Customer Reviews

Indian Vegetarian Cooking from an American Kitchen

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

 

 

I chose this book among others simply because It has the nutritional information for every recipe . But again , the chutneys and sauces dont have the calorific breakdown.

Moving on to the recipes , being an Indian myself I know how indian food is supposed to taste .. and this book does not reach anywhere near it. Its been COMPLETELY AMERICANIZED .

Also simply adding a pinch of "garam masala" to american soups and italian pasta dont turn the soups into "authentic Indian cuisine "!!!! thats an insult to the readers intelligence.

when I saw the title , I expected a book which would help me cook indian cuisine with the grains and greens available in the US and offer good subsitutions for many vegetables that are not widely available here. and this book completely failed in that respect. Quite a number of the recipes are hashed up new world recipes with a pinch of curry powder thrown in to make them "indian".

If you are looking for a good indian cookbook with AUTHENTIC Indian recipes , this would be a bad investment. If there was a system of negative rating , I would surely give that to this book.

The only book I have liked so far is Julie Sahni's " Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking " and I am still looking for something better.

As a person who enoys Indian cooking but wanted to learn more about the dishes this has been a terrific book. The problems I've had with the book appear to me to be oversights or perhaps a lock of proper proof reading.

For example in one receipe (sweet pea and potato curry) the potatoes need to be cooked prior to adding to the other ingredients, the author does not mention this. The other thing that bothered me was the use of unit measures, for example "two tomatoes" or "five potatoes". Due to the veriation in sizes of vegatables I'd have preferred "two cups of chopped tomatoes".

I'd like to see a second edition of this book with those small corrections.

As someone who is not a good cook even with American food, I found this book very easy to follow with ingredients that were easy to find. All of the ingredients I either found at the local grocery or at the Indian Spice store. I made Spinach Paneer, Fritters, and Cilantro Chutney and even my discriminating Indian husband thought it was very tasty. One thing I would like to see in the next edition is having each recipe on one page, or on facing pages. It was very difficult to cook and flip pages back and forth between ingredients and instructions--especially since I was using a cookbook holder. Good vegetarian books are difficult to find that will appeal to beginning cooks like me. I am thankful to Ms. Prasad for providing a good resource.

I gave this book four stars because I expected more traditional recipes. I think the majority of recipes is Ms. Prasad's creation. If you are in search of traditional Indian vegetarian cookery, find "Lord Krishna's Cuisine" by Yamuna Devi or "Dakshin" by Chandra Padmanabhan. The latter does wonders with vegetables, believe me.
That said, everything I cooked so far (spicy potato soup, mulligatawny, navrathna korma, potato and black-eyed pea curry, spinach and lentils, parathas, cilantro chapatis, etc.) has been pretty simple and tasty. I recommend it to anyone who likes vegetables and spice. I liked the variations to stuff parathas, utappams, etc.

Almost everything I make from this cookbook comes out delicious. The saag paneer (with homemade paneer) is better than any I've ordered in a restaurant. the flavors are really clean. I don't agree with the reviewer who said that everything tastes the same... I found many good complementary recipes in flavor and appearance. Maybe if I grew up with homecooked Indian food I would be a harsher judge, but my American taste buds--which were trained in san francisco--LOVE the food from this book.

The format is not easy to read and it is not well-organized. Many of the recipes are very similar. This is not an inspiring book.

I got this book as a gift and it has become one my favourite cook books. Puris, dosas, aloo bondas...all things that never turned out right for me. But ever since I started using this book, everything turns out perfect in one try! The measurements are so accurate and that's rare in an Indian Cook Book. There's also a very good mix of South and North Indian foods and all recipes come with calorie counters and a breakdown (protein/carb/fat per serving). The best part is that the author has American substitues for all the hard-to-find/hard-to-make Indian ingredients (like homemade yoghurt and paneer). I would recommend this book to any beginners trying to learn Indian cooking in an American kitchen!