Being Indian and watching this, I have to say I am very impressed with how much you know and I feel very happy that you spread such accurate knowledge and feelings about the cuisine.

The dish you were calling "Indian tomato stew" is called " bharta" in India... And roast the eggplant on gas stove it would add a smoky flavour ✨

You're the first non-Indian cooking KZfaqr who seems to have actually learned how to cook Indian food! A tip for you and/or anyone else reading is to always go to the Indian grocery store for your spices, it'll be WAAAY cheaper than Whole Foods or any other American health food store, I guarantee it!

whenever someone tells me they tried being vegetarian but couldn't do it cause "it's tasteless" I'm like c'mon spices are >a thing

Being an Indian, I have to tell that this guy has done his research.

i love indian food but when a indian neighbour moved next door and bringing food to us when they cooked, i realised i never had indian food before, it has taste and spices i can not even try to explain, makes my mouth water thinking about it, hold on the door is knocking it might be her bye....

I'm impressed with his attempt to educate himself. Unlike some others who don't really understand the basics of Indian cooking and just end up eating "tasteless Indian food"

I just had dosa wrap for the first time today from this lil spot in chicago. Was blown away. Everything was vegetarian and gluten free, so many chutneys and"gunpowder" spices, i can honestly say Indian cuisine is my favorite. I remember the 1st time i had authentic homecooked Indian food, it was like i discovered a whole new planet.

Not many people know that Indian cuisine is more than Curries. We have these vegetable dishes called Bhajis which he made. It was a great video because I have actually never seen a non Indian talk about home made ginger garlic paste.

THE WORLD IS FINALLY WAKING UP TO HOW AMAZING INDIAN FOOD IS. GREAT VIDEO

I’m vegan but I love watching vegetarian recipes since the non-vegan elements are so easily swappable. Great content!

As a vegetarian the first time I walked into our local Indian buffet restaurant and saw everything was labeled vegetarian and non vegetarian I almost cried. It can be hard sometimes in American cuisine (especially southern) to know if they used chicken stock or bacon fat in the cooking process, and it’s rarely labeled. Indian food is my favorite cuisine to this day not only because of the vegetarian options but the flavors, diversity, and thoughtfulness put into each dish.

In India the eggplants are roasted on a flame. This adds another layer of smokey flavour. And the bitter skin will burn away. This dish is called "Bharta".

A big THANK YOU to you for telling people that India is not only about curry and theres more to it... 😘

When I went to an Indian restaurant for the first time, I was so excited to find 3 pages of vegetarian options on the menu. Indian food is amazing.

As an Indian "never have I ever" seen such a white ginger garlic paste😅 Just my Indian self was curious to say this

Wow... being an Indian , I am really impressed with all the 3 dishes. Finally I saw a person who is not Indian, waits for the mustards to pop. Bravo 👏👏👏

For Ghee its very, VERY important to use non-salted butter. Don't use salted butter.

Great job. I am here in the US for almost 3 years, still a vegetarian, and will remain a vegetarian. One suggestion: BBQ your eggplant or you can grill it on a coil stove, that gives a smoky flavor to eggplant.

A little tip for the eggplant dish: instead of poking holes with a fork before roasting, make slits with a knife and stuff a whole green chilli, maybe a few pieces of garlic in them. And then roast the eggplant. The flavour is magical. Once you take it out of the oven, mash it all up together and cook how you did! 😊

When I was like 19, a friend took me to this little vegan Indian restaurant in the city. It was one of those shops that you accessed by going into another shop and up these really narrow stairs, and once you got up there it was weirdly quiet considering we were in the town centre. It was the best food, honestly, and very economical. Haven't had Indian food that good since. The restaurant was a really vibrant clash of colours that somehow managed to skirt the edge of garish, and at a table over from us was a group of about seven fully decked-out goth kids, who did a great job of contrasting and making the whole experience feel a bit surreal. I may have entered a parallel dimension for that luncheon, who knows.

Brother. I know I'm late to the game but I have to say a huge thanks. I switched to vegetarian about 2 months ago. Struggled with it for about 2 weeks then I found this vid. I've made all 3 dishes a few times and I am in fact having the spinach stew right now which is what prompted the reply. I meant to say thanks for the post a while back. All 3 are delicious and I even had compliments. The butternut squash curry is my favorite so far. Once again. Thanks for the vid. Be well brother.

Pro tip: Add salt initially when you are cooking onion. This releases water inside vegetables hence reducing cooking time and saving considerable amount of energy :) Also never add extra water to spinach, basically it is 80-90% water, just add salt and it will cook like magic.

I am from Germany and always loved Indian food, but also never had an idea how to produce that "original Indian curry taste" myself at home. Then, at the beginning of this year, I tried to start a mostly vegan-veggie diet and during the lockdown, searching for recipe inspiration, started to watch youtube cooking tutorials by many different Indian chefs and hobby cooks... I must say it took me a long time haha, but I went to buy those spices and kept rewatching my favorite videos and now I think I know how to create a decent Masala base and a super tasty Daal (probably gonna cook it once a week this winter it's too good). Indian cuisine is really one of the best for making that vegetarian/vegan life delicious. I'm always looking for new curries that seem doable and vary a little bit though, so this video is great - I wanted to try a spinach curry for a long time and also loove eggplant, but have never eaten it in an Indian dish. Will try that soon!

This is surprisingly very authentic. It's rare to find non-Indian cooks do all the steps/ingredients and feature these more home-type recipes that Indians eat much more often than the curries/kebabs Indian restaurants are known for.. Other than the heavy ghee use....it's exactly how my mom and grandma make stuff!

I'm Indian and vegetarian. Agreed. We put too much spice for no reason I absolutely love it.

My cooking reflects my ancestry. I prepare Louisiana and Soul food dishes. I was surprised how easy it is to make things vegetarian. My cuisine has a lot in common in Indian food in that we know our spices and how to blend them for an amazing experience. I’ll admit that I am very ignorant to the Indian cuisine; I haven’t had much of it but I am curious. 🧐

As an Indian this makes me so happy ❤️ I've been learning how to cook during quarantine and this morning I made masala oats for my family for breakfast. My mom said it was the yummiest oats she had had. ❤️ If you're not into sweet oats i suggest you guys give it a shot ❤️

That video was quite good and looks like you got the essence of Indian cooking. Some things I would add are,(someone will correct if I am wrong) If you are tempering spices, always add mustard and cumin first and once they start crackle add rest of the spices. Then temper till the crackle stops. Raw cumin, or mustard is not very nice to bite in a dish. Also never add things with water in temper (eg. Chilli or onions), they stop the crackling. In tempering, people also add dried chilli, which adds a smoky flavour and heat to dish. Chopping the spinach roughly would have been nicer. It stops random long bits of spinach stems. I usually add some dessicated coconut to spinach which adds some nice falvor. In our home, we always use fresh coconut milk. We were always told to treat it like normal milk. Cook the food in water, boil it down in volume and then add milk. Also acid (lemon, tamirind) is not added to such dishs since the milk might split. (Not sure it holds for canned milk or it is just a myth). Don't cook the cilantro. Or atleast sprinkle some on top after cooking. Soak the lentils for an hour before cooking. They cook way faster then. And never add your spices directly from its container. It exposes the spices to steam and spoils the spices (specially powders) very fast. Use a dry spoon. Do more videos like this.

Maybe 30% Indians are "pure" vegetarian but all 100% of them eat a lot of veg food.

I was so confused when I found out that other countries aren't vegetarian lol

Tip: Soak the split chickpeas in water overnight to enhance its trxture

I'm middle eastren and this guy's really good with culture..I love how he's on top of world cuisine and is so respectful and creative about it..he adds a bit of his unique touch to every single dish

Even though only 30% of Indians are vegetarian most of us *Non- vegetarians* Don't have meat in all our dishes. In fact these Veg dishes are as much a part of our cuisine as Vegetarians'. As an example I eat Non Vegetarian food maybe a couple of times a month but for the rest of the days I too enjoy such veg food

I knew you mastered it when you didn't measure it with teaspoons and just eyed the amount. Respect.

The eggplant tomato dish you made is called mirza-ghasemi, a persian dish for north of Iran, usually mixed in with eggs at last and eaten with bread

You should do a series of that! For example: 3 vegetarian Italian dishes, 3 vegetarian Mediterranean so on and so forth... I'd love that!

Please soak the Dal( channa Dal or moong Dal or tuvar Dal) for 30 mins then cook it with the spinach....cooks faster. You can add fresh coconut gratings just to add dimension n texture n flavour.

Dude the eggplant dish is called “Bharta” translated, it literally means “mush”

This video has single-handedly got me into making curries and experimenting with Indian spices. Thanks so much for making this! I have cooked and enjoyed all the curries in this video. This style of cooking has been particularly useful for me, since I moved to a mostly vegetarian diet over a year ago.

Soak the chanadal for some time. It will cook fast, besides you must add turmeric powdered.

i'm indian and damn you did a great job by keeping it quite indian if i make sense and not making it westernised

Thank you for the tip with the split use of the seasoning in the oil and afterwards putting in the grounded stuff. First dish cooked with that tip changed the taste immediatly since the oil now carries the taste of the spices a lot more!

I did the eggplant recipe today and that was AMAZING, so tasteful and smooth. It was as good as it would be in a restaurant (not my words, I'm quoting my gf who loved it as well). It's also very easy and quite fast (just put your eggplant in your oven in avance, otherwise you'll have to wait to eat...). Thank you for these recipes (can't wait to try the others).

Other than the 30% of Vegetarians, the remaining 70% eat meat may be once or twice a week.

This is exactly why I love Indian food. ❤️ It’s my favourite as a vegetarian.

I literally have a whole drawer jam packed with Indian spices, I love to cook vegetarian curries a lot. If you can get your hands on dal (split beans) that is also a game changer

“They cook the s**t out of spinach” 😂

My mom kept dry spices away from steam as it damps it and reduce it’s life/flavor and can even spoil it if there is too much moisture. And use a dry spoon to extract what you need. General idea I guess.

I'm an Indian and I'm really impressed with your your knowledge and skills in cooking indian.

I literally re-watch this video almost everytime I go to make Bharta for my son because this recipe is our favourite!

I love how you explained the cooking process: tempering, getting the whole spices fist, onion and using the grounded spices after.

Finally someone who understands Indian food is a lot more than just curry

My lecturer at uni told me to try Indian cuisine as it's got lots of vegetarian options (his wife is Indian so he knows). These recipes look so good!! 👏🏻

Hey there buddy, I was really happy when I saw this video and I really appreciate the amount of research you've done, but try using a few of these tips to take your Indian cuisine to a whole different level. First of all unlike Western cuisine, onions are used to add texture and volume to the gravy in most Indian dishes, so try caramelizing your onions a little more. I mean let them brown, like really brown, that will provide a subtle sweetness to the dish. Also try slicing your onions for the spinach and the eggplant dishes that will first of all provide a definition to the gravy plus help them caramelize faster. Try sautéing the onions without adding salt so that they naturally release the moisture, trust me this really changes the game, and add the salt later to wilt the spinach. Then, for the eggplants, I would really suggest to char them on an open flame to get that smokey flavour and don't forget to brush them with oil. For your gravy, again you should brown your onions a little more to get that sweetness out of them and then add the tomatoes and reduce until you see the fat come up. Traditionally this eggplant curry is really close to the 'Baigan Bharta' ( Baingan means eggplants and Bharta means smashed) try using mustard oil instead of ghee here, that will enhance the flavours of the eggplant and give it whole new taste, lastly I would suggest you to use black mustard seeds instead of the yellow ones, these too change the flavour a lot. I hope you'll acknowledge these few suggestions and tell me how that went for you. All the very best❤️

Must say I really like the way you are preparing all this food. You are a talented guy.

I think you're the first non Indian person I've seen doing the tempering right! Kudos on that! Everything looks authentic and delicious

trying to go vegetarian and this video gave me so much more confidence to actually switch.

Thank you so much. I made them all. OMG it was delicious 😋. I used sweet plantains instead of pumpkin. It came out out this world. I love your channel.

12:44 it's called Baigan ka Bharta. Baigan is eggplant and bharta is something mushy that you get after you punch it regular.

Good to see you are trying for Indian Veg. If spinach is cut into half or quarter of the size, it will cook quickly. And also soaked Chenna dal will cook quickly. Cooking for 1 hour means spinach will lose Vitamins..

Looks tasty. Just tip: for any dry daal soak it an hour or so in warm water and then add it so it will reduce your cooking time plus give nice authentic flavours ❤️

The third dish you made is called "baigan bharta" which literally means "mashed eggplant". It's the Indian cousin of the more popular middle eastern and Mediterranean dish, "baba ganoush" often found in Mediterranean restaurants as a dip along with Hummus. Well done with roasting the eggplants wrapped in aluminium foil! I usually go to my apartment rooftop and roast them on a gas grill but this seems to work as well.

I feel like Saag is so misunderstood nowadays, so I'll offer a couple of corrections just to be pedantic: Saag can actually be made of any bitter or mild greens, traditionally mustard greens and spinach but you can add kale, collard greens, swiss chard, bok choy, etc. You cook down the spinach a lot more than in this video and add water as necessary to keep it hydrated and gravy-ish. Then you add a slurry of corn flour and water to thicken it. Using an immersion blender will get a great consistent, thick, and creamy texture. Usually served with a style of roti made with corn flour (you hydrate the flour with boiling water, then form into rounds, press down into a roti shape on buttered tinfoil, and cook in a hot pan like roti). It is also common to add paneer or lamb to saag. I've heard of people adding feta and serving with corn chips as well! We also have palak dishes (palak paneer for example), which is just wilted spinach with no corn slurry. The dish in the video would probably be referred to as Palak Channa (spinach split chickpea), traditional Indian dishes are usually named quite literally haha.

Indian 21 , vegetarians for generations. That's true everything he said is true .also from my personal experience the non vegetarians in India hardly eat one nonveg dish a day their diet is also 70% veg.

Nice! You should try some South Indian food out...it's COMPLETELY different, and also primarily vegetarian.

I made something very similar to your eggplant dish with something called a bottle gourd. It is a large squash type vegetable that one of my coworkers grew. I use that in place of the eggplant, however I did not roast it. I also cooked everything in the instant pot using the sauté mode, and then the pressure cook. I added lentils and spinach to that recipe and it was fantastic

Your Sooo good at teaching! Your passion comes through the screen. Thank you! And you are better on your own. Sorry to say but you blossom when your not playing care taker I’m sure it’s been rough since your so empathic. Blessing to both of you!

This s so funny.. I am an Indian and I moved to London recently.. I can't eat the local food here for God known reasons!!! Here am I.. getting to learn cooking on the KZfaq with tears in my eyes and I laugh like crazy because I am learning to cook my traditional food from this foriegn guy OMG. Never get out of your country before learning to cook the basics Good lesson learnt the hard way!!!

That eggplant stew is basically baingan ka bharta Please add onions in this they taste amazing Also try to make aloo baingan (potato eggplant) Amazing

Loved the honesty here ... and genuine attempt at cooking Indian food ... the basics are all there ... Well done Mike!!! 👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽

You can use the foam of melted butter from ghee making, and use it for baking. We in Armenia use it to make a traditional bread (bagharj). Also, we salt the butter before making the ghee and it's weird to see many people mentioning not salting it.

Actually interesting part is that every indian can go vegetarian and still not worry too much, because our regular food is vegetarian..

I lived with a nepali guy years ago and he told me the reason why spicy food is so popular it's because when you eat spicy food you salivate more and inside the saliva there are a lot of enzymes that chemically break down the food!

That eggplant tomato curry you cooked is called 'Baigan bharta'. Please use red onions instead of white it enhances the taste and always soak the dal for few hours it will reduce the cooking time and good for digestion as well. You are missing out asafetida in your spice collection :D

I was glad you mentioned the UK (where I am from and live) because I couldn't imagine what "shitty Indian food" would be like because I'm so used to the amazing food from the Indian and South Asian communities here. As a vegetarian, it's absolutely one of the best cuisines to explore and get creative with, and getting to know my spices was one of the first things that really changed my cooking experience. My favourite things to make are a red lentil dal, a mushroom rogan josh, and a "bombay aloo" (potatoes). My partner (also veggie) makes a mean saag paneer (spinach and paneer cheese) which I want to learn how to make, too.

Usually we don't use this much ghee. Like how you made the dishes with ghee, in my family we use oils, which we switch all the time(groundnut oil, sunflower seed oil, coconut oil, etc). Ghee we use during festivals, atleast in my family. I think because here we find oil less in cost as compaired to Ghee.

What I love about Indian cooking is that there’s no hard and fast rules, many different ways to go about it. Fantastic cuisine for vegans as well

I have a Indian store close to me. It’s pretty random since I live in Hicksville pa. The owner of the store and his wife have helped me a lot and I LOVE it. Chana masala and rajam masala are probably my favorite and parathas!!!

Just a suggestion- ginger garlic paste goes before onions and coconut milk is never cooked....moment u put the milk u need to switch off the gas in max a minute...plus always soak ur daals for 20-30 mins before putting it in ur receipe to avoid bloating issues alternatively u can add asafoetida to ghee tempering in beggning only

I am Indian. I give you a thumbs up.

I really believe that Indian food beats all other cuisines, full stop. Their savoury food has an incredible depth of flavour with all those spicy spices; and their sweets don't conform to any of that "balanced" bullshit - it's sugar, milk, sugar, sugar, sugar, honey, milk, ghee, sugar, sugar, sugaaahhh. It's delish!

You really know what you're doing! It reminded me of my mom's cooking!

I don't generally watch content about my country from Western creators because I feel most of it is extremely surface level. I find it very generic and stereotypical. But it is absolutely undeniable to anyone from India that this person has absolutely nailed all the basics. It is a very comprehensive video, without a doubt. Will forward this to my friends who are open to Indian food, this video is great. I will go make palak paneer now.

Try using red onions.. that has a different taste as compared to these white onions!

Made all of these for the second time. Absolutely loved each. Thank you!

The eggplant dish is called bharta. My mum cooks it by putting the whole eggplant on one of the grates of our gas stove while it is alight (we have 5 rings so can do up to 5 eggplants at a time if we want)... this speeds up the roasting to maybe 30-40mins and despite how it looks with the whole thing surrounded by flames, it doesn't burn the inside, only crispens the skin but lends a really tasty smoky flavour to the eggplant inside which comes through when you cook it with the tomatoes later on. It's delicious!! We also add peas or petit pois to our bharta, not cooking them too long, which lends a bit of a soft bite to compliment the mushy eggplant texture :))

This is surprisingly good. He just made all the Indian dishes right from scratch. Impressed! You go boy

I love how you have no filters, man. People take eastern foods and Americanize it, and it becomes complete shit. What you say is very true. Also I like how you have a very mellow tone of voice.

Made all three dishes tonight. All excellent and easy! Loved the combination of all three. Thank you so much!

I remember I told my mom I would go vegetarian on new year's and she was so supportive. As a mexican, I only ate quesadillas. Yeah it didn't last long. But i really appreciate her support. LOL

This video: "Exists" Indians: "Mai, maiii expert huu , merko sab pataa hai"

Just wanna add that while a third of Indians are vegetarians, the rest are also only technically non-vegetarian. So while people eat meat, our diets are still predominantly vegetarian. Some eat meat only on certain days of the week, some might just have it occasionally while being vegetarian 70-90% of the time, while some might eat it regularly. So even if an Indian might be non-vegetarian, they're still a great source to go to if you wanna learn about vegetarian food. Cheers!

Very impressive Mike! I love how much you truly understood our cuisine and actually made these dishes from scratch! Love the video. Keep them coming!😊

Indian, 100% non vegetarian. But tbh non veg is for special days, 80% of the days we are vegetarian. We love veggies and anything made out of milk😂.

We have a very similar recipe of that eggplant stew here in Romania. It's called zacuscă. You should try it out, all Romanians love it. We call it the student's food because it can be stored in jars and lasts all year long. So most parents send on the train or pack this food to their children who are studying in another city.

Spinach dish- if you soak the chana daal over night and pressure cook it before adding with spinach, you will hardly take 10 minutes to complete this dish. It's very nutrition and tasty. Should not cook spinach for more than 5 to 10 minutes. You will preserve ton of nutrients by not over cooking it.

Btw don't use water to 'breakdown' the spinach. Let the steam do its work Luv from India ❤️

I'm Indian and I don't make a lot of Indian food. I'm really getting in to cooking this year and I'm making more simple stuff. I enjoy this channel a lot because it's yummy and quick food. Josh loving Indian food gives me the validation I need to experiment with the food of my people. Thanks Josh!

Watching it again after 3 years. Enjoying it just as much as the first time.