For many years, Pakistani culinary industry mostly had a certain type of techniques and flavors. Pakistani people love food and a lot of effort is involved in preparing it. Cuisines of Punjab and Sindh mostly involve lots of spices and longer cookinghour are required to get most of the flavors, whereas in rest of the provincesthe cuisines are simpler, easier and full of flavor.
New culinary trend of Pakistan
Globalization and increasein travel flows around the world has made the consumers more familiar with the different food cultures. Now even in Pakistan, the culinary world is evolving and people of Pakistan have started accepting different cuisines. The chefs aretrying different cooking techniques to create new innovative dishes or bring a twist to local cuisines. In smaller cities and villages, there is not a major change but things are evolving gradually. There is definitely a shift inculinary trend.
In the past, apart from Pakistani cuisines, people were only familiar with the continental and Chinese flavors but in recent times, Italian, Arabic, Turkish and Thai food arealso being added in restaurant menus. The chefs are trying to improve their crafts by using various techniques to create international cuisines, twisting them a little to meet the local taste buds. Because of globalization, there is definitely a shift in economic and cultural influence from west to east.
Ingredients that used to be considered exotic while travelling abroad are becoming easily available and consumers are ready to experiment and try new flavors. For the love of culinary art, many Pakistani chefs have started travelling in search of new recipes and authentic flavors sothat they can incorporate it in their cooking. There has been a significant increase in culinary tourism. In the major cities of Pakistan, competition amongst different restaurants has increased. Chefs are using global flavors and new products are being added in the restaurant menus.
Apart from some majorc hanges in the culinary trend, there have been some changes in small level aswell. Samosa and Chaat were two different street food and snacks that are mostloved by Pakistan people and are easily across the country. Recently, both of these have been combined tocreate a new dish Samosa Chaat. Instead of chiackpeas, it is made by crushing samosa and adding yogurt, masalas, chutney, and all ingredients of chaat. This dish has become an instant hit. Many more similar changes have occurred.
Pakistani cuisines mostly use organic and fresh ingredients. Pakistan is don’t just eat food, they enjoy it. The aroma and flavor matters a lot for them so cooking food is an art for them and they use a lot of spices and long time to cook. These spices are freshly grounded to get the desired aroma and flavor. As life is getting busier, recently a lot of ready made masalas and flavors available in the market. These help the consumers to get same results in lesser time period.
Many of the Pakistani snacks are deep fried. As the consumers are getting aware of the health risks, there is a significant change and new techniques and recipes are being used to convert deep fried snacks to oven baked and air fried without changing the flavor or texture of respective food item.
