Customer Reviews

Healthy Indian Cooking (Healthy Cooking)

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

 

 

This is not a cookbook on traditional Indo/Pak cooking. It is a blend of the tradtional tastes and the modern or western way of cooking. From a western perspective I always thought Indo/Pak food was "over cooked" leaching out the vitamins and minerals from vegetables and such. (This is the source of some argument between my mother-in-law and myself -- she feels I under cook food).

Shehzad Husain attempts to mix the best of both worlds and I think she does this very well. She gives a good idea of what a typical Indo/Pak meal consists of... but generally I just make one or two dishes and serve with saffron rice (mix) to bend to our busy schedules.

Two of my favorite recipes are the "Ginger and Lemon Chicken" and the "Hot and Spicy Chicken Stir-Fry with Sesame".

The amount of spices in recipes are also for western taste buds -- There are also more vegetable recipes than I've found in Indo/Paki non-vegetarian cookbooks. There aren't any pork recipes in this book, which suits us well.

Healthy Indian Cooking is a truly excellent book. A fresh approach to Indian cuisine, by using traditional ingredients in a modern, sophisticated way. The "Healthy" part is achieved by substituting clarified butter (Ghee) with vegetable oils, replacing heavy cheeses with Fromage Blanc (a sort of ricotta and cottage cheese combo), and specifying low fat choices wherever commercially available.

A particular favorite recipe is Shrimp Dopiazza. Shehzad Husain takes an interesting approach to the idea of using "two onions" (as in dopiazza). Rather than Caramelize one batch of onions and cooking the second batch until opaque, she adds onion seed to golden fried onions. Other clever twists abound in the book.

The Baked Stuffed Tomatoes is another interesting dish. Again using traditional ingredients such as peas, cauliflower and panir (a light, firm Indian cheese), along with cumin, coriander, turmeric and chili powder to create an interesting and not-too-spicy mingle of flavours.

Almost all of the dishes are pictured with beautiful photographs by James Murphy. It's really useful to see how you can present these meals, raising the humble ingredients to a new level.

This book is a must have.

If you're into non-traditional Indian cooking, as in you like trying new and creative things that are Indian-style but are not the typical Indian dishes, you will like this. There are more non-traditional recipies than traditional ones. So probably not the best book for someone who just wants to know how to cook the main Indian dishes. The healthy part is great. Every recipie has a nutrition guide with how many calories, fat grams etc. there are per serving. There are not pictures to accompany every dish, just a few of them. The reason for 3 stars is I wish they indicated somewhere that the dishes are not the typical Indian ones...

I have cooked 3 recipes out of this book so far: Cod, Chicken with Mango Sauce, and the Chapati bread. My wife and myself loved all three. I plan to cook a lot more out of this book. It is easy to follow the recipes and the author does a great job introducing everything about the ingredients. The pictures in the book were also very nice. However, if I had one complaint, it would be that not every recipe has a picture to go with it. It would be nice if every recipe had a picture with it. Because I would like to know how the dish is suppose to look when completed. You will not go wrong if you are wanting to cook delicious meals. I am not an expert on Indian cuisine, so I can't attest to how traditional, or how true it is to traditional Indian cuisine. I do know that the book is easy to read, has great pictures, and so far I have produced tastey meals.

Some great recipes like Pilau Rice (with sesame seeds) and Cod in Tomato sauce. Quite frankly I don't think about the 'healthy' style of cooking because the end result is a very nice meal. Pictures are great, menus are easy to follow and almost all ingredients are available. I use it all the time.