Cooking Curries [Paperback]

Having made two recipes from this book now, I find that while it has lots of big pretty pictures, the actual writing isn't great, and the average outcome of the two recipes I'd give a 3.5 out of 5 stars for taste. The ingredients list is separated into sections (i.e., meat, sauce), but only with spaces, not labels, and the separation placements don't always make sense to me. The separation also means that some things show up in the list multiple times, so shopping lists must be prepared carefully. The recipe itself is written out not as steps, but in paragraph form (and they're long paragraphs). The combination of these things last night meant that when they said "use half the oil", I wan't sure how much to use. I saw 2 Tbsp at the beginning of the list. But then I saw 1 Tbsp further down the list, and then 1 Tbsp half didn't seem enough for the first task, and I couldn't find in the long paragraphs where I was using second half of it, though I did then find it half an hour further into the recipe (and half definitely wasn't enough for the second-half task). Some ingredients don't show up in the list at all, appearing only in the paragraph text (for the lamb it was water, for the chicken it was salt), or only becoming apparent in taste-testing (mostly salt and pepper). They also didn't even attempt to optimize the steps for efficiency and not having to repeat the same task multiple times (e.g., chop an onion and crush some garlic at the beginning, then do it again half an hour later). The fact that a large number of the recipes in this book contain ingredients that can't be found in a regular grocery store, even in a major metro area like Houston, doesn't help its cause. Ultimately, I'm on the fence about keeping this one.

I have cookbooks with beautiful, inspirational pictures, and lousy recipes; and I have cookbooks with no pictures and great recipes, but this book has both incredible pictures and fantastic, tasty recipes. It has everything from "safe" chicken curries to the slightly bizzare. I love it!

I've had great success with this cookbook. Receipes, ingredient lists and culinary techniques are very explicit and easily followed. The work in the kitchen is neither simple nor quick; these receipes are not shortcuts. But the results have been very rewarding.