Indian vegetarian cookbook Review

Indian vegetarian cookbook
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
Tarla Dalal has incorporated a variety of dishes in this one great book. Her dedication to Indian vegetarian cooking has to be applauded. Great fan of her cooking ideas.Let the books keep rolling in Ms. Dalal.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Indian vegetarian cookbook



Buy Now

Click here for more information about Indian vegetarian cookbook

Read More...

Sugar and Spice & Everything Irie: Savoring Jamaica's Flavors Review

Sugar and Spice and Everything Irie: Savoring Jamaica's Flavors
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
This is a fantastic cookbook. It gives not only great tastes but the feeling of Jamaica. For a great novel about Jamaica, look at Jamaica Girl. It's as delicious as a ripe mango.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Sugar and Spice & Everything Irie: Savoring Jamaica's Flavors



Buy Now

Click here for more information about Sugar and Spice & Everything Irie: Savoring Jamaica's Flavors

Read More...

Amma's Cookbook: From Indian Village to Internet Review

Amma's Cookbook: From Indian Village to Internet
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
This is one of those books, a very rare find, that I'm sure will one day be a collectors item. My friends tell me I have the largest cookbook collections of anyone they know, and I can say that Amma's Cookbook is one of the most remarkable cookbooks I've ever bought.I was lucky to find the book in a bookstore while visiting Sydney, just stumbled across it, it was tucked away behind several other books.
Most the other Indian cookbooks I know feature celebrity chefs who cook for westerners, or who like to play up the exotic side of Indian cooking, their own celebrityhood. You know what I mean. Amma says the food should speak for itself. She was a housewife most her life, then she started a cooking website called Ammas.com. The site is now apparently one of the largest Asian sites on the Internet. Amma means "mother" in many South Asian languages and the woman behind this book seems to have taken on that name herself because most Internet users know her as "Amma" now. I visited the site and couldn't believe my eyes, thousands of recipes, thousands of lifestyle tips, people writing their questions Dear Amma, I love you etc...it's an amazing story! The kind of thing someone like Oprah or some other popular program would pick up if they ever found out about it, or could figure out who Amma really is. Who knows, maybe they will.But my impression is this Amma would prefer to remain anonymous. More power to her!Myself,I want to know more about her because I love her cooking and she's so inspiring, especially her love for motherhood and cooking, and for her own mother who inspired her in life (her mother sounds like a remarkable woman!).
The books gives unique authentic Indian recipes that are NOT on the website, and which are direct from the villages of India. They're translated into western ingredients and cooking methods so western readers can cook the food. Some really incredible dishes, like rabbit curry, crab, lobster, duck, things you won't find in your typical Indian restaurant. I never knew they cooked duck and rabbit in India! The dishes are prepared with an affection, tenderness, mastery of spices and ingredients you won't find with the more popular cookbook authors.
One more great thing about this cookbook is the stories of life in India. Like I said straight out of India, as if you're there! How many westerners get to experience life in an Indian village? This book takes you there.If you buy one cookbook this year, this is the one I recommend. It makes all the other Indian cookbooks seem like cheap entertainment!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Amma's Cookbook: From Indian Village to Internet

Amma ("mother") is an Indian housewife and grandmother who began posting recipes for her children on the Internet when they moved overseas and missed her cooking.From this simple beginning in 1996, Ammas.com has grown to be the world’s largest and most successful Asian food and lifestyle Web site, audited at more than 2 million hits per month. Demand for a cookbook from site users has led to this superb collection of genuine Indian recipes adapted for international use. These include traditional vegetarian, chicken, lamb, and game dishes, vegetables, dals, rices, breads, and seafood. Let Amma introduce you to crayfish in a creamy curry, stuffed eggplant, golden fried coconut rice, cashew nut curry, and other exquisite new dishes and exotic flavors you can create at home.Recipes are presented in easy-to-follow steps, with explanations of Indian spices, flavorings, and cooking techniques, and every dish is photographed in color. Amma also provides delightful anecdotes of Indian village life, which convey the warmth, love, and traditional values of her upbringing.Not a book for chefs, full of recipes you might find in an Indian restaurant, instead Amma offers recipes for cooks, with food from a mother’s kitchen.A dish I associate with the towering clouds and pounding rain of the monsoon, my mother’s minced lamb curry was unique in our village. All the other women cooked this dish as they would any other meat curry. But Amma added a few eggs, which poached in the heat of the frying pan. The aroma of the lamb would mix with the tenderly cooked eggs. . . . Memory also serves a dab of butter, some yogurt, and a large spoon-ful of lightly cooked vegetables with these monsoon-enriched meals.-from Amma’s CookbookAmma is the pseudonym for a southern Indian housewife who wishes to remain anonymous, but who is known through her Web site to millions.

Buy Now

Click here for more information about Amma's Cookbook: From Indian Village to Internet

Read More...

Indian Food Made Easy Review

Indian Food Made Easy
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
I live in Mumbai now and have been watching Anjum's program on Discovery Travel and Living. Watching her make the recipes looked so easy, and since I am already in India, I figured finding the ingredients would be no sweat (it wasn't).
Anjum also lightens up the recipes (i.e. Potato and Pea Samosas made in Filo pastry dough and then baked) and the desserts at the end look divine--especially the kilfi (Indian style ice-cream). Anjum Anand is in London, so all the ingredients can be found in the west if you only take the time to look for them.
So far, I've made the Himalayan Lamb and Yoghurt Curry (page 50)and today made the North Indian Lamb Curry (page 54). Both times I used mutton on the bone as lamb is hard to come by in India!
Both were outstanding curries, but the North Indian recipe (from Punjab) turned out so well, I was compelled to write a review of the book. The paneer recipe is so simple that once I get myself a cheese cloth, I'll be making my own cheese from now on. Milk + lemon juice or yoghurt? How easy is that?
This is an outstanding book and the recipes are laid out in a simple, novice friendly way. There are gorgeous pictures of almost every recipe and there are a few glossaries to help those unfamiliar with Indian spices or terminology. I highly suggest making your garlic/ginger paste from scratch and not try to find any store bought. It makes all the difference!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Indian Food Made Easy



Buy Now

Click here for more information about Indian Food Made Easy

Read More...

The Cooking of India (Foods of the World) Review

The Cooking of India (Foods of the World)
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
I bought this book in 1976 and used it several times with good results, then it fell into the back corner and out of sight.
Today I'm looking at this book again with renewed interest. The writing about culture and food in this book is really outstanding. The recipes are simplified for the American cook and may lack some authenticity but work very well.
Nice intro to Indian cooking.
Fabulous reading. Particularly enjoyed a discussion on breakfast foods (p 62).

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Cooking of India (Foods of the World)



Buy Now

Click here for more information about The Cooking of India (Foods of the World)

Read More...

Madhur Jaffrey's Step-by-Step Cooking: Over 150 Dishes from India and the Far East, Including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia Review

Madhur Jaffrey's Step-by-Step Cooking: Over 150 Dishes from India and the Far East, Including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
We were so excited when we saw there was a new Madhur Jaffrey book on Asian cooking that we ordered it immediately. What a hoax--this is nothing more than a reprint of one of her earlier books, Far Eastern Cookery. That book is out of print, and so if you don't have it you might enjoy this book. But everything is virtually the same--the text and the recipes! The only difference is that there are a few Indian recipes tossed in, and there is less interesting information on the countries. The format is also less convenient. The publisher should be ashamed, since they also published Far Eastern Cookery, but there is no mention of the earlier book anywhere in this one--not even in the list of her previous books. Buyer Beware!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Madhur Jaffrey's Step-by-Step Cooking: Over 150 Dishes from India and the Far East, Including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia



Buy Now

Click here for more information about Madhur Jaffrey's Step-by-Step Cooking: Over 150 Dishes from India and the Far East, Including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia

Read More...

True Thai: The Modern Art of Thai Cooking Review

True Thai: The Modern Art of Thai Cooking
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
This is it - the real thing. If you are choosing among Thai cookbooks, why not buy one written by a man who is both Thai and an excellent chef in his own U.S. restaurant? The author provides details that an outsider to Thai culture might never be privy to - the specific way a Thai cook fluffs his or her rice before serving; intricacies of street vendors' cooking - which in Thailand, far from our hotdogs and pretzels, is an art unto itself; the specific condiments favored for each dish. On the other hand, unlike cookbooks I bought in Thailand, this book has been written with the equipment and availability of Thai ingredients of the Western cook in mind. The author understands both cultures and provides a wonderful education in his heritage in a manner you can easily reproduce at home (provided you have a wok, and access to fairly common ingredients such as fish sauce, coconut milk, cilantro, etc). When the authentic ingredient may be hard to come by, he provides substitutions, i.e. lime peel slices for Kaffir lime leaves. Having travelled and eaten all over Thailand, I was disappointed, after my return, whenever I tried Thai recipes from my other cookbooks. TRUE THAI has enabled me to replicate those amazing dishes with the layers of flavor unique to that beautiful land. Making homemade curry pastes as he describes - red, green, Jungle, Massaman - is labor-intensive, but very worth it. The chapter on vegetarian cuisine is a cookbook in itself. Recipes we have loved so far include: Phat Thai, Tom Kha Kai, shrimp-fried rice, pork-fried rice, beef with broccoflower, Massaman curry with potatoes and pineapple, and banana fritters with coconut and sesame. There also are chapters on garnishes, menu-planning, and "cooking with a Thai accent" - things like Panang Pizza. There is a useful appendix listing mail-order sources, and I plan to hunt down some tamarind concentrate and Thai coffee powder. If you want to cook real Thai, get this book. It's also just fascinating reading.

Click Here to see more reviews about: True Thai: The Modern Art of Thai Cooking

True Thai is one of those rare and important cookbooks where cuisine and culture meet. Food lovers will come away with layers of understanding, discovering the soul of a country where cuisine is a sacred art.True Thai takes us from the jostling Bangkok streets and canals to countryside rice paddles and mango groves, from distant mountain villages to Thailand's stately Royal Palace, delivering True Thai taste in every sense of the word.Victor Sodsook, a native Thai, chef/owner of Los Angeles's celebrated Siamese Princess restaurant, has written the authoritative Thai cookbook that American cooks have been waiting for. True Thai satisfies an increasing public interest in the seductive flavors of Thai cuisine, and a decreasing emphasis on high-fat, high-calorie red meats, eggs, and oils. The lively, easy-to-follow recipes are tailor-made for today's adventurous, aware cook.Most of the tools and ingredients used in True Thai are probably already in your kitchen. And its wide-ranging glossary of ingredients will help you select the most flavorful spices and freshest produce, as well as the best brands of key Thai ingredients like coconut milk and fish sauce. Among True Thai's 250 recipes, you'll find the many Thai dishes that have already won over Americans, such as Crispy Sweet Rice Noodles (mee krob) and soothing, aromatic Chicken-Coconut Soup with Siamese Ginger and Lemon Grass (tom kha kai). Everything is here, from the deliciously spiced barbecued chickens found in Thai provinces to the elaborate and time honored cuisines served to Thailand's royal family, such as King Rama V's Fried Rice. Since Thailand teems with both fresh- and saltwater fish and shellfish, you'll find an abundance of healthful, provocative seafood dishes, such as Ayuthaya Haw Mok Talay, a scrumptious mousse of curried fish, shrimp, and crab, redolent with chili and coconut milk, grilled and served in fragrant banana leaves.Surprisingly light preparations for meat include Fiery Grilled Beef Salad, a classic of Bangkok cafe cuisine, and mu kratiem phrik Thai, a simple stir-fry of pork medallions sizzling with garlic and black pepper. The Thai Vegetarian Cooking chapter is really a whole book unto itself, encompassing its own blend of curry pastes, soups, appetizers, entrees, and one-dish meals-all completely free of animal or fish products. The Thai Salads chapter showcases such recipes as Coconut, Lemon, and Ginger Salad or Grilled Lobster Salad with Green Mango that demonstrate the great variety and sensuousness of this branch of Thai cooking. Drinks and desserts include such ethereal treats as Rose-Petal Sorbet and the refreshingly herbaceous Lemon Grass Tea, wonderful either hot or cold. There's also a chapter that shows how to marry these newfound Thai tastes with classic American cooking, through such improvisations as Bangkok Burgers with Marinated, Grilled Onions and Spicy Thai Ketchup.True Thai is more than a cookbook; it is a collection of grace notes exemplifying Thai cuisine's dedication to pleasing the senses. There's even a chapter on preparing Thai-style table decorations, many of them as edible as they are lovely.True Thai's 250 recipes, each with helpful and fascinating notes, present Thai cuisine with simplicity and elegance. True That is the most authentic, authoritative, and accessible Thai cookbook ever printed in English.

Buy Now

Click here for more information about True Thai: The Modern Art of Thai Cooking

Read More...