Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts: Recipes and Remembrances of a Vegetarian Legacy Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is a great introduction to the myraid flavors of Southern Indian cuisine - which are simple and sublime.
The book focusses on Kerala and the author provides a fascinating background into the culture and customs of that state, immensely helpful to anyone new to its cuisine. I am from the South of India myself and can vouch for the authenticity and reliability of the recipes.
Ammini's voice is reassuring - introducing vegetables like telinga potatoes, ripe and unripe plaintains and breadfruit or teaching the basics of pillowy appams.
I have tried many of the recipes from the book and they are all keepers.
If you are interested in the culinary history of food of kerala, treat yourself to this book!!


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Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts is a wonderful book: a moving glance into a world that I would never otherwise have encountered. Recipes that make me want to rush to the kitchen, intriguing techniques that could be used with other cuisines, fascinating personal stories about growing up in a big Kerala household, all embedded in a deep understanding of Kerala as a pivot of Asian history. It's a wonderful tribute to Kerala and a stunning gift for the rest of us."Rachel LaudanCulinary Historian and author of The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage"Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts is a jewel of a cookbook---from its authentic recipes (many published here for the first time) to Ammini Ramachandran's evocative personal anecdotes of Kerala's culinary traditions. It is at once scholarly, yet accessible, and especially charming for its delicious recipes and intriguing stories from the royal kitchens of Kochi".Grace YoungAuthor of The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchenand co- author of The Breath of a Wok"In this passionate celebration of her ancestral cuisine, Ammini Ramachandran deftly interweaves history, religion, tradition, geography, and especially, intimate family memories to bring the delicious Keralan story to life. Familiar with the dosas and idlis of this cuisine, I was tantalized by the rich panoply of vegetarian recipes detailed here. Ammini makes it all very accessible, and she shares her discoveries: sensible substitutions, invaluable trucs and suggestions for integrating these traditional recipes into non-traditional menus. The world that Ammini chronicles may have vanished, but her food, enriched with memory and love, offers a very special taste for us all". Jayne Cohen Food Writer and author of Gefilte Variations: 200 Inspired Re-creations of Classics from the Jewish Kitchen, with Menus, Stories, and Traditions for the Holidays and Year-Round.

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Southeast Asian Flavors: Adventures in Cooking the Foods of Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia & Singapore Review

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(More customer reviews)Chef Robert Danhi's passion for Asian cuisine and culture is obvious in this first rate book. More than just a cookbook, the reader learns about the culinary identity of Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, and how to build authentic flavor combinations. His section on the Asian pantry is the best product identification I have seen to date on these authentic ingredients. The book is beautifully illustrated so the reader can visualize not only the ingredient, but what the finished dish should look like. Danhi inserts frequent educational blurbs about "How and Why" to explain the science and art behind the cooking, which is tremendously helpful to the reader. His unbiased assesment of monosodium glutamate is provocative, as well as the more general idea of glutamates and umami flavor. This book is a work of art, and a must for anyone interested in Asian cuisine.

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Demystifying Southeast Asia’s cuisine, this cookbook translates years of photography, culinary training, education, and resulting expertise into an adventure of recipes, stories, and practical advice on cooking. Regardless of exotic flavors, foreign ingredients, and unfamiliar techniques, the guide demonstrates how cooking remains universal and the science of food holds fast. Including more than 100 recipes, 700 photographs, and vivid anecdotes, this is the perfect book for anyone seeking to learn about the flavors of Southeast Asian cuisine or just looking for a unique, recreational read.

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Best-Ever Curry Cookbook Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book on a whim and we use it over and over. It is
easily read, followed and thus you pull it out when you feel like a curry and its condiments. This is a book you can use when you cook during the week as well as on weekends. That is a
treat. I collect cookbooks, have taken lessons in India/Thailand and the books and recipes I returned with were not user friendly because of ingredients or technique. This one is. Kudos to the author for allowing us to share the joy of these culinary adventures.


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Best Ever Curry Cookbook Mridula Baljekar |Hermes House Exotic spices have been used for centuries to liven up the daily staples of rice, noodles and bread with sauce dishes known as curries. This is a wonderful collection of over 150 recipes an shows just how easy it is to make authentic curries. The basic techniques of curry-making are fully explained, along with advice on using spices, making pastes and powders, and cooking rice and noodles. Hardcover |256 pp | ISBN:1843094940 9x12 |Color

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The Silk Road Gourmet: Volume One: Western and Southern Asia Review

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(More customer reviews)A review of the Silk Road Gourmet Cookbook and my choice for the best food and travel cookbook of the year....
The only time I ever review a cookbook is if I like it and think you should all know about it, I don't throw praise around because it can come back to haunt you which is why book reviews and other blog recommendations tend to be few and far between on here. For what it's worth I have been collecting cookery books since I started my career as a chef twenty five years ago and despite having spent an unimaginable amount on them over the years there are very few I would actually consider buying again. That to me is the true test of a product, would you buy it again?
Laura Kelley has written a book I would buy again in an instant; she has written the kind of book I would love to be able to write. Food, travel and all things Asian combine to bring us volume one in a series of books detailing the food, culture and history of this wonderful continent. I have waited a long time for this book, having been a keen follower of Laura's blog called The Silk Road Gourmet for a long time I knew Laura was capable of producing a book which could put her wonderful writing onto bookshelves around the world. Anyone who has read Laura's blog will know that she writes with great intelligence, authority and a real love for her subject.
Volume one of the series begins with a part of Asia seldom covered in the mainstream of culinary writing, the West and the South. The journey takes in the countries and cuisines which are steeped in history and whose very traditions have quietly transcended into other people's cultural makeup through centuries of trading and exploration. This book offers a thoughtful, intensely researched insight into the cuisines of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It demonstrates how the spice routes of those earliest of traders helped to shape each countries food and how remarkably similar many of the methods and use of ingredients are.
The choice of dishes is considerable, for the keen amateur cook or the professional chef it offers a new and inspiring diversion from well trodden paths, spice and flavour notes jump out from the pages and transport you to those places we rely on the more dedicated to tell us about.
Take Georgia, we are given a brief overview of the main spices and flavours indicative of the country, fenugreek, saffron, sour cherries, oranges, lemons, savory, allspice, pomegranates and marigold, there are recipes for garam masalas from Pakistan and curry powders from Sri Lanka as well as comparisons of spice mixes between different countries which show how close our culinary borders actually are.
Take your time with this book, it's not just a collection of recipes but if it's a quick dish you are after then each recipe takes between fifteen and thirty minutes to prepare. Go straight to Laura's own favourites if you can't decide, meatballs in lemon sauce, lamb chops in sweet and sour pomegranate sauce or orange-chicken koresh with almonds, pistachios, cinnamon and cardamom.
We live in a society which thrives on telling us how crappy everything is, so when a piece of work such as this becomes available we should recognise one person's huge labour of love and commitment to sharing their knowledge with the rest of us. Buy this book!

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From the shores of the Black Sea to the sands of the Pacific, the foods enjoyed along the Silk Road whisper tales of connections between the cultures, histories, economies, and regions of Asia. In The Silk Road Gourmet, author Laura Kelley brings the breadth of Asian cooking to your door. Spanning more than thirty countries and including 1,000 recipes, the three volumes of The Silk Road Gourmet explore the cuisines of the countries that traded goods and shared culture along that great lifeline of the ancient world. This first volume surveys the cuisines of Western and Southern Asia from the Republic of Georgia to Sri Lanka and examines the cultural links between the countries that have led them to share ingredients, methods of preparation, and even entire dishes. This cookbook includes recipes for delicious and authentic main-course meat and vegetable dishes as well as appetizers, desserts, sauces, and condiments to grace contemporary, globalized tables. Learn how to prepare Grilled Chicken with Garlic and Walnut Sauce from the Republic of Georgia, Meatballs in Lemon Sauce from Armenia, and Cinnamon Potatoes with Pine Nuts from Azerbaijan.With fully tested recipes and step-by-step instructions, The Silk Road Gourmet brings the exotic home to you.

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The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook: Home Cooking from Asian American Kitchens Review

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(More customer reviews)Patricia did a really good job in creating this cookbook with not just beautiful images but also the recipes are taste-proof (meaning that the dishes in this book has been cooked and for sure been worth the word - yummy!!! to be placed in the book!) This is indeed a great find as there is a lot of recipes and I know some of you out there prefer images, however this book is going to cook your way into your stomach. Do not be afraid to get one as this is on my top favorite cookbooks to choose from when cooking for friends!
Most of the dishes in here has been a long-time favorite, and I am licking my lips just typing about the it... heehee
A book not only has history of flavor, but also a mixed of wonderful imagination of taste!
Hope you will enjoy the book as much as I do and not be afraid to try try try!
Cheers :))

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Asian grandmothers - whether of Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, or Indian descent - are the keepers of the cultural, and culinary, flame. Their mastery of delicious home-cooked dishes and comfort food makes them the ideal source for this cookbook. Author Pat Tanumihardja has assembled 130 tantalizing dishes from real Chinese fried rice to the classic Filipino Chicken Adobo to the ultimate Japanese comfort dish Oyako donburi. This is hearty food, brightly flavored, equally good to look at and eat. Flavors range from soy and ginger to hot chiles, fragrant curries, and tart vinegars. The author has translated all of the recipes to work in modern home kitchens. Many of them have been handed down from mother to daughter for generations without written recipes, and some appear in tested and written form for the first time. An exhaustive Asian Pantry glossary explains the ingredients, from the many kinds of rice and curries to unfamiliar but flavorful vegetables.

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