Start Here — New to Desi Cooking?

The 5 essential techniques

• Bhuna — frying onions, tomatoes and spices in oil until the oil separates at the edges and the raw smell is gone; the base of most curries.
• Dum — finishing a dish sealed on very low heat, so it steams in its own moisture; the technique that makes a biryani.
• Tarka — blooming spices (and often garlic or dried chilli) in hot oil or ghee, then pouring the sizzling oil over a finished dish.
• Yakhni — a spiced meat stock, strained and used as the cooking liquid; it is what makes a biryani taste like more than plain rice.
• Marinating — coating meat in a yogurt-and-spice mix before cooking, so it stays juicy and picks up flavour right through.

Each technique is explained in full on our Desi Cooking 101 hub.

The 5 pantry staples

• Garam masala — the warm finishing spice blend (cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and friends); added near the end so its aroma survives.
• Ginger-garlic paste — equal parts fresh ginger and garlic, blended smooth; the starting point of almost every curry on this site.
• Basmati rice — long-grain rice that stays separate and fluffy when soaked and cooked properly; the base of every biryani here.
• Karahi masala — the coriander-and-cumin-led blend that gives a karahi its flavour; see our karahi masala hub.
• Chaat masala — a tangy, salty-sour sprinkle for snacks, salads and fruit; the finishing touch on pakora and chaat-style dishes.

See the full list, with the recipes that use each item, on our Desi pantry hub.

The 2 easiest recipes

The two shortest recipes in this set of twenty — each one easy by our skill rubric (30 minutes or less, 8 ingredients or fewer, no special technique). No third recipe meets the rubric, so the list stops at two:

• Mango Lassi Recipe - Restaurant-Style in 10 Minutes — 10 minutes in a blender; mango, yogurt, milk and a little sweetener.
• Basmati Rice Recipe — Fluffy, Non-Sticky Every Time — 30 minutes, 6 ingredients; soaked basmati, cooked until the grains stay separate and fluffy.

Skill levels — how we rate a recipe

• Easy — 30 minutes or less, 8 ingredients or fewer, no special technique.
• Medium — 30–60 minutes, or one named technique (bhuna, dum, tarka or similar).
• Hard — 60 minutes or more, multi-stage, or a precise technique that needs timing and judgement.