Rating:  Summary: Excellent, complete, a wonderful guide! Review: This book is a voyage into the wonders of the Indian culinary world. If ready carefully, the secrets of the unique flavors of India will be yours to command.Ingrediants are the key here, but so is following the simple directions. You won't find any glossy pictures to inspire you, but just TASTE THE RESULTS!!! If you know how to prepare food well, you will be completely successful with this book, and thouroughly enjoy these dishes. Bon Apetite
Rating:  Summary: for the experienced cook or the fearless novice Review: this is not the usual indian cookbook. there is no history; there are no reminiscences; aside from the chapters for sambars and rasams, and a few 'gujerati-style' this, 'moghul-style' that and 'malabar' the other in recipe titles, there is no identificaiton of regional origins; there are few serving suggestions. the introduction and chapter headings perfectly demonstrate the meaning of 'terse.' but there are recipes! wonderful recipes. the only reason i didn't give this book five stars is for the sake of the fearless novice. in many of the recipes, there are directions that call for blending ingredients into a paste, but no suggestion as to how (blender or food processor, of course, but maybe the fearless novice hasn't gotten to the point of buying these, and probably wouldn't have a mortar and pestle, either). the blending-to-a-paste isn't mentioned until after the cook is told to start roasting the whole spices. now, an experienced cook knows to read a recipe through, collect the ingredients, and have everything recipe-ready before cooking starts, but a novice could easily burn the first bit of the recipe. also, the f.n. might not be aware that the imperial pint is larger than the american pint and assume that the american measurements are misprints. but these are fairly minor points which the majority of cooks wouldn't be bothered by. in any cookbook, the recipes are the important bits, and these are very good. and there are certainly enough of them to keep a cook (and diners) happy for years.
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