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 Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking :: 0764156497
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| Chef magazine called this book’s author “the best-known ambassador of Indian food in the United States” . . . and the Boston Herald referred to her as “the renowned author and actress [who] teaches home cooks about the sophistication and infinite diversity of Indian fare.” The New York Times described her simply and succinctly as “the Indian cuisine authority.” For many years a best-selling cookbook, Madhur Jaffrey’s seminal title on Indian cuisine now has been totally revised, redesigned, enlarged, and enhanced with 70 brand-new full-color photos. With chapters on meat, poultry, fish, and vegetables, as well as pulses, relishes, chutneys, and pickles, the author guides her readers through the delicious and colorful range of Indian food. More than 100 detailed recipes direct home chefs through step-by-step preparation of well-known classics like Tandoori-style Chicken and Naan Bread, as well as more unusual dishes including Salmon Steamed with Mustard Seeds and Tomato and Drunken Orange Slices. Ms. Jaffrey also presents comprehensive background information on spices and seasonings, kitchen equipment, authentic preparation techniques, and suggested menus. Taste-tempting color photos show prepared dishes. Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
Reviews
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Author: Guest
I don't know why I waited this long to review this recipe book, it has been my companion for 6 years. I moved to the U.S. completely unaccustomed with the rituals of cooking. But my Asian heritage did leave me with natural cravings for our traditional cuisine (which is very close to North Indian cooking). I was in a fix. About the same time, a friend (another transplant) prepared a dinner for me using the recipes from this on a dreary Boston winter night. Thus, the journey began. Incidentally, this was my first purchase from Amazon.com.
The recipes are very precise (a key factor for people like myself) and turn out delectable, provided you don't screw up too much.
But more importantly, it is my use of this book as a leisure reading that prompts me to review it here. Jaffrey's language takes me back to another place and time. When I read her description of saffron or gajar halwa or lassi, it tranports me home.
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Author: Guest
This book is okay, not many great recipe Its good book for amature cooks but not something very special for people who are very much into cooking
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Author: Guest
I had the original version of this cookbook and used it nearly every day while living in India. It was easy for an American to follow (unlike the Indian coobooks). I made numerous dishes in this book numerous times, including the ground lamb with peas, the potato and mushroom curry, kashmiri meatballs, red dal, everyday chicken, and basmati rice with peas. They are delicious! My book was in well-loved condition and my husband left it in India because the pages were coming out and many were covered in sauce drippings.
I am buying the book again and I am so excited that it is now in hard cover! This book is great for dinner parties. Recipes are time consuming and I couldn't see making them on a regular day. You also need a lot of (high quality) spices that aren't in an ordinary pantry - like garam masala and cardamom pods. But when you make the dishes they are wonderful!
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Author: Guest
`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 cool the body by the capsicum induced perspiration, the spice mixes from northern India are formulated to have the opposite effect of giving a warming sensation to the body.
An important aspect of this book is that it is inexpensive, meaning that it is a relatively cheap way to get exposure to Indian recipes to see if they are something you wish to explore in greater depth. Even at this bargain price, you have the assurance that you are getting recipes from a recognized expert in Indian cooking.
While the appendix on cooking techniques is much smaller than you may find in one of the major tomes cited above, it is still important to read this before starting the recipes. It is important enough that I would wish the author had placed the section at the beginning of the book. The paragraph on the technique of adding yoghurt (sic) to a braising stew is pretty important, as if you do not follow this technique; there is a high risk that the yoghurt will curdle, spoiling the consistency of the stew.
While Ms. Jaffrey has written big, authoritative books on vegetarian cuisines, this is not one of those books. While very little beef or pork is eaten on the Indian subcontinent due to Hindu and Muslim beliefs, lots of lamb and goat is eaten, and Ms. Jaffrey supplies us with many excellent recipes for both, substituting lamb in recipes where Indians would typically use goat meat.
For those of you who share my interest in bread, I will say that almost all Indian breads are flatbreads, although there is one recipe for yeast leavened bread, `Naan'. Bread and rice are the two major starches in Indian cuisine. Legumes are represented primarily by lentils and peas, both of which have the great virtue of cooking much more quickly than the beans so popular in the Mediterranean.
This book does not deal with spice mixes in depth. For that, you can go to `The Indian Spice Kitchen' by Monisha Bharadwaj which has sections on a half dozen different spice combinations from all over India. This book does have a special chapter on chutneys, which should appeal to anyone who likes the tang of pickles in all its glorious variety.
While there are several very unusual ingredients required by some recipes in this book, the author does an excellent job of limiting these ingredients to just a few dishes. The average American megamart will have almost all the semi-unusual ingredients, but they may be short on things such as edible silver leaf, Kalonji (onion seed), and Kewda essence (from the screwpine plant).
If you are interested in doing serious South Asian cooking, hook up with a good Indian, Pakistani, or Thai grocery or a good Internet supplier.
An excellent `get your feet wet' introduction to Indian cooking.
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Author: Guest
I had tried serving Indian recipes I found on the Internet, and my husband, a Punjabi who relishes his food, would politely eat them. The first time I made Ms. Jaffrey's "everyday" Chicken in Fried Onion Sauce, he turned to me with a big smile on his face and says "it's almost perfect - I would never know this was not prepared by a born-Indian!"Well - that's all the proof I needed! The only consistent complaint we have about the book is that the pulses (grains and legumes) are quite bland. That may be how the majority of Indians eat them, but in my husband's community, everything is highly seasoned. I've had to adjust all of those recipes for him. One caution about the previous edition if you decide to buy it used is that occassionally you'll find a step missing in the procedural part of the recipe. You'll get to the end of the recipe and find there is an ingredient left over that's not made it into the pot - like the meat, for instance! I recommend you read all recipes carefully before starting so you can spot ommissions and strategize around them. This approach will also help you plan all the prep steps - measuring and chopping ingredients.
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