Customer Reviews

A Vegan Taste of India (Vegan Cookbooks)

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

 

 

I have been consistently pleased by the recipes in this book, from Spiced Cauliflower with Cashews to Stuffed Cabbage Leaves with Peanut and Ginger Sauce. Also a favorite is the Banana Raita--sooo good. This cookbook can be a little difficult at first if you don't know what an aubergine (eggplant) or courgette (zucchini) is, but this problem is minimal, especially because of the quality of the recipes.

Another drawback to the cookbook is that there is no index, but since there are only 120 recipes divided into 10 sections, it is not difficult to find what you are looking for.

A tip for using this cookbook would be to either have a conversion chart for measuring (easily attainable online) or to use a small scale. The ingredients are measured in grams and fluid ounces, which might be quite a setback for someone who does not know how to figure this out.

I would not recommend this cookbook to someone just starting out with vegan food. Something like "Vegan Planet" would be more helpful in describing terms and making recipes easy to understand. But for the experienced vegan cook, I highly recommend Linda Majzlik's Indian cookbook. I have never had better vegan Indian food than when I have cooked her recipes, even eating at fine Indian restaurants. For someone who loves to cook and isn't deterred by some funky measurements, this is a must have.

I ordered four vegan cookbooks from this author (Italian, Mexican, Indian, Caribbean). I hate them all. First off, they are small and contain few recipes. Half the recipes they contain are for items I either wouldn't cook from scratch (tortilla's) or are so basic they are found in every other cookbook on my shelf (tomato sauce).
Next, the books are from the UK so you better know how much a dessertspoon is, what "hard vegan cheese" is, as well as know what an aubergine or courgette is. There is no glossary or nutritional information given in any of the books for any of the recipes.
But by far, the most irritating feature of this author and her books is her love of nuts. No matter what cuisine the book is suppose to be about, the recipes are filled with nuts....walnuts, filbernuts, hazelnuts, etc. It would be fair to say that at least 2/3'rds of the recipes in each book contain nuts. In the Italian book 7 of 8 recipes in one chapter contain nuts! I've eaten in many an Italian restaurant and not once have I ever had a dish with walnuts in it. This woman is nuts for nuts.
So, even at the low price, I cannot recommend these books to anyone, especially those with nut allergies.

I received this book for the holidays and have been quite pleased with the recipes in it. I am vegan and I enjoy Indian dishes a lot. I found most of the recipes in the book can be made with easy to find ingredients from a well stocked grocery store and that I already had most of the spices she calls for (note: I have a lot of Indian spices already). If you're new to Indian cooking, a trip to an Indian grocery will get you set to cook. If you aren't familiar with terms/measurements, just look them up online and pencil them in. I know some people dislike metric cooking measurements but they don't bother me. Maybe not the book for you if you don't do a lot of Indian cooking and are new to cooking in general, but for the seasoned cook who loves Indian food, I can't say enough how much I enjoy this book.

Great vegan cookbook!!! Easy recipes, easy to follow, available ingredient especially if you live near an indian grocery. Some recipes are nontraditional but jusy as tasty. Americans don't panick when you see aubergine (eggplant)& courgette (zuchinni) which are readily available. I'm still not a big fan of soy milk. I preferred almond milk which can be used interchangably with the desserts. There isn't an index which is why I only gave it 4 stars. That can be a headache when you need a quick referrence. I repeat alot of recipes are not traditional but they're still tasty. For example: There isn't a recipe for palak paneer (tofu) and the recipe for mattar paneer is ok. The bean and lentil recipes are great!!!

I can't say I've looked at this particular title, but I have looked at several others of the enormous number of books that the author has churned out (and made the mistake of buying the Mexican book), and I imagine that this is more of the same. Each book is simply a collection of recipes - often not very good ones - without a single word of explanation or information anywhere. What I can't understand is the popularity they seem to have in Britain. Every other bookshop's vegetarian cookery section is stacked with copies of the various titles. As they cost, if my memory serves me correctly, £5.99, I can only assume people buy them because they're cheap, but I don't think they would be worth having if they were being given away free.