Customer Reviews

Dakshin: Vegetarian Cuisine from South India

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Loved the pictures, enjoyed the recipes - definitely value for money. For the finicky cook, I must point out that the collection is somehat biased in terms of recipes from Tami Nadu. The attention to detail / organization still makes it a good buy.

There's plenty of full-color "food porn," but the overdesigned text--several different type styles within each recipe, with the ingredients list in illegible italics--and small typeface make this cookbook difficult to read and use. Some pages have white type on top of the color photo, which is really annoying. The recipes look good, though a majority of them require curry leaves, which are impossible to get fresh unless you live in an area with an Indian grocery or want to pay an exorbitant price to have them shipped.

Dakshin is full of mouthwatering South Indian recipes. For those not aware: most of the food you will find in North American restuarants is North Indian cuisine. South Indian cuisine is typically healthier. Like most Indian cooking, the recipes in this book require a large number of spices (but that is the beauty of Indian food). The majority of the Sambar and Rasam recipes require you to make a Sambar or Rasam spice blend first... after which preparation would be much faster (or you could buy mixes from the Indian grocery store, but I'm sure it wont taste as good). I did not have 2 cups of red chilis on hand so will be trying some of those recipes on the weekend.

So far, the recipes I have tried have been delicious. The Potato Masala reminded me of my South Asian friends' parents' cooking (though I am no judge of authenticity, it was excellent). My Dosa attempt was a fail - entirely my fault though. The recipe called for parboiled rice, which I'd never heard of so I partially cooked the rice. My bad - I should have looked this up first. The final product tasted great, but would not hold its shape. Will be trying this one again in a couple of weeks. Recipes are easily explained with step by step instructions.

For those of you who like to see what you are cooking prior to experimentation, this book is filled with colourful, glossy illustrations of the recipes. The cookbook has a glossary, which should be helpful for those not familiar with many of the Indian spices. I have not been able to find Asofadita/Hing (I know my spelling on this is off), but the recipes have been excellent without. One warning - depending on how hot you like your food (or indeed how hot your peppers are) you may want to adjust the number of required peppers.... I was fine with recipe amounts, but other members of the family found the food extremely spicy.

Overall:
Great recipes
Great illustrations
Good instructions

Well, what can I say other then this book is the greatest!
It has opened up a whole new world as I have very little experience with South Indian food.I find most cook books are beautifully designed and very inspiring until you actually cook from them and then you find out quickly that the author is culinarily clueless.
The recipes in this book look like the accompanying photos which is unusual in the cookbook world
I made a Sambar dish and offered to an Indian aquantence who works on my block. He tells me that my Sambar is better then his wife's , who is from India. He sitll can't quite comprehend a white American Male cooking Indian food. He keeps asking me for more ,I'm sure his wife doesn't know...
(On the side, one photo comment:
The photo of mixed vegetable Kootu has mustard seeds sprinkled on it but the recipe does not contain mustard seeds...OK, I'm getting picky..)
All in all this is now my favorite Indian cookbook and has tweaked in me the desire to travel to South India.

I am a single male from North India who loves South Indian food. Bsides I am a vegan who abstains from any animal products. Even though in the vicinity of Berkeley we have lots of Indian restaurants, they are dominated by Mughlai (or Punjabi) cuisine - which include the all-too-familiar tandoori chicken, palak paneer, samosa etc. A few South Indian restaurants recently opened up, but ghee (by popular demand!) seems to be used in almost all dishes. (No wonder Indians have one of the highest rates of heart problems, beer-bellies and lots of other health problems.)

Decided that if I wanted to eat good and healthy South Indian food, I had to cook it myself. Bought this book. Am not an expert cook and don't have much time to search around for 1/2 teaspoonful of XYZ. Luckily this book has been good in that respect. Only 5-6 standard Indian spices (all available from Indian grocery stores), with a few specialized spice mixes, will allow one to create authentic dishes like sambar and rasam. Food photos are excellent, and some days, I just look at those pictures to satisfy my hunger for South Indian food!

Thus far, have tried a few recipes, and all turned out well. In future, I plan to expand my menu.

I hope this book helps to make South Indian food popular among Americans. In my view, South Indian staple food like idli, dosa, sambar, rasam, and various rices are healthy and tasty unlike those overcooked, oily Punjabi food they serve in Indian restaurants. My wish is for the author to come out with a vegan version of this excellent book, because I think veganism is the way to go for all for health, for environment and for compassion. :) Thanks for reading.

Quote: Greatness of a country is judged by the way its animals are treated - Gandhi.

This is the most worn Indian cooking book I own. I am not Indian but my husband is from Bangalore. He says the recipes from this book taste better and more authentic than his mom's recipes. His relatives are flabbergasted when they come to visit and I can cook them meals that taste/look as though they are right out of their own kitchens. Several people have bought the book after eating the recipes I cooked from it. If you must buy any book on South Indian cooking, certainly buy this one first. My only gripe is that Padmanabhan never specifies the amount of salt to be used. With most recipes this is ok but some of them can't be tasted until they're completely cooked and it is too late...such as idli's etc. However, this book is excellent value for the money and sets such a good foundation with the basics of tempering and masala pastes that you will soon be experimenting with your own ingredients/variations.

Amazing book. All recipes I have tried were great. It is the kind of book where just looking at the photos makes you hungry.
(I am an Indian, though not a South Indian.)

Large full-color pictures of every recipe. Authentic. Delicious. Should sell for more than $30.00.

Its very difficult for Indians and Americans, possibly Europeans and Asians to get South Indian food outside of India, and arguably outside of South India other than the those tiring stereotyped 'dosa' and rockhard 'idlis', if at all. Its all too North Indian whereever you go out, and the world, as a result, is blissfully innocent of South Indian Food. So, you have to cook it yourself.
South Indian food is extremely modular in structure, process and style - Vegetables, Meats substitute/compliment vegetables and viceversa, [this book is vegetarian], Sauces, Garnishes, Curry Powders, and Order of frying, boiling, roasting, steaming - and this is an excellent book to get a hang of the varieties you can make in South Indian Cooking. If nothing else, its an education even to those familiar with indian food that there are half-a-dozen 'sambars', 'rasams', 'dosas'. The end section which puts together a buffet menu is simply devine. The garnish for this excellent book is the glossy photographs to every recipe that's very essential for visualization as well as make anyone drool. Everytime I flip the pages I land up cooking something from it. I keep it along with Julia Child's How to Cook and How to Bake Books, which I may remind the readers graduated America from Canned Beans to Food! I hope this book will graduate the world from Naans & Chicken Masala. Just writing this review has made me hungry...

It's amazing. They say there's nothing like home-cooked food. This is the only - repeat ONLY - cookbook I have ever found to be true to my cousine. I'm a Brahmin Iyer from Tamil Nadu and these recipes could have come straight from my grandmother. Anyone who knows India knows that cousine varies with geography & caste. For example, Brahmins dont eat garlic for religious reasons, while other castes do. I'm staunchly against the caste system in India; I mention it now only to stress the authenticity of Padmanabhan's book. So if you want unadulterated (i.e. not catering to a Western palate) recipes, here they are.

Also, the photos are AMAZING.