Arguments over food are uncommon in India, but there are still passionate debates about a dish, particularly if it’s well-known, such as Rajma Masala, a popular dish for the residents of Punjab and other North Indian states.

Although kidney beans should be used to make rajma, if they are hard to find, you can use other types of beans, such as pinto, cannellini, or even chickpeas. Fresh tomatoes are the standard recipe, which is completed with a dollop of cream, but you may use canned tomatoes instead, and you can even bake them in the oven until they are perfect rather than cooking them on a stove top. As a variation, one might sprinkle a little grated cheese and cream on it before putting it in the oven, and instead of serving it with the typical rice and chapati, one could be creative and serve it with buttered toast or flour tortillas. This is an innovative approach to rajma, which maintains the dish’s core flavor and character while experimenting with it.

Food writers might find it strange to prepare rajma using different bean types, bake it, and sprinkle cheese on it. However, it’s a different way of recreating the dish without compromising its character.

With cannellini beans, it makes no difference, and there’s nothing wrong with baking in the oven because the sauce will soften and the edges will caramelize, giving it a stronger taste. Additionally, a small amount of cheese is acceptable rather than cream. However, it is worth remembering that Indians are very protective of their recipes and do not want any changes made to them. Perhaps this overprotective mindset has somewhat maintained Indian cuisine in its original form.

The fact is that French cuisine blends traditional and modern methods, but chefs are nonetheless urged to be inventive and daring. Although a traditional roast chicken is straightforward with a brown sauce, there’s nothing wrong with attempting to recreate the same dish with cheese. The chef will undoubtedly give you an angry stare in India if you try to change the ingredients of tandoori chicken.

Indian food is a collection of recipes, so creative chefs are viewed with suspicion and any deviations are frowned upon. As a result, the cuisine is frequently referred to as “fusion” or, in extreme cases, mocked as “confusion”.

At a chefs’ conference, a chef who had made a name for himself in Australia told his Indian coworkers that the Indian food he prepared was light. On “Rogan Josh,” he showed how to skim all the fat from the gravy before serving the dish to health-conscious Australians.

One of India’s best cooks, Manjit Gill, stood up from the audience and asked if the dish was likely to be undoubtedly tasty but not necessarily Rogan Josh? The genuine flavor comes from the Rogan (fat) that rises up from the gravy, and removing it just turns it into a sort of meat curry.

Feeling somewhat embarrassed, the chef retorted to Manjit Gill that having gray hair does not mean he knows everything. However, one cannot just change the key ingredients of a traditional dish entirely, such as one cannot call Coq au Vin if one removes the wine from it, which is what Manjit was saying. However, chefs must be encouraged to experiment with the recipes they were taught at the Catering College.

Some of the well-known foods at Indian restaurants were invented in the last century or so and are not based on classic recipes. For instance, the tandoori chicken was created in Peshawar in 1930 when a chef believed he could utilize the tandoor for more than just baking the breads. To make use of the leftovers of tandoori chicken, Kundan Lal Gujral of the well-known Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi created butter chicken in 1947.

Delhi’s butter chicken differs greatly from that of Moti Mahal. Similarly, there was no recipe for Dal Makhani, tomatoes were never added to dal by Punjabis—it was only in 1950 that Moti Mahal began doing so, and the same dish was changed and served by the Bukhara restaurant in the ITC Maurya hotel in Delhi in 1978.

Therefore, Indian cooks are pursuing a chimera when they jokingly refer to “fusion” as “confusion” and discuss deviating from traditional recipes. Floyd Cardoz created bacon kulchas in New York in 1999, but there isn’t a conventional recipe for the majority of excellent Indian cuisine. Vineet Bhatia created lamb shank rogan josh in London in the 1990s.

There aren’t many dishes that one could truly call Indian if one were to go back in time. Every Punjabi considers Rajma masala to be their birthright, but is it ever mentioned in ancient literature?

The food historian K. T. Achaya points out that Rajma, as well as other beans like Pinto and Kidney beans, originated in South America. According to him, the British planted these early varieties of rajma beans in Punjab after the French introduced these beans to India and began utilizing them in Cassoulet while claiming it to be a very old French ingredient. The British also began farming corn in Punjab, which originated in South America, and from there, the well-known Makki ki roti, or flatbread made with corn meal, was created. When the colonialists were the ones who brought the ingredients for these meals to India, how old and traditional may the recipes be?

A Punjabi grandmother may have an amazing rajma masala dish, but it’s possible that her own grandmother had never even seen a rajma bean. Is the genuine rajma masala recipe the one that is created at home or the one that is available at the dhabbas on the Punjab highway, complete with lots of ghee and butter?

Regardless of who created a dish or when, we should be motivated by the recipes. Making rajma has no set method. The South American bean, which was brought by the French, grown by the British, and prepared by Indian mothers in their home kitchens, restaurant chefs, and roadside dhabas, does not have a definitive manner. Simply eat it if it looks, tastes, and feels nice.