I really like this cookbook. It’s organized well. Most of the recipes can be made by someone not horrendously familiar with Indian cooking. It doesn’t include pictures; this is not food porn. Just lots and lots of recipes.
Well, there’s a bit more than recipes. There’s explanation of the Indian terms. An explanation of Indian spices. An explanation of basic Indian cooking techniques. And Mrs. Batra has a short introduction to each recipe.
But really, it’s all about the recipes.
By the way, expect more cookbooks to show up, as well as more frequent edits to existing entries to add notes on individual recipes. I vowed that I would not cook from a box when I moved into my new place earlier this month, and so far I’ve stuck to this. Go me!
- Creamy Tomato Soup - Tamatar ka Soop (p. 171)
- This was tasty, but nothing particularly amazing. The author noted,
if you prefer a chunky soup, do not strain.
I didn’t. I think I should have strained or used a blender on the soup. Or used more yogurt than called for. It wasn’t very creamy. - Banana Dumplings - Modak (p. 617)
- My friend Deirdre threw herself a birthday party this year, and the theme was finger food. Everyone was to bring finger food. And no one was to feed themselves; you had to feed other guests. She was afraid she would get 22 containers of chocolate covered strawberries. Recognizing the danger myself, I picked out this recipe because it looked fairly simple. It was. And it was tasty. Make a paste of bananas, flour, and sugar, then deep dry globs in peanut oil. Easy peasy and quite the hit. Though the favorite there was a sweet dill custard. I never woulda thought of putting dill with sweet, but it worked. But this was good too, if I do say so myself.
- Spicy Chicken Pilaf - Murgh Pullao (p. 555)
- Basically a lot of spices, onion, tomato, chicken and rice. Very very tasty. Yogurt is an ingredient, and I would also make sure to have some extra to mix in or on the resulting dish, cause this is fairly hot. I figured this one would be great for leftovers. When cooking for one, it better be something that you can eat a few times.
Title: 1,000 Indian recipes
Author: Neelam Batra
Imprint / publisher: Wiley
Format: Hardcover
Length: 690 p.
Publication date: 2002
ISBN-10: 0-7645-1972-7
Subject: Cookery, Indic
LC classification: TX724.5I4 B3597 2002
