Great Curries of India

by Camellia Panjabi

Book Overview

Collects various dishes from all over India - from the classic Goa Lamb Vindaloo to the exotic Gujarat Mango and Yogurt Curry. This book features: the philosophy of Indian food; what exactly is a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684803836
• ISBN13: 9780684803838
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 2.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.9" x 11.2"

Customer Reviews

Excellent selection of curries from many regions

I own at least ten Indian cookbooks, so you wouldn't expect that I needed to add another to the collection. But I'm extremely glad that I bought 50 Curries of India. It has many recipes that I haven't previously encountered... and which, so far, are really wonderful. As the title promises, the book has 50 curry recipes... as well as several accompaniments (such as bread, rice, and raita) and a 60 page introductory section on ingredients. There's quite a selection here, in main ingredient (lamb, fish, chicken, vegetables), region, spiciness, etc. Twenty of the recipes call for lamb, 11 for chicken, 9 fish and shellfish, 12 vegetarian (from potato curry to, of all things, watermelon and mango curries). Nothing calls for beef or pork, but I think most of the lamb dishes could be prepared with them. We dislike lamb, so at our house the lamb and apricot curry is more likely to use inauthentic pork, and bori curry (with nuts, sesame seeds, tamarind and potatoes) will probably be made with beef. Every dish has an attractive photo, so you have some idea what you'll end up with. While many recipes have a long list of ingredients, none is particularly hard -- assuming that you can get your hands on the spices. If you have a spice shop or Internet store from which you can buy black mustard seeds, curry leaves, and tamarind you'll be set. But there's plenty to cook if you're stuck with the selection in your local grocery store. Most are strongly spiced, but not all are exceptionally "hot." These aren't fast recipes, but *darn* they're good -- and most curries reheat very well; they're stews, after all. The curries in this book are from the British Indian community rather than an American idea of Indian food. I've found that most U.S. Indian restaurants are surprisingly limited in the list of dishes offered, rather distressingly so. I suspect that our cultural relationship to Indian food is like the Italian-American restaurant experience of the 1950s (meatballs and spaghetti, pizza, and not much else). But India is a huge country with distinct regional differences, and this book really shows both breadth and depth. Several recipes incorporate coconut, for example, or mustard seeds or curry leaves. You'll find the "expected" chicken tikka masala, or something very like it, but among the things I appreciate about this book is that it has plenty of recipes that aren't in the rest of my Indian cookbook collection. So far, I've made a curry of chicken and cashew nuts in black spices (with ginger, coriander seeds, cumin, cloves, and cinnamon), and a marvelous lemon rice. I'll probably make green chicken korma (wih coriander leaves, mint, and green chili) this week... or maybe it'll be prawns in sweet and hot curry (with tamarind, garlic, cumin, curry leaves and jaggery). I can't decide.

Camellia Panjabi knows her stuff

This is an exceptional authentic Indian cookbook for those who are willing to invest the time for the proper outcome and want to expand their repertoire. In addition to the recipes, Camellia Panjabi has done an excellent job explaining the reasons for what and how the ingredients interact and enhance the collage of flavours in the dishes. The illustrations are first-rate. This book is not for those who want to quickly throw something together.

That 1 star review should be disregarded - this book is superb!

I have just gone through the tedious process of checking 20+ of the recipes in this book, to see if any of them have errors given the listed ingredients. I found none!. Now why would I do that? As some one who has been cooking Indian food for 15 years, I rate this as one of the best Indian cookbooks (and one of my favourite of any style) and I own 100's of cookbooks, and 20+ Indian cookbooks. The accuracy and presentaion in this book is as good as any book I have, and even better; the recipes are superb examples of their cuisine and easily done at home (though I say this as someone who is not a beginner cook!). This is one of my first choices for an Indian cookbook, and I probably refer to this book more than any other Indian cookbook.

Fantastic! A must buy!!

I bought this book while I was in India. It's large pictures attracted me, but I was a little skeptical about the actual recipes. I have since tried most of them, with amazing results. I am a big Madhur Jaffrey fan, but Ms. Panjabi's book has far outclassed everything I own from Madhur. There are a few typo's however, and sometimes you have to use your head to figure out just what she means. But if you overcome these, you are in for a real treat. Well done Camellia !!

Excellent Background and Explanations (CORRECTED)

I have a correction to report for my 23-Sept-1999 review: I discovered that my copy of the book was indeed a misprint - an entire section was missing from the back of my copy (it contained, among other things, the missing info on Dhals, some excellent vegetarian curries, and the wine matching section whose lack I complained about). I have since replaced my copy with a complete one, and I've upgraded my rating of this book from 4 stars to 5.