India: Cookbook

This is just an amazing book, full of love for the recipes contained within it, and Pushpesh Pant must have spent a huge amount of time and effort in putting it together. The publisher has also gone to great effort to make the book characterful. In a 30 page introduction, each region of India is explored, telling the reader a bit about its character, history, and distinctive cuisine. The main part of the book is the recipes, which are well-organised. The main sections are arranged as appetisers, main dishes, pulses, breads, and so on. Within each section, a lot of effort has been taken to group dishes by type, or by main ingredient, depending on what makes most sense. For example, all of the pakora recipes are grouped together into 10 pages. All of the main dishes where okra is the main ingredient are gathered together. This makes it really easy to browse, looking at a dry potato dish from Punjab, or a slightly different Delhi dish of potato and yoghurt, or a potato dish from Kerala involving coconut... you get the idea. To give you an idea of the depth of the book, there are 54 recipes for pickles, chutneys and raita, which vary from requiring a few ingredients, to over 10, and from 10 minutes preparation, to hours. There's something in here for everyone. Want to make a quick half-hour lunch of potato curry with some plain parathas? It's in here. Want to make a pan-Indian thali of ancient and modern dishes? You can do that. Or maybe you'd like to plan an intimate meal centred on a particular region of India, to make it as authentic as possible? I think that the main advantage of the book is that it gives you so many ideas, you aren't going to make the boring chicken curry you always make, you might decide instead to go to the supermarket and buy some taro roots and jackfruits! The paper quality is obviously a conscious design decision to make it have a slightly rough feel, and it is not an indication of poor publishing. Each section is also printed on a different coloured paper, which is a nice touch. People have also commented that the photos should appear by the recipes. I disagree - the idea of having a photo of a bench containing 5 or 6 different plates of food is so you can see them with reference to other dishes. All pictures are labelled with the page numbers where you can find the recipes, and the recipes are labelled with a camera icon and a page number so you can find the photos. It's fine. Finally, those reviews indicating the amount of errors, quite simply I don't believe in them. The errors are there, of course - but they are so infrequent and so obvious that it in no way detracts from the quality of the work as a whole. There are 1,000 recipes - the hit rate with flawless instructions is actually very high. Sure, if you want to go out and buy 10 cartons of yoghurt for the morsel of chicken you are cooking, be my guest. I'm exaggerating a bit - but there's some common sense needed here. Like the recipe that forgets to tell you to combine one main part of the dish with another main part of the dish. Please, this is not NASA, we are not making a moon buggy. We are making a pakora, just spend some time studying the WHOLE recipe before starting it! It's a pleasure to just flick through the book - I've been spending all weekend just browsing the recipes (and cooking some, too), it's been great!

I have been waiting for this book with anticipation. I have not come across any mistakes or incomplete recipes yet - as mentioned by some of the other reviewers - but there are a whole lot of recipes to go through. This is by far the most complete Indian cookery book I have ever seen. This book + Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Bible are probably the only Indian cookery books you will ever need. It is true that this book seems to be written for experienced cooks. The recipes are very brief so you do need to be confident in technique - confident enough to improvise a little to make the dishes to your own taste. The photos in the book are beautiful, but it could have done with some more. I read the comments from other reviewers about the quality of the paper. The quality is fine. The paper is a coloured uncoated stock and is probably chosen as a design feature more than anything else. one warning - and a downside - read carefully for how many portions the recipes are, as this is not consistent throughout the book. i ended up cooking a huge pan of curry for 6 people!

After 20 years of cooking Asian, especially southern Asian food, I have a pretty extensive collection of recipe books of all types and like to think I am pretty experienced in the cuisine. One of my biggest issues is finding new recipes rather than repeats of those often found in Indian restaurant menus. This one is quite different though! Yes, there are a few recipes that you can find in just about every book published, however the majority look very authentic to me. Certainly they remind me of the sorts of dishes I have eaten around India and Sri Lanka. I haven't had a chance to create a lot of dishes, but those I have done have been pretty easy to do and the aromatic results have had a thumbs up by all diners. Many recipes require few additional ingredients that most curry enthusiasts won't already have - and with the advent of on-line specialist grocery stores many can be easily purchased or just omitted. Out of the UK supermarkets Tescos is a good resource for reasonably priced spices and exotic vegetables. Any minuses? Well, maybe there are some errors in the instructions on sterilising equipment and few are likely to create the pastes and masalas in the quantities suggested. Some of the recipes also ask for huge amounts of oils and fats: reducing them might take away some of the overall intended result, but would be far healthier. For the sheer number of recipes for the price, it I think it is a good investment.

this book is quality from the front cover to the back cover.it gives the story of indian food with the different recipes from all over india.1000 recipes covered in 815 pages,with 140 odd colour photos.there is also a section of recipes from 11 renowned guest chefs from around the world.this book covers all parts of indian cooking from spice mixtures and pastes,snacks etc,veg and meet dishes,pulses,breads,rice,desserts,to drinks.all very well written and explained throughout.you also receive a lovely spice bag with the cover of the book on it.this book is worth its weight in gold,and at approx £25 a complete bargain,and is the only book you will ever need.i have cooked a few of the recipes and all have been great.i will work my way through as many recipes as possible.highly recommended.hope the author can do a followup.

I had been eyeing this book for years and finally bought one to recreate a laal-maas that I had in Rajasthan years ago, and though I haven't got around to that recipe yet, everything I have tried has been great (mostly lamb and rice dishes). It's worth taking the time to make up (and freeze) garlic, fried onion, ginger, pastes etc. (recipes for them are included) because some recipes can be intricate and time consuming even with such time savers. Not every recipe is illustrated - this is not food porn, it's an Indian-food-lover's bible: every recipe gives its origin, prep time, cooking time, serving size and ingredients list (in metric and imperial) as well as step by step instructions. Many recipes call for mustard oil but that is not on sale for human consumption in the UK and can only be purchased for "external use" - I wish I could get the flavour another way since I am not comfortable using products with identifiable health risks... but apparently "all Indian restaurants" use it, so maybe I shouldn't be too fussy if I'm not consuming it in large quantities. The index is extensive and there is also a helpful glossary. My one criticism of the book is its production: the paper is so thin (admittedly it needs to be thin because of the number of pages) and weak that it would be very easy to tear; I have been very careful but even a quickly removed post-it could be damaging.

fab

This would be my 10th cookbook regarding the Indian cuisine, I would say am well familiar with the techniques and recipes by now - and I have to say this one's definitely worth the hype. A great variety of dishes, including something I've not seen in other Indian cookbooks - Tribal foods from the North East! Naga pork stew with bamboo shoots, and a couple other unusual things you wouldn't see elsewhere. Also, mr Pant has done a better job at dividing the Indian cuisines into categories. Whereas usual cookbooks just lazily state north-west-south-east, this book divides them into nine and gives background on each. Absolutely worthwhile! Extra love to the masala section. While I would have liked to see included some more regional masala recipes (like for example the Marathi goda masala, or a couple types of Kolhapuri masalas), its a great book for those wanting to familiarize themselves with Indian food and cuisines, and for those already familiar I'd recommend it for its inclusion of adivasi and tribal recipes, and awadhi cuisine which is also more scarcely seen on regular cookbooks pages.

A well researched and laid out book, a must have for anyone who wishes to enjoy authentic Indian food. Like most cookbooks you need to adjust and refine certain quantities to get the taste right but that comes with preparing that dish a few times. That said I've yet to be disappointed with any of the dishes I've made. The dishes are from all regions are easy to follow, the wealth of different flavours and textures demonstrate the limit of 'curry house' foods in Europe and how the multitude of Indian cuisine can and does taste. Phaidon seem to be on a mission to create these high quality, amazing encyclopaedias of foods from around the world with recipes collected locally. Having previously bought the Phaidon Thailand book I had no hesitation in buying this and pre ordering the soon to be released Chinese cookbook.