Customer Reviews

Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I live in Toronto, where there's an Indian restaurant every couple of steps. I received this book as a gift, and it is seriously my most favourite cookbook. Everything that I've made from the cookbook turned out even better than any dish I could buy eating out! No exaggeration. I have a few favourites: rogan josh, the lamb and spinach, and the beef/lamb with creamy almond sauce. It's awesome because you can change up the protein for a lot of the recipes, but I never stray from the actual recipe -- that's how you know this book is the real deal. No need for fiddling around with the original! Cannot rave enough.

What a gem of a cookbook! Not only could I not cook Indian food, I could not cook much of any food at all. That is, until I came across this Madhur Jaffrey book. The first recipe I tested was the lamb with spinach. My husband was shell-shocked at the authentic Indian flavor (and my seemingly sudden ability to cook!) The recipes are written in very plain language, and many lovely Indian spices (which can frequently be found nowadays at the local supermarket) such as turmeric and garam masala are included. If you have any interest in eating and/or cooking Indian food, you will not be disappointed. Thank you, Ms. Jaffrey!

I was always too timid to try my hand at Indian Cuisine until a friend from England gave me this book. My husband is English, and we have frequently complained that you cannot get good Indian food in Los Angeles. We've both been spoiled by the excellent Indian restaurants in London. So far, I've only made two dishes: the steamed salmon, which was moist, delicate and a complete departure from anything we've ever had -- and was incredible! Last night I made the chicken in sweet red pepper sauce and the house was filled with such aromas. Just had some for lunch here at work, and it's driving everyone else crazy. I think I just sold five more books for Ms. Jaffrey...

The recipes were easy to follow but I found it wasn't sufficient in flavour. If I double the amount of spices they ask for, then the dishes taste more authentic instead of a watered down version. With this in mind, I would recommend it as a beginning to great Indian cooking.

We were introduced to this cookbook when our friends made restaurant quality samosas for us. It is a wonderful introduction to Indian cooking describing spices, tools and techniques while adapting many more difficult methods or difficult-to-find ingredients for North Americans.

I have now tried more than half the recipes and almost all are winners. Many are easy, but some are quite labour-intensive or require marinating for 24 to 48 hours so be sure to read the whole recipe when planning a dinner! Most recipes are fit for company; a food processor and some obvious shortcuts can sometimes dramatically cut the preparation time in exchange for less perfect presentation. I add timing notes when I try each recipe.

The recipes tend to be family-sized (e.g. 2 to 3 pounds of meat for meat dishes) but most are great as leftovers: I do a full recipe Sunday and eat it for the rest of the week.

If you have never done Indian cooking you can't go wrong with this book. It is accessible with many easy recipes, and it will mentor you through more involved recipes and more exotic ingredients as your confidence grows.

P.S. Many recipes for people on caveman diet / paleo diet.

Love this book. I have several Indian Cook books, this is by far the best. Everything is prepared from scratch. What tools to use and explainations of the spices in the beginning of this book are excellant. Great for the beginner as well as more advanced cooks. Great photographs accompany most dishes. And the food is excellant, better than many Indian restaurants. I highly recommend this book.

This was the first Indian cookbook I ever owned, and for a beginner it was an ideal introductory textbook. Jaffrey makes the techniques of Indian cookery easily accessible, even to cooks with fairly low skill levels. She also gives good overviews of Indian ingredients and spices. Most importantly, she supplies recipes that yield dishes that are so intensely, wonderfully flavorful that you'll want to make them again and again and again. Indeed, I've owned this book for almost 10 years and I still use it often. It is lavishly illustrated, with gorgeous color-rich photographs of the book's many dishes, dressed up by a professional food stylist. Your results probably won't look like the pictures (at least, mine rarely do) but they do give you something to shoot for, and they make the book a pleasure for the "armchair cook" as well.

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.

Indian Cooking updates a prior Jaffrey classic introduction to Indian cooking, providing new recipes, brand-new color photos, and chapters on all the dishes of India. From a Kashmiri Red Lamb Stew to Chicken in Red Sweet Pepper Sauce, Indian Cooking comes packed with dishes which will prove exciting to both newcomers and seasoned Indian cooks.

For an introduction to Indian cuisine, Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking can't be beat. The recipes are all easy to follow and to prepare, with ingredients, in both American and metric measurement system, listed in a column next to the recipes. Jaffrey does not concentrate on Indian vegetarian dishes, although many of the recipes ARE vegetarian. There are even a few beef recipes reflecting the non-Hindu population. (The beef baked in yogurt and black pepper is delicious!)

Jaffrey includes a descriptive guide to Indian spices and ingredients as well as a chapter on cooking techniques. The section on breads is fantastic. I never thought I could make poori at home, and yet they turned out perfectly. I make naan fairly frequently, using a breadmaker to knead the dough, because it's my family's favorite. Other excellent dishes include Dry Potatoes with Ginger and Garlic, Gujerati-style Green Beans, and Spicy Baked Chicken. (The recipes are titled in English, with the Indian names in parentheses underneath.)

Anyone with a basic know-how of cooking should be able to succeed with these recipes.