Masala Pasta Indian Street Food Style

You might also like these recipes for curried spaghetti and vegan ramen noodles in south Indian coconut sauce and vegan chilli garlic ramen. Indo-Italian fusion food may be a newer concept than Indo-Chinese, but it’s arrived and it’s here to stay, with recipes like this Masala Pasta which has become popular, in all its brilliant glory, on the streets of cities like New Delhi and Bombay. We Indians – and Indian born – are the ultimate snobs when it comes to food. Even when we actually admit to liking a foreign cuisine (and it’s not often that we do so, at least not collectively), we don’t just adopt it as is. Operating with an implicit but unshakable belief that we can make anything taste better, we set out to adapt it to our spice-loving tastebuds. In other words, we smother it in masala, sprinkle on a liberal quantity of chili pepper, and then, if possible, top it off with a tadka of more spices. (We even made McDonald’s, which resisted vegetarian offerings here in the United States long after other fast food chains had jumped on the wagon, cook up McAloo Tikki Burgers and Aloo Naans for us before they could set up shop in India). If you want to learn how to make Indian style masala pasta, and if you think you know all there is to know about the Italian kind, you’ve got a huge surprise – and lots of education – coming your way. And it begins by throwing everything you knew right out the window. If you thought your Italian grandma loved garlic, think again. We love more garlic more (yes, that’s twice the more). The same goes for tomatoes. If you’re a tomato snob who knows every kind of tomato there is, and in which dish exactly to use it, we can still best you by using more tomato than you’d ever dream of using in your pasta. Shouldn’t the pasta be cooked al dente? No, it should be boiled like crazy until it’s soft and squishy. Should you add lots of garlic? Yes, lots, and then some more, just enough to pummel your tastebuds and jar your brain. Should you add a dash of red pepper flakes? No, you should add at least four chili peppers and grind them up really fine first so every time you take a mouthful your hair stands on end. All in a good way, of course. Check to get new recipe updates by email.

But relax. And don’t leave yet. If your mouth feels sore at the very thought of eating this Masala Pasta, you can breathe easy because it is actually really, really delicious. Differently delicious than what you may be used to, but delicious nonetheless.