Flavors of India: Vegetarian Indian Cuisine | Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff

Flavors of India: Vegetarian Indian Cuisine | Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff | This book will change the smell of your house.

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Flavors of India: ...

	Flavors of India: Vegetarian Indian Cuisine Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff Book Publishing Company (TN), 1996 - 191 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Along with recipes for beverages, snacks, chutneys, dairy products, vegetable dishes, rice, dal (lentils, peas, and other legumes), breads, and sweets, you will find helpful information on the spices and other ingredients that are essential to authentic Indian cooking. Includes nutritional information on the healthful benefits of Indian vegetarian cuisine.

Simple and delicious

Indian cuisine is really the only cuisine I know anything about. Growing up in London and being vegetarian have something to do with it. This is my favorite Indian cook book. It is also the one I give to friends interested in starting to cook Indian food.

What makes this book outstanding is the simplicity of most of the receipes, and the way the author elucidates the reasons for putting this spice in before that one, or using this ingredient rather than that one. The layout is excellent, and the drawings add a touch of elegance. A superb book!

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This book will change the smell of your house.

It turns out that even an average American mom like me can make great Indian food. In the two months since my sister gave it to me as a birthday gift, I have made many recipes from this book. While I cook, the house smells like an Indian restaurant. My three young kids have willingly eaten most of the meals--they're that good.

This is not some sort of foo-foo picture book written by a well-known chef. It's a rubber-meets-the-road sort of book by a real mom. The book is a sensible size for setting on the counter while cooking, and the binding stays open fairly well. The author includes a shopping list ("The Healthful Indian Pantry"), which is very helpful. Each chapter has an interesting introduction that provides a cultural background for the food. Most of the recipes are actually vegan, and when they are not, the author includes adaptations to make the recipe vegan. For anyone who lives nowhere near an Indian market, at the end of the book there is a list of addresses for mail order. And, of course, there is an index and glossary--also helpful!

Too bad the publishing company has such a generic name that it's difficult to run a search for all their other books. If they're all as good as this one, I want to buy more.

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Easy and Tasty Recipes, very Comprehensive

This cookbook is very easy to follow. After a chapter on vegetarian nutrition, we take a tour of the Indian pantry. The chief ingredients, spices, and cooking tools are described, with their background, history, description and uses. By reading up on spices and ingredients, along with their Indian names, one is able to go to an Indian grocery store and make the right choices. In addition, the author shows you how to roast and grind spices, and includes recipes for garam masala, chai masala, tamarind pastes, sauces, how to make your own ghee, paneer, yogurt.

She then covers a variety of chutneys, pickles, snacks and appetizers. There is so much variety in this book, covering salads, vegetable dishes, beans, dals, rice, breads, sweets and even beverages. And it's not just how to cook them, but also she gives you cultural background, traditions, and how and where the item is served, and what significance it has in reference to the holidays. Even if you never cooked a single dish, you can learn a lot about Indian cuisine, culture, holidays and festivals from reading this book.

The chapter on dals has more than enough variety for you to experiment, as it covers all sorts, chana, mung, urad, toor, masoor, and even pancha dal (combining all 5 dals). I have enjoyed several of these, and the only comment I have is that she does not tell you how much cayenne pepper to put in, so you can suit your tastes. The other thing I noticed is that if you use all of the water the recipe specifies, your dal will be too watery. For example, 5 cups of water for 1 cup of masoor dal is too much, turning it into a soup. She does a great job explaning the vaghar, which is a hot oil mixture that is added to the dal in the last minute to flavor it with spices.

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You will never be disappointed...

I have just purchased my second and much newer copy of this extraordinary book. My first copy fell apart from use and age. Thirty years ago, when I bought the first edition, I was a neophyte in Indian cookery, vegetarian or otherwise. Thanks to Shanta Sacharoff, I have actually presented dinners to sophisticated Indian guests who literally raved about an American woman creating a 6-course mini-feast that reminded them of home (my greatest compliment). The book is comprehensive, richly but clearly written, bursting with beautiful and attainable recipes, history, lore, encouragement, and wise counsel. (Occasionally I would even take it to bed at night and read it like a novel). I have NEVER even come close to a disappointing result. Vegetarian or not, this is the one Indian cookbook that should be on everyone's shelf and used until it has worn itself out...then go buy another.

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Wonderful

Every recipe I've made from this book has turned out beautifully. The flavours are complex and the ingredients are easily sourced from Asian grocery stores.

This is one of the few Indian cookbooks that instructs you on making dosa and for this alone it is worth having.

If you love Indian food I would highly recommend this book, even if you are not a vegetarian.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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