Parsi cuisine

Parsi cuisine is a blend of vegetarian Gujarati cuisine and non-vegetarian Iranian cuisine.

Primary meals

The basic feature of a Parsi lunch is rice, eaten with lentils or a curry. Curry is made with coconut and ras without, with curry usually being thicker than ras. Dinner would be a meat dish, often accompanied by potatoes or other vegetable curry. Kachubar (a sharp onion-cucumber salad) accompanies most meals. Popular Parsi dishes include:

* chicken farcha (fried chicken)
* patra ni machhi (steamed fish wrapped in banana leaf)
* dhansak (lamb, mutton, goat or chicken in lentil gravy)
* sali murghi (spicy chicken with fine potato crisps)
* jinga nu pathio (shrimp in spicy curry)
* khichri (rice with leftovers)
* saas ni machhi (yellow rice with pomfret fish fillets in white gravy)
* jardaloo sali boti (boneless mutton in an onion and tomato gravy with apricots and potato strips)
* tamota ni russ chaval (mutton cutlets with white rice and tomato gravy)

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" omlette). Main dishes such as those mentioned above are often served with an egg on top.

Traditional breakfasts during the 1930's in Mumbai or in many South Gujarat villages consisted of khurchan (offal meats cooked with potatoes in a spicy gravy), egg dishes (omelette, called for some reason poro), and deep fried, or fried eggs or half-fried eggs. In the agrarian world 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 (vasanu, literally 'sweet dish') include sev (vermicelli), ravo (semolina). Also popular are faluda and kulfi, both of which are adoptions from the cuisines of the Irani and Urdu-speaking communities.

Snacks

Popular parsi snacks include bhakhra (deep fried sweet dough) batasa (flour and butter tea biscuits) dar ni pori (sweetened lentils stuffed in a light pastry) and khaman na lavda (dumplings stuffed with sweetened coconut).