Pakora are fried veggies, samosa is pastry, paneer is cheese, naan is bread. You can eat any of those with rice and sauce, but you can also have them without. Indian food has a lot of variation on flavours, texture, visuals, as expected from any cuisine with such a rich history.

Can you recommend something from Indian culture that isn’t what I have described above?

No because "overkill on spices, sauce and rice" is subjective. If "it’s always the same flavor" then either 1) you're keep ordering the same stuff 2) the restaurants you've been to do lowest cost easy menus 3) it's not the same flavor but it looks like so to you because you're not used to it.

Next time ask the server for "solid food, no liquids" instead.

Saag/palak paneer is again, a sauce based dish but a lot more milder. Chana masala is also low on spice. Tandoori chicken is not sauce-based, but personally I don't get too excited about it. Biryani is again no sauce. The last order I had did have a lot of spice, but historically these have been milder than other Indian dishes for me. Certain types of dosas might be up your alley too. This is coming from someone not well versed in Indian food, so I am sure there are more.

You can try Dosa!

Still related to stew and not really from India, but maybe you enjoy "bunny chow".

Naan, idli.

Here's an experiment for you:

Get as many different kinds of curry-powder as you can find,

& then simply try whichever of those smell good for you.

You choose the ingredients, otherwise.

It may well be that cumin's bad for your Ayurvedic type, your specific metabolism.

Whatever metabolism I'm in now, I hate seafood, yet I have kombu, and can't stand Japanese Soy Sauce ( too seafood-like ),

yet I loved Japanese Soy Sauce on lots of stuff, until a couple of years ago.

1 time my metabolism changes such that orange-juice went from being wonderful to being aweful, in about 2 days.

Read Frawley's "Ayurvedic Healing", & do the experiment of trying alternate-pairs of dishes, where 1 of each pair is

• ingredients that are pacifying for your metabolism-type

& the other of the pair is

• ingredients that are aggravating for your metabolism-type

The ingredients-lists in that book are the ONLY all-correct lists I've ever encountered.

( all those who claim that the existence of charlatains in Ayurveda "proves" that Ayurveda, itself, is bogus, ...

... well, notice that they SIMULTANEOUSLY say that the existence of mega-Ivermectin-for-Covid charlatain M.D.'s do not falsify the validity of Western Medicine.

The "logic" that "the existence of some charlatains" somehow falsifies a system they don't honestly represent, is, itself, false, in BOTH cases, equally.

WHEN one sticks to the objectively-validatable ingredients-lists in Frawley's "Ayurvedic Healing", THEN one gets consistently correct results.

Evidence-based knowing.

To understand the different metabolisms better, add & read Frawley & Kozak's "Yoga For Your TYPE" book.

Vasant Lad seems trustworthy, too,

and "PaleoVedic Diet" is generally right, but that damn Ajwain, I won't ever put more than 1 single seed in any person's food, because the terpenes in 'em are too strong.

For terpenes, instead of Ajwain, now I use a couple of pine-needles per day.

A bit odd, but they do seem to help my health.

& if terpenes, in the right dosage, are good for one's health, then this should be good.

Some American Indians used to prevent scurvy with eating 'em or brewing 'em as a drink, apparently. )

PS: Indian cooking is insanely diverse.

You could probably cook a different recipe every day, for the next 500 years, without repeating one of 'em.

Look at the cookbooks..

PPS: the best cookbooks in the world are usually the America's Test Kitchen cookbooks, but they won't do the experiment for Ayurvedically-appropriate-ingredients-for-a-specific-person's-metabolism, and they don't have an Indian cookbook, that I know-of.

Anyways, you do the experiments, & you discover what you discover!

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