The Indian Kitchen

I have enjoyed cooking Indian food for many years. I have just finished reading Curry: A Biography of a Dish and realised that, though I roasted and ground my own spices, most of what I cooked was very anglicised. I came across this book by doing an Amazon search. It is truly magical. It matches, in geography, ingredients and techniques, all of the points made in Biography. When I first opened it I was put off by the fact that it is arranged by ingredient. However this approach works superbly. Each ingredient is introduced and its place in traditional medicine and cooking is described. Then there are two or three recipes using it. Normally when I skim a recipe book I reject this and that, and finish with just a handful of dishes that I like the sound of. Having gone through this book I have cancelled all culinary plans for the next two weeks. I cannot believe just how many wonderful sounding recipes there are. Many I have never even remotely heard of before.Highly, highly recommended!

Lovely book with a difference. It explains about the spices used in Indian cooking, very useful for somebody starting out with Indian cookery, also interesting for people like me who have been using many of these spices for years, without knowing much about them.

Love this book! It may be a bit difficult as a non Indian who doesn't know specific names of specific dishes to navigate the book. But that would be an issue with ant book. It has a great index and exploration of ingredients and recipes. I really love this book!

Interesting.

very helpful

This series of books is really excellent as it provides a background to different ingredients and flavour combinations which make this regions food so distinctive. I actually havent used the recipes, I've read these books more to provide me with a philosophy of food.

This is a very good book which covers many popular ingredients in Indian cookery. It has sections for spices, herbs, fruits and vegetables (this section is quite limited), nuts, dals and pulses, cereals and flours and miscellaneous ingredients (such as jaggery and rose essence). For each ingredient there are details on how it grows or is manufactured, appearance and taste, buying and storing, medicinal and other uses and culinary uses. Then there are two recipes, at least one of which is vegetarian (except for star anise where both the recipes are meaty).The author has attempted to provide recipes for regional dishes, which may be less well-known to non-Indian readers. To me, it seems that some of these regional recipes many not necessarily be particularly authentic or orthodox. For instance, the idli recipe contains more urad dal than rice, which is not how I would make it and certainly I have not seen idlis made that way before. However, it is a good effort, and, as the author says at the start of the book, there is very rarely only one way of doing things in India, so there are many different ways of making a dish.What is most significant about this book is that it doesn't just tell you a few quick things about an ingredient and then go straight to a recipe. It attempts to explain the ingredients place in Indian culture in terms of how they are used in cookery and also in other areas. This is really important, as food is about so much more than just taste in India. Medicinal or health promoting qualities, spiritual significance and symbolism are also important factors.For anyone who wants to learn more about the basic ingredients of Indian cookery and how they are used, this is a brilliant book. It doesn't cover everything, but it's a very good start, and there are many recipes for you to enjoy as you learn.

This 240 page book is not the average cook book.It gives information on the ingredients used in Indian cookery rather than just pages of recipes.Each double page is dedicated to an ingredient. It gives info on how it grows, appearance and taste,buying and storing, medicinal uses, culinary uses and atleast two recipes using each ingredient.There are seven sections - spices,spice mixtures,dried herbs,nuts,Dals and pulses,cereals and flours,miscellaneous ingredients.Its a paper back book with lots of colour photos and very easy to read. The 200 recipes cover everything from starters to drinks,desserts and sweets. Each recipe has some information with it regarding storage and when the recipe would be used.As the pages are set out via the ingredients and not courses, it could be a bit tricky to navigate if you had to plan a whole meal.So if you are looking for a basic Indian cook book then this may not be for you, but I find it a fascinating book which is an excellent addition to other Indian cook books.It would make an unusual gift for someone interested in Indian cookery.

Very nice Indian Recipe book at first glance you might think it's all about herbs and spices, but what it realy is, are recipes useing the herbs and spices detailed in the book....

Bought this book as i love to cook Indian food. Used to buying spices etc i was bewildered when i went to the Asian supermarket to find all the unidentified Indian vegetables.

I was so happy to see this book hit the shelves, as I'd been unsucessfully searching for a guide such as this for a long time.

This book has become one of my kitchen Bibles. It is written in an easily readable format and not only gives many recipes - all of which turn out wonderfully well - but also...

Gorgeously illustrated with pictures of the cooked meals, spices, people and places in India, the The Indian Spice Kitchen is a tasty read.