Seven high-protein recipes worth cooking

Seven worth cooking, one from each regional kitchen and no two leaning on the same thing for their protein.

1. 

   1 Fish Tikka

   Punjabi

   316 kcal · 39 g protein · 50% of the calories, a serving

   Half the calories here are protein, the highest ratio of anything on the site. Yogurt, spice and a very hot oven do all the work, and nothing is fried at any point.

2. 

   2 Patthar Ka Gosht

   Hyderabadi

   286 kcal · 33 g protein · 46% of the calories, a serving

   Cooked on a slab of heated stone rather than in a pan of gravy, so the fat is the three tablespoons of ghee the griddle takes and nothing more. Third leanest of our sixty-two mutton dishes.

3. 

   3 Jalfrezi

   Anglo-Indian

   315 kcal · 30 g protein · 37% of the calories, a serving

   The leanest chicken here. It is usually told as an Anglo-Indian way of using up yesterday's roast, though that origin is repeated more often than it is evidenced. Chilli, onion and vinegar.

4. 

   4 Akuri

   Parsi

   335 kcal · 18 g protein · 21% of the calories, a serving

   Eggs scrambled soft and slow with onion, chilli and coriander. Eighteen grams of protein and about ten minutes, which is most of the argument for eggs in one dish.

5. 

   5 Arhar ki Dal

   Awadhi/Lucknowi

   248 kcal · 12 g protein · 19% of the calories, a serving

   Eaten daily across most of north India and written about almost never. Twelve grams of protein and no technique to speak of.

6. 

   6 Ulavacharu

   Andhra

   260 kcal · 10 g protein · 15% of the calories, a serving

   A thin dark broth cooked down from horse gram, which carries more protein than most pulses grown anywhere. Andhra has been drinking it for centuries without the help of a marketing department.

7. 

   7 Namkeen Sattu Sharbat

   Bihari

   193 kcal · 11 g protein · 23% of the calories, a serving

   Eleven grams of protein in a glass of roasted gram flour, salt and lemon, drunk in Bihar long before anyone sold protein by the tub.

How these were chosen: every dish here has a Good nutrition estimate, meaning most of its ingredient list could actually be weighed. Recipes leaning on quantities given to taste are excluded, however light they may turn out to be, because a figure that cannot be checked is not a figure worth ranking on. The numbers are still estimates, and every recipe page says so.