Customer Reviews

My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking

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I received my order of "My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking - Niloufer Ichaporia King."

I STRONGLY recommend this book. My wife is Parsi, and I enjoy cooking Parsi cuisine (along with many other cuisines, but Parsi cuisine is a favorite) and have a number of books on the subject, so I looked at how she treated some recipies I had already done, Patrel and Dhansak Masala. I've visited where my wife grew up in Bombay on M Karve Road near the Eros theater. There I also enjoyed Goan cuisine (my wife's 'nannys' were Goan and are superb cooks of both Goan and Parsi cuisine). Reading this book made you feel like you were back in Bombay learning a cuisine at the hands of someone who had mastered the cuisine and was gracious and competent enough to be teaching it to you with the clarity and style of a master teacher. Clearly this book is written by a Parsi in America, paying attention to the difficulties of obtaining certain ingredients, noting appropriate substitutions, yet showing the knowledge that could only come from someone who had been a part of the culture in Bombay - maintaining a most authentic result. The book isn't simply a collection of exquisitely presented recipies demonstrating exemplarary versions of those recipies, but the recipies are presented within the cultural context of the Parsi traditions, noting the culinary likes and dislikes of Parsis, what are mainstays of the tradition, etc etc. Delightfully written - a pleasure to read (excellent editing) and a clear presentation of information that I've struggled to get elsewhere.

Dhansak Masala is a complex spice mixture composed of dhana jiru and sambhar masala, each complex mixtures in their own right, with endless variations as numerous as there are cooks. I have searched high and low on the internet for these recipies only to find ones far more mediocre than the excellent verrsion she has presented in this book.

Her explanation of making Patrel would have saved me endless hours trying to find out that Colocasia leaves are actually taro root leaves. She lays out the techniques in a clear style reminiscent of Julia Child of exactly how to assemble this dish. I know that reading each recipe cover to cover will be a treasure trove of information.

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that if you have an interest in Parsi or even Indian or Persian cuisine, this is a must have for your collection.

I really couldn't recommend a cookbook more highly. I'm not alone either - she is strongly recommended by Alice Waters, who wrote the forward of this book, famous for her restaurant in Berkeley, Chez Panisse and a major influence to cooks everywhere on the use and incorporation of local fresh ingredients being used in her food preparations. Also Paula Wolfert, who has written an excellent book on Moroccan Cuisine among her many accomplishments, and Dianne Kennedy, whose Mexican cookbook is a classial reference of Mexican cuisine. And other esteemed chefs and editors. I really couldn't be in better company in recommending a book.

Finally, my ultimate critic of my cooking, my wife, has been absolutely delighted by the recipies in this book, partiularly the Parsi scrambled egg recipe.

Alice Waters calls Niloufer Ichaporia King "one of the great cooks I know." It makes Waters crazy that King has steadfastly refused to open a restaurant. But it delights Waters that, on the Parsi New Year, King consents to cook a feast worthy of her mother's Bombay kitchen at her legendary restaurant.

I've never been to that dinner. Nor have I ever enjoyed an Indian meal that King might claim as her own. I'm the standard American who claims to love Indian food --- I look over the menu and wonder one thing: how hot to order the curry. Oh, and maybe whether to get the king-size beer if I've thrown sanity to the winds and ordered a vindaloo.

But smart friends have said "My Bombay Kitchen" is the cookbook event of the year.

And Alice Waters --- she created Chez Panisse and almost singlehandedly launched the good food movement --- certainly knows her way around an entree.

And as even a skim of her book indicates, Niloufer Ichaporia King doesn't cook the mundane fare I'm used to.

One reason fits all: Niloufer Ichaporia King's people are not quite "Indian".

The Parsis were Persians who migrated to southern India from Persia. They had a highly evolved culture, heavily shaped by the teachings of Zoroaster, a prophet who lived in the seventh century before Christ. King calls Zoroastrianism "a religion of conduct rather than piety," for it holds that all people --- that includes both sexes --- are equal, that we are stewards of the earth, and that life is "an ongoing struggle between light and dark forces within each human being."

Because Bombay is a port city and a commercial hub, its tastes were sophisticated when King was growing up there. So was its food --- as King writes, Bombay had "a real magpie cuisine" that drew upon the old ways and, at the same time, featured local modifications of the food of other traditions.

King learned about food from her mother and the family cook, then went off to boarding school, where food was "a constant preoccupation" and luxury was "a can of baked beans after lights out." Though she moved to America, she had a keen memory of her childhood meals and the joys of "a diet not constrained by religion." With the help of her mother's recipes --- and her mother --- she began to use her training as an anthropologist to chronicle Parsi cooking.

Most of her recipes will be of interest primarily to hard-core foodies. Are you likely to make your own Indian breads? Have a hankering to whip up some brain cutlets? Can your butcher get kid for you? And how about banana leaves to wrap fish filets?

So what's left to the amateur chef --- or, more urgently, the home cook who'd like a modest expansion of his/her repertoire?

Just enough recipes to justify the purchase --- and whet the palate for the more adventurous recipes.

So I'm starting with Parsi crudités, a selection of off-the-beaten track vegetables (jicama) and fruits (green mango crescents), accompanied by bowls of salt and cayenne pepper and lime wedges. Then it's on to carrot and coriander soup, served hot or cold. Lamb shanks spiced with a ginger-garlic paste, cumin seeds and red chiles. Irish stew (yes, Irish stew). Cashew cream chicken, with its "thick, creamy" gravy. Caramelized fried rice. And a cauliflower custard.

Which recipe will most tempt you? I vote for the custard. It took me just minutes to prepare. It was, like so many great dishes, even better the second day. And, I can happily report, it was at once as familiar as quiche and exotic as...well, Bombay.

Like many great affairs, it began in the bedroom and moved to the kitchen. I was so entranced by Ms. Ichaporia-King's writing that I had the book at my bedside for weeks of enticing, and entrancing late night reading. I then brought the book into my kitchen for what I anticipate will be a lifetime of delicious meals. I used to cook for profit, but now just for pleasure and it is a book that can be either inspirational (oh, I think I will try that spice combination with my old favorite pork dish) or instructional (so that is how you make chili pickles) and most often both. I hate when Amazon says "people who liked this book, also liked..." But I will say for people who liked Simple French Food by Richard Olney, The Zuni Cookbook by Judy Rogers, or Nose to Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson, they will adore this book. I now have a little Bombay in my kitchen, and everyone is thrilled about my latest affair.

Some people use cookbooks, I read them. I believe a cookbook, especially an ethnic or exotic one, should be as entertaining as a novel, as detailed as a travel guide, and as warm and witty as a good neighbor's kitchen. It's rare to find a cookbook that fits the bill as completely--and cleverly--as this one. No tiresome list of esoteric ingredients and daunting prep, Niloufer's explanations of products, procedures and substitutions are clear and organized enough for newcomers to Middle- and Far-East cooking to march confidently, yet salted with options for more advanced cooks to flex their jazz and improv muscles. The obsessive attention to detail and organization presciently addresses issues like storage and substitution, often with memorable mirth. (In a description of a recipe that can be successfully "thawed": "Note, I didn't say 'frozen.' Anything can be successfully frozen.") Moreover, she provides a brief and eloquent history of the Parsi people, giving the reader a solid foundation to better appreciate this somewhat obscure culinary creole.

Of course, the deal breaker is, "How's the food?" Well, her Major Ordle's Chutney is the best mango chutney I've ever made (and she explains why), her Mother's Wobbly Cauliflower Custard slides into a pie shell to become God's own quiche, and her masur (without tongue, thank you) is itself worth the price of admission.

I was drawn to this book because I'm half Parsi and I've always wanted to recreate the delicious dishes I've enjoyed during the childhood weekly visits to my Parsi relatives. Those days were almost a longed for memory until I found 'My Bombay Kitchen'. From 'Dhansak' to 'papeta per eedu' - its all in this book!

Parsi cuisine is known for its uniqueness in that it blends meat and vegetables into wholesome, delectable dishes that really aren't hard to make. This book is detailed, enjoyable, easy to read & follow and gives you lots of choices and explanations regarding seemingly exotic ingredients and cooking techniques used. Ms Ichaporia has beautifully divided the book into sections based on the kind of dish, with each recipe reading like a story.
(There is a whole chapter on eggs - dare I say the cornerstone of Parsi cooking!)

The beauty of Ms Ichaporia's narrating style is that it is simple and so wonderfully narrative that this book doesn't need those seductive and mouth watering pictures of well garnished & presented dishes that are usually difficult to prepare.

I have used this book to introduce Parsi cuisine to my husband, friends and the other side of my family and it has always delighted their taste buds. I still get rave reviews on the easy to make 'Akuri' that I attempted for a recent brunch party.

Highly recommended if you are a fan of Indian, Parsi or just simple, wholesome and flavourful cuisine that is as easy to cook as it is delightful to savour!

I love this cookbook! I felt, as I read it, that Nilouofer was sitting at my kitchen table giving me directions as I cooked her family cuisine. I learned about Parsi culture and food and the recipes are easy to follow(some Indian recipes seem to use so many ingredients that it can be off putting although the results can be spectacular) and really do seem like the kinds of dishes that a Parsi family would regularly eat. The results are terrific. A wonderful cookbook.

I've been waiting for years for this book. I'm a huge fan of Niloufer's cooking,she cooks at Chez Panisse once a year for the Parsi New Year. The recipes are clear and easy to follow and the flavors, and scents will make you want to linger longer over your food.

Reading Niloufers' stories are as complex and texured as her cuisine.

Here is a book about home cooking. Yes, it is Parsi home cooking, but it is still the kind of food that grandmothers and mothers make for their families. That is, if they are gifted cooks. Get this book. For example, try the lamb and potato stew on page 115. Comfort food of the first order. The instructions are easy to follow, and not difficult for even a novice to prepare. I love this book.

This would have to be one of the best written cook books of all time-filled with interesting information about Parsi life too

Niloufer Ichiaporia King, My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Cooking (University of California Press, 2007)

I was looking for an Indian cookbook. I am often looking for an Indian cookbook; if I only had to survive on one kind of food for the rest of my life, Indian would be my first choice (though Cambodian might give it a run for its money). Besides, if you want to bulk up the book count in a given year, there are few better ways to do that than cookbooks. In that regard, My Bombay Kitchen will not be of any help to you at all; over three hundred closely-packed pages here, none of this one-recipe-per-page stuff, and certainly no huge swaths of color photographs taking up space. This is an honest-to-pete cookbook, not a coffee table decoration. And so in the former regard, I definitely got what I was looking for. Well, almost. Parsi cooking, it seems, is a blend of Indian and Persian, so not bound by some of the usual conventions of Indian cuisine. Is this a bad thing? Of course not.

Many of the recipes here are variations on standard themes, so a good deal of what you're likely to get out of this (assuming you're proficient in the kitchen) is in techniques, new ways of blending ingredients, that sort of thing. In other words, you probably already make a lot of these recipes; King just gives you ideas for tangents that you may not have previously thought of. This is a good thing, and I prefer cookbooks that broaden horizons rather than simply giving you recipes. It does get a little daunting now and again, and the average cook may have a bit of difficulty getting hold of some of the ingredients called for (unless you live in King's part of California, where some of them grow natively), but she usually lists a decent substitution. You want this one, but be prepared to go through it slowly. *** ½