Can you recommend Indian-inspired meals for someone with interstitial cystitis?

December 27, 2011 10:08 PM

I have interstitial cystitis, and I'd like to make some Indian-inspired meals that are safe for my bladder. Help?

Before I was diagnosed with interstitial cystitis, I enjoyed most ethnic cuisines. I was diagnosed about three years ago, so I've experimented and investigated quite a bit. I've been able to find alternatives for a lot of things that I used to enjoy.

However, one thing that's tripped me up is Indian food. I used to love things like butter chicken, and I enjoyed most dals that I tried. Unfortunately, tomatoes tend to irritate my bladder, and many spices are unfriendly to the IC bladder.

I'd love any of the following:

- Recommendations for specific dishes to investigate. I realize that I'll need to make modifications for most things, but if you can think of a dish that's mild to begin with, that would be useful.

- Recommendations for specific cuisines to investigate. I'm pretty ignorant about Indian cuisine, but I've gleaned enough from Wikipedia to understand that it varies greatly depending on the region of the country.

- Recommendations for books or websites about Indian cooking that are somewhat conceptual - so that I can understand the purpose of common spices or ingredients and modify them as necessary.

Other information that might be useful:

- If you'd like to take a good look at the foods that are okay for folks with IC, there's a list (PDF) here. In a nutshell, "bad" foods seem to be spicy, acidic, or contain lots of preservatives.

- I'm a pretty lazy cook, so the easier the recipe, the better!

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (6 answers total)

Spinach and potatoes/cauliflower are on your safe list, so I'd suggest starting with a nice saag aloo or saag gobi (same recipe with cauliflower instead of or along with the potatoes). This is a pretty mild and simple dish, and it's healthy too! You can also do it with chicken (saag murgh).

Keema mattar (ground lamb with peas) is quite mild -- Punjabi comfort food! -- and it makes a great main course served with rice or bread. You can make it with ground beef or turkey, too.
posted by vorfeed at 10:59 PM on December 27, 2011

It would help to know what spices you can't have. I was on a nightshade (tomato and peppers are nightshades)-free diet for awhile and I made a lot of curries with massive amounts of black pepper, a technique I'd seen in South Indian food. I also used a lot of cumin and tumeric.
posted by melissam at 3:57 AM on December 28, 2011

I found this garam masala recipe to be tolerable.
posted by heatvision at 7:51 AM on December 28, 2011

Mod note: From the OP:

"Pepper might be okay, but probably not in large quantities. There's a good list of spices - ones that are generally considered to be safe, ones that one can experiment with, and ones that should be avoided - in the PDF I linked to in my original post."

posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:18 AM on December 28, 2011

You might be able to make up your own modified curry powder like this but perhaps leaving off a few of the spices that don't agree with you. That might make some dishes possible, since curry powder (hot) is on the "to avoid" list.

Then you might try this korma recipe, if you leave off the tomato paste and the jalapenos. It's not a dish I think of as dominated by tomatoes anyway. (I also always use coconut milk when I make korma, not cream.) It's a thought at least.

I make it for my husband who hates spicy food and just omit or go easy on the spicy stuff.
posted by Arethusa at 1:06 PM on December 28, 2011

Try this South Indian curry, Potato Kootu. There are many other recipes online if you want to look around. I always find it to be very tasty and pretty mild.
posted by emilyv at 6:02 PM on December 28, 2011