Indian Food Trivia
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50 free Indian Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free Indian food trivia questions with answers. Indian food is really dozens of cuisines, and this quiz eats its way across all of them. It covers the Delhi restaurant that gave the world butter chicken and tandoori chicken, biryani's Persian ancestry, the Goan pork dish that became vindaloo, Kashmiri rogan josh, dosa and idli from the south, samosas with a Persian name, naan and chapati, paneer, ghee, garam masala, masala chai, dal, papadums, thalis, pani puri, vada pav, dhokla, rasgulla and its Bengal-Odisha feud, gulab jamun, jalebi, kulfi, chaat, the spices in the tin, the ghost pepper, Mumbai's dabbawalas, and chicken tikka masala, balti and the other curries Britain invented. Easy questions ask what naan is baked in and what paneer is made from; the hard ones want the Middle Persian word behind samosa, the Sanskrit roots of basmati and the year the ghost pepper was crowned. Written for foodies, curry-house regulars, home cooks and pub-quiz teams. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the dishes, spices and their histories, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Delhi restaurant, run by Punjabi refugees from Peshawar, is credited with inventing butter chicken?
Moti Mahal
Moti Mahal, opened in Delhi's Daryaganj by Kundan Lal Gujral and his partners after Partition in 1947, is credited with inventing butter chicken and with popularising tandoori chicken.
Q 02Which slow-cooked Hyderabadi stew of pounded wheat and mutton gained GI status in 2010?
Haleem
Haleem, a thick Hyderabadi stew of wheat and mutton pounded for hours into a paste, was granted geographical indication status in 2010 and is a Ramadan staple.
Q 03How hot can a tandoor oven get?
About 480°C
A tandoor can reach about 480°C, around 900°F. The vase-shaped clay oven is heated by charcoal or wood and kept lit for long stretches.
Q 04Tandoori chicken is marinated in spices and what before it goes into the oven?
Yogurt
Yogurt and spices marinate the chicken, often overnight, before it is skewered and roasted in the tandoor; red chilli or food colouring gives the traditional colour.
Q 05Biryani is thought to descend from a rice dish from which cuisine?
Persian
Biryani's name comes from the Persian birinj biryan, 'fried rice', and the dish is thought to have developed from Persian pilaf in the Mughal court kitchens.
Q 06Vindaloo takes its name from a dish brought to Goa by which European colonisers?
The Portuguese
The Portuguese brought carne de vinha d'alhos, pork marinated in wine vinegar, to their colony of Goa; vindaloo is the Goan rendering of that Portuguese name.
Q 07Rogan josh is a signature dish of which Indian region's cuisine?
Kashmir
It is a mainstay of the wazwan feast and gets its red colour from Kashmiri chillies and alkanet. The name is Persian for oil and stew.
Q 08Which cooking technique defines a korma?
Braising with yogurt, stock and spices
Korma is defined by braising with yogurt, stock and spices until the meat is tender; the Mughlai dish was later softened into the mild, creamy korma of British takeaways.
Q 09A dosa is a South Indian crepe made from a fermented batter of rice and what?
Lentils
Lentils, hulled and soaked, are ground with rice and left to ferment overnight, which gives the thin, crisp dosa batter its slight tang.
Q 10An idli recipe appears in the Manasollasa, a 1130 CE encyclopedia compiled by a king of which region?
Karnataka
Karnataka: Someshwara III, the Western Chalukya king who ruled from Kalyani in present-day Karnataka, compiled the Manasollasa, whose iddarika recipe is an early ancestor of the idli.
Q 11The word samosa comes from an old word, sambosag, meaning what?
Triangular pastry
Sambosag meant 'triangular pastry'; the stuffed snack travelled into India from Central Asia and the Middle East, and the Arabic sambusak shares the same root.
Q 12What is the main difference between the two flatbreads, naan and chapati?
The first is leavened, the second is not
The first is leavened, the second is not: naan rises with yeast or a starter and is baked in a tandoor, while chapati is an unleavened dough of atta and water cooked dry on a griddle.
Q 13Chapatis are made from atta, which is milled from what?
Whole wheat
Q 21By what other names is the street snack pani puri known?
Golgappa and phuchka
Golgappa and phuchka are the same snack under its northern and eastern names: a hollow fried puri stuffed with a savoury filling and dunked in spiced tamarind or mint water.
Q 22Vada pav, a fried potato dumpling in a bread bun, is the most famous street snack of which city?
Mumbai
Mumbai: vada pav, a batter-fried spiced fritter pressed into a soft bread roll with chutneys, is sold from stalls outside the city's railway stations and is claimed as Mumbaikar identity.
Q 23Which two Indian states have both won geographical indication status for their versions of the rasgulla?
West Bengal and Odisha
Whole wheat: atta is wholemeal flour milled from the entire wheat kernel, bran included, which is kneaded with water and rolled thin for chapatis.
Q 14Traditional papadums are made from the flour of which bean?
Black gram
Black gram, or urad dal, is ground into the flour for traditional papadums, which are rolled thin, dried, then deep-fried or toasted over a flame until crisp.
Q 15How is paneer made?
By curdling milk with an acid like lemon juice
Paneer is made by curdling milk with an acid like lemon juice or vinegar, then pressing the curds; being fresh and unaged, it holds its shape when cooked.
Q 16What is ghee?
Clarified butter
Ghee is clarified butter: butter simmered until its water evaporates and the milk solids brown and settle, leaving a pure, long-keeping fat that withstands high heat.
Q 17What does 'garam masala' literally mean?
Hot or warm spices
Garam masala literally means hot or warm spices: garam is 'hot' or 'warm', a warming effect in Ayurvedic terms rather than chilli heat, and masala is a spice blend.
Q 18Masala chai is made by brewing which kind of tea in milk and water with spices?
Black tea
Black tea, usually strong CTC (crush-tear-curl) Assam leaves, is boiled with milk, water, sugar and spices such as cardamom and cloves to make masala chai.
Q 19What are dals?
Dried, split pulses
Dals are dried, split pulses: hulled, halved seeds of legume plants that cook quickly without soaking into the everyday stew that shares their name.
Q 20What does the Hindi word 'thali' literally mean?
A plate or tray
Thali literally means a plate or tray; the word came to stand for the whole meal of small dishes arranged in bowls on the round metal platter.
West Bengal got 'Banglar rosogolla' in 2017 and Odisha 'Odisha rasagola' in 2019, after a long feud over who invented the syrupy cheese ball.
Q 24Dhokla, a steamed savoury sponge, is native to which state?
Gujarat
Gujarat: dhokla is made from a fermented batter of rice and split chickpeas, steamed into a spongy cake and tempered with mustard seeds and curry leaves.
Q 25Gulab jamun is made mainly from khoya. What is khoya?
Milk reduced to a soft dough
The balls are fried at low heat and soaked in syrup flavoured with cardamom and rose water. Gulab means rose.
Q 26How is jalebi batter formed before it is fried and soaked in syrup?
Piped in pretzel-like spirals
Jalebi batter is piped in pretzel-like spirals straight into hot ghee, then the crisp coils are dunked in sugar syrup; the name comes from the Arabic zulabiya.
Q 27Kulfi originated in which century, in Mughal-era Delhi?
16th
Kulfi dates to the 16th century, when Mughal court kitchens in Delhi packed sweetened thickened milk flavoured with pistachio and saffron into metal cones and chilled them in ice and saltpetre.
Q 28The word chaat comes from a Hindi verb meaning what?
To lick
Chaat comes from the Hindi verb chaatna, 'to lick', as in licking your fingers; the tangy snack family is usually traced to the streets of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
Q 29Kheer, or payasam, is what kind of dish?
A rice pudding
Kheer is a rice pudding: rice simmered slowly in milk with sugar or jaggery, often with cardamom and nuts; the name comes from the Sanskrit kshira, milk.
Q 30Which spice, the dried stigmas of a crocus flower, is farmed at Pampore?
Saffron
Saffron is the dried stigma of Crocus sativus; each flower yields just three threads, and Pampore near Srinagar grows most of India's crop.