the meal take the Indian menu to a higher level of taste experience. They lend strong flavor impact to the meal. They also balance tastes as they are sweet, pungent, hot, and sour all at the same time. the fresh herbal chutneys make the meal very fresh and tasty. Popular fresh chutneys are cilantro, mint, amla, coconut chutneys and popular pickles include lime, mango, and eggplant. Indian pickles are preserved in oil as opposed to vinegar.