Indian Cooking

by Madhur Jaffrey

Book Overview

Newly revised and expanded, Madhur Jaffreys' Indian Cooking introduces its readers to the subtle delights of India's cuisine. Here are classics such as Royal Lamb with Almond Sauce and Tandoori-style... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812027000
• ISBN13: 9780812027006
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.2" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Introduction to Indian Cuisine. Not Comprehensive

`Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking' by the distinguished author of Indian and South Asian cookbooks, Madhur Jaffrey, is an excellent collection of Indian recipes, but it is not quite comparable to the great expositions of national cuisines as we have seen in Julia Child's `Mastering the Art of French Cooking', Marcella Hazan's `Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking', Diane Kochilas' `The Glorious Food of Greece' or Mimi Sheraton's `The German Cookbook'. These titles are all successful surveys of an entire national cuisine, with in depth treatments of equipment, techniques, pastry, and breads. This volume from the famous Ms. Jaffrey is less than half the length of most of these other volumes. This is not to say that this is an unworthy book, but I believe there are other titles by Ms. Jaffrey which cover major aspects of Indian cooking in much greater depth than does this volume. I have been aware of Ms. Jaffrey's reputation as a writer and teacher on Indian cooking for many years. Her reputation in her own field is as great or greater than Diana Kennedy's reputation as an apostle of Mexican cooking or Marcella Hazan's reputation among writers on Italian cuisine. Like Ms. Kennedy, she stands out largely because, in English, she has the field pretty much to herself, unlike the very crowded field of writing on Italian and French cooking. I immediately developed a respect for Ms. Jaffrey before I even read any of her works when I saw her appear on a Food Network episode of the Martha Stewart show, `From Martha's Kitchen' where she pointedly replied to Martha that stockpiling a pantry of staples is simply not a good idea. The proper strategy for filling our pantries is to get only what is called for in recipes we are doing today or this week, and only as much as we need for those recipes. One can begin stocking up on a staple when we are sure that we will make use of the item within the expected shelf life of the staple. I was really pleased to see her repeat that comment in this book, as I have used this observation as a criticism of many books that pad their pages with long lists of pantry items. As this is only the second book I am reviewing on Indian cuisine, I am especially pleased to see that both books agree on what is probably the keystone of all Indian cooking. It is well known that Indian cuisine has a really unique way with spices with their many different spice mixes, generally addressed by the great unwashed as `curry powders'. What is much less well known is the fact that the great genius of Indian cuisine is to treat their spice ingredients in many different ways, in order to bring out subtle differences in flavor from the same ingredients. Thus, crushing together raw spices will give a different flavor than crushing together roasted spices, which will give a different flavor than cooking whole spices in oil with fried foods. Another subtlety of Indian spice mixes is that while it is well known that chili based spice mixes can help coo

A must-have for any lover of Indian food

I *love* Indian food. We eat Indian out quite a bit, and I am hooked on palak paneer, aloo gobi, pakoras, samosas, garlic naan, you name it. We were always a bit afraid to start cooking it in our home, though, because there are so many spices and often hours of cooking involved in these dishes. Then we came across Madhur Jaffrey and her series of books.They are superb!! This one in particular is a staple of our cookbook selection. The first part of the book goes over the spices involved and the different techniques used in cooking, to give you an overview. It even describes the types of equipment you should have. Then ... the recipes!!All of my favorites are in here. Naan, which we cook on a pizza stone. Saag aloo. Aloo ghosht. You just open the book to any page and you hit a delicious dish. There's beef and chicken, completely vegetarian, even a whole section on relishes and chutneys. If I had any complaint it would be that there aren't many pictures at all in here, but the recipes come out so well, and the descriptions are so complete that you rarely need to know what it looks like. It's always delicious!

A CLASSIC

This is absolutely one of my all time favorite cookbooks. Madhur Jaffrey is a teacher par excellence and everything is this book is explained in a clear, concise and easy to understand way. I found it excellent for the beginner and advanced cook alike. Every recipe I have tried has been delicious and the chutneys are beyond compare. The heavenly aromas are reason enough to experiment with the recipes, never mind the delicious tastes! If you love Indian cooking or are thinking about giving it a try, I'd recommend you begin with this book. You absolutely can't go wrong.