The Indian Slow Cooker: 50 Healthy, Easy, Authentic Recipes [Paperback]

Anupy Singla (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2010

This unique guide to preparing Indian food using classic slow-cooker techniques features more than 50 recipes, beautifully illustrated with full-color photography throughout. These great recipes take advantage of the slow cooker's ability to keep food moist through its long cooking cycle, letting readers create dishes with far less oil and saturated fat than in traditional recipes.

Anupy Singla shows the busy, harried family that cooking healthy is simple and that cooking Indian is just a matter of understanding a few key spices. Her "Indian Spices 101" chapter introduces readers to the mainstay spices of an Indian kitchen, as well as how to store, prepare, and combine them in different ways.

Among her 50 recipes are all the classics — specialties like dal, palak paneer, and gobi aloo — and also dishes like butter chicken, keema, and much more. The result is a terrific introduction to making healthful, flavorful Indian food using the simplicity and convenience of the slow cooker.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Of all the world's cuisines, India's is perhaps best suited to the steady simmer of a slow cooker...If you love Indian food, have a look at Anupy Singla's The Indian Slow Cooker. Folded in with lush food photography are easy, healthful recipes with traditional flavors." —Lois White, Better Homes & Gardens

"My favorite new slow cooker book is The Indian Slow Cooker by Anupy Singla....Because Indian dishes are rich in spices and robust flavors, they stand up well in slow cookers. Singla actually developed the recipes specifically for the slow cooker so the techniques and ingredients work well in the machine." —Genevieve Ko, Good Housekeeping, October 14, 2011

“Singla's book goes against what many believe is required of Indian cuisine--infusing hot oil with a whole mess of spices as the base for dishes. Instead, she argues, throw everything into the Crock-Pot and let the aromatics do their thing... the book gives old- and new-school cooks alike ample reason to give Indian food a shot.” —Janet Rausa-Fuller, Chicago Sun-Times, October 20, 2011

"Ms. Singla says her book is aimed at anyone who wants to eat more vegetarian food and she doesn’t believe in calling Indian food ‘spicy’ or ‘exotic’ anymore." —Wall Street Journal, India Real Time Blog, August 24, 2010

"[The Indian Slow Cooker] is slim in appearance, a mere 136 pages. Yet the author has packed its pages with 50-plus recipes, lots of guidance and enough enthusiasm for slow cookers and Indian food that fans of either or both will be prompted to try one of her recipes...” —Judy Hevrdejs, Chicago Tribune, April 6, 2011

"Next time you have a hankering for Indian food, don't think take-out. Think ahead. That's the message from Anupy Singla, author of The Indian Slow Cooker who is on a mission to correct misperceptions about Indian food..." —Michele Kayal, Associated Press, October 26, 2010

"In her friendly voice, Anupy Singla welcomes everyone into her kitchen, even busy and beginner cooks. With her comprehensive guide to ingredients and surprisingly simple and healthy recipes that perfume the house on a cold day, The Indian Slow Cooker is a great first book on Indian cooking. We love recommending it to our customers!" — Lara Hamilton, Owner of Book Larder, Seattle, WA

"Anupy has a fantastic blog, Indian As Apple Pie, a beautiful cookbook, "The Indian Slow Cooker", and an innovative spice box product now being offered by Williams-Sonoma." —Nancy Loo, WGNtv.com, September 5, 2011

"Anupy is really on to something here. In 50 well-crafted and imaginative recipes, Anupy shows you how to use the modern slow cooker to get the beautiful, complex flavors of her ancient native cuisine. A book that will surprise you.” —Dorie Greenspan, author of Baking with Julia and Around My French Table, as well as contributing editor to Parade magazine, December 23, 2010

"For those who love Indian food--or who are interested in starting to explore it--Anupy shows how to prepare the classic dishes in healthful versions that use far less oil and saturated fat than traditional recipes...Anupy introduces the mainstay spices of an Indian kitchen, and how to store, prepare, and combine them in different preparations.” —WLS-ABC Channel 7, March 26, 2011

"The talented and beautiful Anupy Singla, author of The Indian Slow Cooker, understands that many home cooks are intimidated by Indian spices and cooking. So she created spice packets, small bundles of 5 essential Indian spices, that will get anyone cooking Indian. Demystify something for people, and they will love you.” —Susan Russo, writer for FoodBlogga blog and contributor to NPR’s Kitchen Window

"Singla's recipes, and writing in general, exudes common sense and practicality...Straightforward, healthy recipes for easy preparations of all your favourite Indian dishes combined with mouthwatering photographs make this a cookbook any lover of Indian food will appreciate." —Rebecca Baugniet, EAT Magazine

About the Author

Anupy Singla's food writing has appeared in numerous venues, including the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She lives with her husband and two young daughters in Chicago.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Agate Surrey (September 7, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572841117
• ISBN-13: 978-1572841116
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 0.4 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (227 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,292 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > Asian > Indian
  • #30 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Appliances
  • #42 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Quick & Easy

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

556 of 588 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good intro to Indian cuisine, recipes are so-so January 20, 2011

By Sarah Schwartz

Format:Paperback

I'm an avid slow cooker, and I have cooked my own Indian food for a long time, even making paneer from milk. I've made many restaurant basics on the stove, both from my own recipes and from recipes in books. I've even improvised Indian food in my slow cooker, especially moong dal with spinach (adapted from Suvir Saran's Indian Home Cooking), Goan fish (which I loved at a restaurant and reverse engineered; coconut milk + homemade curry paste + frozen salmon fillets, and after the fish was cooked I reduced the sauce on the stove), and a coconut dal recipe (adapted from Mark Bittman's Best Recipes in the World) that entranced even my most carnivorous friends.

I've used this book to cook about 8 recipes and here's what I've found. Implicitly I am comparing it with my favorite slow cooker books, the "Not your mother's slow cooker" and "Not your mother's slow cooker for two", which I like because they have a balanced set of recipes and have clearly tried making them different ways: they specify when things need to be browned before adding to slow cooker, and say whether high or low is better for a given recipe.

The 8 recipes I made are mustard greens and spinach, chana dal, green lentil and rice, dry dal, cauliflower, pigeon peas with garlic and lemon, and my boyfriend made the chicken vindaloo and chicken masala, and then made lamb vindaloo based on the chicken recipe.

Strengths:
1. Prioritizes spices: she says if you're going to buy 7 spices, which are the 8 you should buy. That wasn't a typo: she lists 7 of the crucial spices, and then adds an 8th, and then pictures of her crucial 7 spices include spice #8 while omitting another.

2. Some of the food is really good.... I like the flavors of 5 of the 8 recipes we've made (disappointing ones discussed below). Other food others have liked, even thought I haven't, like the cauliflower.

3. I like how conversational the book is, and that she mentions how the recipes fit into her life.

4. I love that she has vegetable recipes --- most slow cooker cookbooks don't cook veggies outside of root vegetables.

5. I also like that my boyfriend got really excited to see the book --- he wanted to borrow it the day it came and was really excited to make the vindaloo.

6. As with any Indian cookbook, most recipes are suitable for people with the most common food restrictions: few or no recipes use peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, shellfish, wheat, soy, corn, and most are vegetarian. Many are dairy-free and vegan. They use little sugar and starch, so are fairly low glycemic index.

Weaknesses:
1. Avoids some obvious short-cuts: Someone who is using their slow cooker will want other short cuts that don't compromise flavor, such as pre-ground spices, frozen spinach, and canned tomatoes. Is someone who is using a slow cooker also going to grind their own coriander or dip a single tomato in boiling water to peel off the skin before cutting it? I only grind my own spices when I'm making a huge batch of curry paste that will last me a year.

2. Logistics are off. She tells you to buy 8 spices, but so far I haven't found a single recipe that uses 2 of the spices with no other special ingredients. 1 lb of mustard greens filled my entire 6 qt crockpot leaving little room for the 1 lb of spinach and spices, onion, garlic, ginger that I was supposed to add afterwards. Thankfully I was using frozen spinach, but 1 lb of fresh spinach would not have fit.

3. She buys into the fat-free fallacy that it's better to make enormous quantities of fat-free food than moderate quantities of normal-fat food, so most of the dal/bean recipes are fat-free. On a flavor basis, that's a huge negative: flavor is less full, texture is more gummy, and the hot spices are harsher than if made traditionally in oil. (The only times I've ever seen people get chemical burns in their mouth from hot peppers were when they were in fat-free dishes, so I think there's a real change in the quality of peppers when cooked in oil versus not.) On a health basis, it's also a huge negative. Fat-free food has a higher glycemic index than traditional food, so many people overeat when they eat fat-free food, and certainly they do not save calories.

4. The recipes make enormous quantities. The keema recipe calls for 4 pounds of ground meat (vs. ones I found online use 1 lb at a time). Dal recipes use 3-4 cups of lentils. Why contribute to American epidemic of huge portions? She gives directions for halving the recipes, but it's distracting to do that for each of the dozen ingredients in a recipe.

5. It's mostly legumes, with only 7 meat recipes, ~12 vegetable recipes, and no fish. Of the 7 meat recipes, she says a few aren't traditional, and three include dairy in a central role (e.g., butter chicken) so a given person might not even be able to use all 7 recipes without tinkering if they have food restrictions. (A little known fact: people with food allergies often rely extensively on Asian cookbooks because they avoid most common allergens. Normal people buy Asian cookbooks because they want to try cooking something new. People with food allergies buy Asian cookbooks because they can't eat half the recipes in western cookbooks.)

6. She gives a single time for how long a dish takes to cook, but she doesn't explain how your choice of crockpot size affects that time. She gives 2 choices of crockpots (4 and 5 qt) for making the cauliflower, but gives only one cooking time (3 hours). I used a 4 qt crockpot and it was still crunchy after 3 hours; presumably the 3 hours was for a 5 qt crockpot. As I learned from "Not your mother's slow cooker", cooking time varies with how full a crockpot is, with fuller crockpots taking longer to cook. Similar experience with the dry dal.

7. The first two recipes that I made were disappointing. Besides taking different amounts of time to cook than expected, the Aloo gobi (cauliflower with potatoes) was gritty with spices. You actually feel the vast quantity of spices as you eat it because there are tablespoons and tablespoons full of different spices. It's not a smooth feeling that you have from aloo gobi that you make on the stove. My guess is that the spices don't get a chance to dissolve into the oil. I served the aloo gobi to guests, and some of them loved it, and others weren't so excited, so it's personal taste. My boyfriend made lamb vindaloo, and there was the same thick grittiness from undissolved spices. My suggestion for the future will be to make spice pastes ahead of putting them in the slow cooker. The dry dal I made with urad dal, and it tasted raw after even twice as long as it was supposed to cook, and I didn't like the taste. And so I added water and cooked it overnight, and it still did not taste good. So I ended up with cups and cups of this dal that is barely palatable --- I ate a couple of servings, but threw 3/4 of it out, which I virtually never do. Maybe I just don't like urad dal, though, or maybe mine was old.

Btw, one reviewer mentioned how expensive it was to buy the ingredients. If you can find an Indian grocery, they shouldn't be. I went to my local Indian grocery (Patel Brothers, which is a national chain), and bought the full set of suggested spices for my boyfriend, some extra spices for myself, 4 lbs black chickpeas, and some other groceries, and my total was 25 dollars. And this is 7 and 14 oz bags of spices, not the small bottles from supermarkets.

I'm glad that I have this book, but since I already have to tinker with the recipes such as by adding fat and halving the recipes, I think that I would have been better off with a good Indian cookbook and using the slow cooker whenever there's a long simmer time, as I've done in the past. Read more ›

138 of 143 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Finally!!! Brilliant SLow Cooker Recipes for Vegetarians & Non-Vegetarians Alike. September 3, 2010

By indiestar VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have been waiting forever for someone to write a wonderful collection of Indian recipes for the slow cooker and my prayers have been answered! Anupy Singla has put together some lovely easy Indian recipes - where all you do is throw a bunch of easy-to-find ingredients in the slow cooker, set it and forget it for several hours! The recipes mainly focus on vegetarian ingredients but there are some lovely meat curries (with notes on how to make many of them vegetarian with soy crumbles or seitan).

The fact that she has figured out how to make kheema (a ground beef and peas comfort-food dish) in the slow cooker (genius!) is worth the price of this book! I can't wait to make every recipe and will probably be making a batch of the "Wet Curry" every week to freeze and use for quick weeknight meals.

Overall, I am thrilled with this book - it will let our family eat delicious and healthy Indian meals more often than we were able to before. Yippee!

62 of 64 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book!!! October 27, 2010

By Rachael C,

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Ever since my husband introduced me to Indian food, I have been hooked ever since, and we have it at least once every week. I also loved the slow cooker. So imagine my delight when I found a blog (as well as a friend on Facebook) that combined the two! I had tried two recipes from the blog (one of them: Murgh Makhani {Butter Chicken} is in the book) and loved it! I loved it even more when the book came out. Since then, I had tried the Spiced Cauliflower with Potatoes, and Black Split Lentils, and am pretty much sold...so is my husband! The photographs are fantastic, but what's even better is the introduction at the front where the author Anupy, explains in detail about the ingredients and a bit of background on the recipes, how it was passed down from mother to daughter. That is the kind of cooking I always look for: the history of the food that I am eating, and it's significance within the families that prepare them. The explanation of the ingredients came in handy as well as I was stumped when I was at this little Indian grocery store near my house. I highly recommend this book for not only the recipes, but also, the history. Thank you Anupy!

85 of 90 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Good Intentions. May Leave Wrong Impression about Indian Food for Those New to It! February 26, 2011

By Bhojan Guru

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have spent half my life in India. I eat Indian food at home at least a few times a week and enjoy cooking it with my wife. I will give Ms Singla credit for trying to make Indian cooking easier. However, I do not really know how much she has succeeded in it. One thing is for sure. The taste, texture and the appearance of the resulting food are less than impressive.

I tried four recipes from the book. Chicken Curry, Yellow Lentils, Cauliflowers and Potatoes, and Punjabi Eggplant. For good measure, I used three different brands of the more popular slow cookers -Rival, Hamilton Beach and Crofton.

Let me share the results of my effort.

Chicken Curry:
The gravy was watery and did not have the right consistency. The spices were unbalanced. The "heat" was enough to make my face sweat. I had to add lemon juice to make it somewhat appetizing.

Cauliflowers and Potatoes:
After three hours of slow cooking, both the potatoes and cauliflower were undercooked. I tried to supplement the cooking on the stove. They still did not come out right. We tried to eat the dish with "roti" (Indian style flat bread) but found the spices unbalanced and very hot even for an Indian palate. We eventually used it as stuffing for "paranthas" (shallow fried flat bread).

Punjabi Eggplant:
This was the worst of the four dishes we tried. After 3 hours of slow cooking, again the vegetables were under cooked and the eggplant had become leathery. As before, I tried to complete the cooking with conventional stove top cooking. Still the result was very unappetizing. This we ended up throwing out.

Yellow Lentils:
This turned out to be the best of the four.... We were able to improve the taste by adding cumin seed "tadaka" (tempering created by cooking cumin seeds in a tablespoon of oil). However, this too had too much chili powder for our taste.

Another major shortcoming of the book is the fact some of the key ingredients in Indian cooking such as "dhaniya" (ground coriander seeds), and "amchur" (ground dried green mango) are missing from the recipes.

They say this about mixed drinks. Don't shake if you need to stir. Don't stir if you need to shake.
Indian food is a delicate balance of subtle spices and different cooking methods - roasting, frying, shallow frying, sautéing, slow cooking, boiling, steaming, etc. You need to follow these to bring out the true Indian flavor.

Unless you are of South Asian origin, you probably do not cook Indian meals every day. So when you do make it, my suggestion is to make it as authentic as possible by using the right ingredients and the prescribed cooking method. This does not have to be time consuming if you take the right short cuts.

One book that has excellent short cuts is "From Mom with love..." by Pushpa Bhargava. For instance, using the "Pre-cooked Masala" you can cook excellent meat and vegetarian dishes in 20-45 minutes. This Masala can be cooked in advance in larger quantity and frozen.

Another book that I recommend for south Indian cooking is "Dakshin" by Chandra Padmanabhan. The chutneys are delicious! Read more ›