Great Stories...BUT
Smita Chandra has a great sense of humor and history. Purely educationally, this book is GREAT to read. However, no one mentions trying any of the recipes in their reviews, so I decided to check the book out from the library before buying it. Disclaimer: While I love Indian food that I get in restaurants, I was mostly looking for great new ways to eat vegetables.
Conclusion: I'm glad I checked this cookbook out from the library, I'm glad I didn't buy it.
For example, on page 13, I tried the recipe - alu ki subzi, subtitled, "potatoes cooked with tomatoes, thickened yogurt, and spices."
Had I added the amount of water called for in the recipe, I would have had tasteless potato water. Tomatoes are also not in the list of ingredients! So what is the subtitle talking about?
I was also not really impressed with saag matar, "spinach cooked with green peas, onions, tomatoes, and spices." The depth of flavor usually present in indian food was not there. Makes me kind of hesitant to try other recipes in the book. who knows? the meat and chicken recipes in this book, which sound delicious, could be a huge hit. Everything with lamb and chicken makes my mouth water. but the vegetarian recipes I tried were not so good.
Lastly, I think this book also suffers from not having pictures.
If you read all of what I said, I'll summarize again: this book is good as an introduction to indian culture - historically, and from both an indian person's and a foreigner's perspective. but something is, unfortunately, a little off.
Indian cuisine at it's best!
Smita and Sanjeev Chandra teach cooking classes in Toronto. In 2005, I participated in one of their classes and learned several of the recipes from this book. Every one of them was delicious, some of the best Indian food I've ever eaten. They also have an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of spice which they included in the presentation and is in the book. Over the years since that class, I've tried many more recipes, such as "chicken with cashews and coriander" and "spicy baked cauliflower with cottage cheese, bread crumbs and nuts". Absolutely wonderful. It takes patience to assemble all the spices but the result is well worth the effort. I highly recommend this book - a real authoritative text on Indian cuisine.
Excellent Introduction to the World of Indian Cooking!
I'm not the type of person who usually READS a cookbook, but this one has some very interesting stories woven in with the recipes. The author goes through an essential "shopping list" of spices with their descriptions at the beginning, and once I enhanced my spice collection a bit, I was ready to go! The recipes are very approachable; not too tedious or demanding (at least not the ones I've tried so far). This book will certainly have a premium spot in my vast collection of cookbooks, and will get frequent use in my kitchen, as its recipes are getting rave reviews! Highly reccommended!!
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