Customer Reviews

New Indian Home Cooking

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this book under its old title "Lite and Luscious Indian Cuisine" at the library. I am hoping that only the title has changed, because it's a great book! Ms. Gadia writes in a very conversational way... I feel as though she comes through as a "real person" rather than just an "author"...the recipes are really down to earth as is her writing style. Not many esoteric ingredients are called for (I have a problem sometimes with pantry overload from Indian/Asian cooking...I probably have more kinds of spices in my cupboard than the average Indian person!). It bothers me at times in certain cookbooks when a recipe calls for half a teaspoon of a particular hard to find spice, then doesn't call for that ingredient again in the rest of the book. One ends up with a real overload of spices if you are not cooking Indian every day (especially if you are not cooking for a large family to begin with). In this book some ingredients might be specialized, (asafetida, cardamom pods, etc.) but most of the recipes seem to utilize what is available on hand in your average town (Ms. Gadia lives and works in Ames, Iowa...not New York or Chicago). Those who are on specialized diets will appreciate her tables for food exchanges and nutritional info, too. All around, this seems truly to be "home cooking" and a labor of love!

I am an American who cooks for my Indian husband, and I've tried several cookbooks. This is the best--easy, and uses the same basic 10 spices so you don't have to go out and buy all sorts of spices you've never heard of.

I wore out my first copy, and I seriously had to buy another!

I probably wouldn't have bought this book if it had still been under its hardcover title "Lite and Luscious Indian Cuisine" (or something like that). I am suspicious of overtly health-conscious food (and cutesy misspelling), although Indian food tends to work pretty well even when low fat. It is pretty easy to adjust these recipes, though, by using full-fat yogurt, ghee, etc.

The strength of this book is that it provides many non-main course recipes, such as snacks, breads, drinks, etc. This is home cooking, not restaurant cooking.

There are a few drawbacks. The book barely has 100 recipes, so if you buy a big bag of toor dal, there are only a few things you can do with it. I would have preferred more recipes and less advice on healthy eating (but others may disagree). While the recipes are generally easy to make, this isn't a book that does much hand-holding. Other cookbooks provide step-by-step instructions; this does not. A few times I've wondered whether my dish was supposed to come out a certain way, but there are no pictures.

Some of the recipes worked for me, but some seem under-spiced.

Wonderful.
Makes Indian cooking easy to learn.
Includes nutritional analyses, including calories, grams
of fat protein and carbohydrates for each recipe, along with
meal planning instructions for a healthy diet.
All of the recipies are delicious and healthy at the same time.
There are many simple recipies that can be prepared in a short time. I was lucky to find this cookbook at random in a bookstore, and it has totally changed my diet. I would choose my own food made from this cookbook over eating out any day.

I love Indian food but as I have to "watch what I eat these days" I thought Indian food was gone forever. This book is great at giving that nice Indian taste without the fat. I will say it skips the final tempering process so common in traditional cooking, but let's face it, frying several tablespoons of oil with spices and dumping it all on top of a healthy dhal just isn't good for you, neither is it necessary. I use this book a lot even when I am cooking for friends and everyone seems to enjoy it.

What a delight to find an Indian cookbook filled with wonderful recipes that don't take three+ hours to prepare
and aren't laden with fat! I can whip up these recipes with one hand, bathe my kid with the other, and still be
ready to sit down and eat in less than an hour. Yum. Read Madhur Jaffrey's _Indian Cooking_ for the theory,
then pick up this book and start cooking.

The recipes in this book are reliably good, true to typical Indian Cuisine, easy to make, and very healthy! This has become one of my favorite cookbooks and I highly recommend it.

I cook from this book all the time. Lots of the recipes are very tasty and have tiny amounts of fat, like 1 teaspoon of olive oil in the whole dish.
This book also gives calorie counts for every recipe so it's really easy to integrate into a diet.
My wife and I love it.

Truth be told, i only use about half of this cookbook, but i love it.I am vegan and have not used any of the meat, chicken or seafood recipes. I have used one to one substitutions of soymilk and soy yogurt for dairy , but have not tried her paneer recipes, and i still have tons of options. I think this cookbook is great! every (veg) dish i have made from this book has won raves. People who won't eat green beans eat the ones from this book, if they hate eggplant, they decide to try, and then eat hers.Everything comes together easily, and she gives lots of great background about real indian cooking in the beginning of the book. I have taken to making dals, chutneys and breads from this book. I keep them in the freezer and heat them up with one of her very quick and delicious veggie dishes for an absolutely awesome dinner. I have had to discover the local india grocery in my area for some of the spices but, the indian grocery is cheap so i would encourage you to look around for one if you get this book.

From the Tandoori Chicken and specialty breads Indian cuisine is known for to healthy revamps of Indian cooking, this provides a fine selection of dishes modified for busy, health-conscious lifestyles. Over a hundred traditional recipes are included, along with nutritional analysis and preparation steps which require only access to spices now commonly found in any supermarket.