Customer Reviews

Complete Indian Cooking

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I completely disagree with some of the other reviews regarding this cookbook. My husband and I are crazy about Indian food and try every restaurant we can find. Disappointed with a recent restaurant in Monterey California, we found this book and began cooking our own. Not only did we find the recipes simple to follow, we regularly comment on the fact that it looks JUST like the pictures - and tastes even better. I highly recommend it.

This lavish book has been written and designed to tickle your palate. The publishers have included some rather unusual recipes that may not be part of the regular meals of Indians but are surely loved in Europe, US and many other parts of the world. Many recipe books use ingredients that may either be difficult to find or sometimes visually impossible to identify even if readily available. This book contains pictures and brief descriptions of essential Indian spices, condiments, garnishing and even utensils used to cook the dishes. Any novice would appreciate this help. Each recipe is accompanied with a full size color photograph of what you can expect the dish to look like. The ease with which you will be able to cook the seemingly complicated dishes is sure to delight and surprise you. Recipedelights.com recommends this book to novices and even experienced cooks who prefer recipes with photographs.

Rarely do I use a cook book that had great illustrations and have the recipes come out looking like the book. But this is one I have. There are a few items that the book takes for granted, such as timings, but I find the book easy to follow and fun to cook. I haven't done all the recipes, but when we are in the mood to have Indian, we reach for this cookbook first to get our mouths set and start cooking. In fact, because of this book, I went out and got new fresh spices from the Indian Market. What a difference they make.

I think the recipes are not as 'accurate' as in other indian cookbooks, but they get the basic concepts across. I highly recommend this book for any Indian food lover.

First off, we bought this book because it was the only Indian book we could find with a recipe for Gulab Jamun. That brings up an issue of mine with the book, however. The author refers to things by their western name, and only occasionally by their proper name. Gulab Jamun, then, is called "deep fried milk pastries" in the book. It sort of loses its authenticity this way. Additionally, I have yet to visit an indian restaurant which has their menu in english. And not for lack of trying, really. We do indian a lot. This means, though, that if you're looking for your favorite indian dish from a restaurant, you may be stuck reading through the book finding a recipe that seems like it's the one you like.

The other issue I have with it is it appears that there was very little quality assurance involved with this book. The recipes, it seem, have all the ingredients listed to the left. However, as you begin to go through the recipe, you will find that some of the ingredients listed are simply not used in the recipe. This is not because they aren't used, I think, but because the author simply forgot to include them.

I think most cooks however, can overcome that. The pictures, as others have mentioned, are very nice. The paper is also very nice. Perhaps not something you'd really want to have in the kitchen (for fear of damaging it), but nonetheless would make a great addition to a library in general.

The quality of the recipes themselves is also up for subjective interpretation. Most indian food (per tihs book) is not particularly complicated. There's a lot of ginger, coriander, cardamom, turmeric, and lemongrass involved. Generally this is pureed, added to an ingredient, and then it is either made into a soup (such as the halibut soup early on in the book), or into a grilled item (such as the tandoori chicken later in the book). The recipes themselves are very short. Often four paragraphs of 2-3 sentences each. "combine these four ingredients, puree, set aside. combine another four ingredients, prepare, then add previous four ingredients and cook on high heat in a wok." It is certainly very possible to cook with such recipes, but not customary by the cookbooks (of many cuisines) we are accustomed to. I think this may also be part of the omissions mentioned above.

The food tastes fine. It is definitely indian, but has a very strong thai influence, it seems. With all the ginger and lemongrass, that's not hard to understand.

I am generally happy with my purchase, but might go for a more traditional black-ink-on-white-paper book if I were to consider buying another indian cookbook.

While I agree with the previous reviews as to the value of color photos of each dish, unfortunately, the photos in this book rarely, if ever, accurately represent the corresponding recipe. As if spending two or more hours preparing a meal while salivating over a luscious photo, only to have it turn out pale and bland in comparison isn't bad enough, the flavor of the meals usually end up equally as bland. I've cooked many of the meals in this book, each several times, following the instructions to a "T" and using the exact ingredients required, and not a single time have I been rewarded with a meal possessing a fraction of the depth of flavor you find at an Indian restaurant. If you want a cookbook with great photos to look at, this is the book for you. If you want to cook meals with the flavor you've come to expect from frequenting Indian restaurants, keep looking.

EVERYTHING IS HERE!! From descriptions of all the unique spices and how they are used to the different types of rices and legumes and when they are appropriate. Everything is explained in the recipes, numbered, and one step at a time, as well as, every single dish is photographed so you know what you're aiming for. I love to cook, but cannot cook creatively without the assistance of a good recipe and teacher - this book is the best!!! And I have a lot of cookbooks.

I have had this book for a while and love it. The recipes are easy to follow and the food always tastes good, and once you get the hang of it you can improvise them to suit your taste. However I think the meat recipes are better than the vegetable ones.

I have tried many of the recipes in this book and all but one (the green pea soup) turned out quite bad. I cook regularly and enjoy Indian food. While the photos are nice they do not represent the boring mush that I ended up with. I recent bought another indian cookbook and have gotten 100% success there. I recommend you find another option if you want to cook rather than look and pictures.

This is a great book. The food is authentic, I have friends from Nepal and India who have borrowed this book and love it. You need to have access to uncommon spices, however many are available online now, so anyone anywhere should be able to prepare these dishes.

As many have said, the book itself is of very high quality, with some of the best photography I have seen in a cookbook. The positive qualities end there. The actual food is dull in appearence, bearing little or no resemblance to the vibrant photographs. How it looks isn't important, however; the taste is what matters. In this department, "Complete Indian Cooking" (which is really neither "Complete", nor "Indian", nor "Cooking") can be charitably described as a miserable failure. The taste is as bland as the appearance, and the times and temperatures given for cooking often leave the food either under- or over- cooked, rendering the lentils hard and the chicken rubbery.

I would strongly advise against buying this book.