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136 of 142 found the following review helpful:
 In Desperate Need of a Second Edition Jan 12, 2011
By S. Sandberg
Phaidon should be ashamed of releasing this book in its current state (especially proclaiming "Quality Assurance" on the cover). Although, as other reviewers have pointed out, this book is beautifully designed, it is so poorly edited and indexed that each time I pick it up I encounter a new glaring error. Problems include:
- Recipes are printed twice, one after the other, e.g. Mirchi ka Salan (p. 319 & 320) and Matar Paneer (p. 315 & 316)
- Recipes do not appear in the index, e.g. Keeme ke Samose / Lamb Samosas (p. 209)
- Recipes are not indexed intelligently. Most types of dishes are not listed together in the index, for example you cannot look up "samosa" or "kebab" in the index and see a list of the different recipes for that type of dish, you will find only the recipes that begin with that word, e.g. Kebab Cooked on a Stone is listed under "kebab" but not Roasted Lamb Kebabs. In an 800 page book with 1000 recipes where the index is the only way to find recipes (there is no table of contents for each section) the terrible indexing job is unforgivable.
In addition, the author has made several mistakes that nearly sabotage what is obviously a labor of love and the product of a tremendous amount of research. First of all, the recipes are poorly written and have many oddities and omissions. Pigeon Peas in Rice Konji (p. 542) has no rice mentioned anywhere. As another reviewer pointed out, the recipe for Mirchi ka Salan / Stuffed Green Chillies is comically flawed: the chillies are never stuffed. This is even more egregious given that this recipe is pictured and it would be impossible to follow the recipe as is and produce something vaguely resembling the photo. It feels like many of the recipes were not tested and revised, but simply reprinted in whatever form they were collected.
Another example is the recipe for Chapati (p. 623), the most basic of all Indian breads. All the other recipes in the book list the Origin, Preparation Time, Cooking Time and how many it serves/makes, but for some reason that information is missing here. It never says how many chapatis the recipe makes, simply telling you to "divide the dough into equal pieces." For anyone versed in Indian food, another recipe for chapatis is hardly necessary, but this is unacceptable for a book that says "The Only Book on Indian Food You'll Ever Need" on the cover.
Also, there is absolutely no descriptive text for any of the recipes, they are simply lists of ingredients and terse descriptions of the method of preparation. While this is generally not a major problem, one would need to have traveled and eaten extensively throughout India to have sampled all the dishes presented in this book, and given this breadth and variety, even a short description of the desired consistency, appearance, and taste of the final dish would be very welcome. The photos do help, but only a small percentage of recipes are pictured.
Finally, the author dogmatically refuses to give amounts for salt (there are a couple of exceptions). For many dishes, such as dals, this only mildly annoying -- you can taste as you go and easily adjust them before serving. It becomes very irritating with dishes involving dough, raw meat, and especially pickles, in which the salt plays a key role as preservative and where the flavor changes dramatically as it ages, so what might have tasted too salty to begin with is actually the necessary amount of salt for proper curing of the pickle. It becomes comical in recipes such as Namkin Lassi / Salty Yogurt Shake (p. 719) to say only "salt" and not give some idea of how salty it should be. It is made more absurd by the fact that the author so carefully provides gram, ounce, and volume measurements for other ingredients -- which is very much appreciated -- but doesn't even give a vague suggestion on the amount of salt.
All that said, there is certainly a wealth of marvelous looking recipes here, and I have made several that have turned out delicious. This was only possible, however, because I have been seriously cooking Indian food for many years -- this book is absolutely not for the novice. In its current state I can only half-heartedly recommend it to experienced cooks. I truly hope that the author and publisher will produce a second edition that does justice to the potential that is obviously present in this collection of recipes.
86 of 88 found the following review helpful:
 The best encyclopedic collection on Indian cooking Nov 26, 2010
By Shubha Chakravarthy
As an avid collector of Indian cookbooks in particular, I have rarely come across a collection that is encyclopedic, rigorous in sticking to the classic recipes as well as meticulous about pinpointing their regional origins. This book manages to do it all. I can't speak much about the author, as the traditional "about the author" section seems to be missing in this book, save for a 2-page color photo spread.
That said, the design, the weight, the color coding and the sparse and accurate descriptions are generally a pleasure. For the novice new to Indian cooking, you will find a good overview of the various regions, but once you dive into the actual recipes themselves, there isn't much guidance on the nuances of the techniques, other than the standard description of the method. One other pet peeve is that the author completely sidesteps the tough issue of how much salt to add to the dishes (with just a terse mention of "salt", and not even the "salt to taste" that seems to be the standard cop-out of Indian cookbooks)
The beauty of the book, and the reasons for the 5-star rating are:
1) The only book that thoroughly and meticulously covers the cuisine from every region of India, in one place
2) Has over a 1000 recipes
3) Based on my initial perusal, generally tries to stick to the original / "classic" way of preparing the dish, without trying to be to too cute about dumbing the recipes down for non Indian audiences
4) Is generally accurate about ingredients, cook and prep time, and cooking method, that is rare to find in books authored by Indians living and writing in India (at least in my experience)
5) Has excellent pictures, though not for every recipe
6) Is extremely lightweight and very cleverly designed to imitate a commonplace bag of Basmati rice (this probably weighed more than it should have, pun not intended, in predisposing me favorably towards the book)
All in all, a little pricey, but in my opinion, your only shot at getting an authentic and fairly accurate comprehensive collection of Indian recipes. I'm very happy to add this to my collection.
36 of 36 found the following review helpful:
Must have book for Indian food enthusiasts Dec 15, 2010
By fatimitapalomita
I had heard about this book on chowhound.com and was very excited about it because I love Pushpesh Pant's food oriented work. I own another of his books, food Path: Grand Trunk Road from Kabul to Kolkota, which I love and have cooked from a lot. India: The Cookbook is excellent. The recipes are very authentic, homemade type stuff, and they look very good. I love it and can't wait to try out a few recipes. I am so sick of books which claim to be real-deal Indian cooking but the recipes are very restaurantish and not really what Indian food is like in people's homes, or books which claim to represent Indian cuisine, but it is clear that the recipes are very specific to how dishes are made in the author's region, yet this is never mentioned. The only way to really learn the myriad of Indian cuisines is by understanding regionality, and differences in cuisine within regions based on ethnolinguistic or religious community. India: The Cookbook doesn't really delve into ethnicity/religion in cuisine much, though is occasionally mentioned. But India: The Cookbook contains many, many recipes from all of India's major regions. Among the specific regions included in the book are Jammu-Kashmir, Punjab, Delhi, Awadh, Coastal (Pant lumps together the Western Coast states, occasionally specifying which), Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, Bengal, and a few others.
I am not Asian, but my husband's family is from Pakistan (originally from Northern India), so getting good, authentic recipes is very important to me, as I cook South Asian cuisine at least a few times each week and like to cook a large range of dishes rather than eating the same thing all of the time. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn Pakistani recipes as well, since the Northern cuisine recipes of India: The Cookbook's often overlap with Pakistani recipes due to the obvious historical and cultural connections. As a matter of fact, my husband's parents hail from Delhi area and Awadh (Lucknow), and the recipes in the book are pretty much just like what is made in my inlaw's home. This is really extra special for a book, because often North Indian Muslim cuisine is represented in cookbooks as fakey creamy Mughlai-inspired recipes that look nothing like what is actually made by the living inheritors of Mughal and Nawaabi cooking traditions. Also, many books only give fancy meaty Awadhi type recipes, but the region has gorgeous daily vegetable and lentil dishes, too, and these are included in this cookbook.
I am only superficially familiar with South Indian cooking, but I am very pleased to get to know more Southern recipes from India: The Cookbook, which has a large number of Tamil recipes, as well as recipes from other Southern states. Often, Indian cookbooks throw in a few Southern recipes for good measure, but India: The Cookbook is much more balanced in its representation of Southern cuisines, although it is heavily focused on Tamil dishes. I am also pleased to see many Hyderabadi dishes, since this is a favorite cuisine of mine.
There are a couple of negative points to this book. For one, the paper is very thin, it feels like it doesn't have the highest quality printing or paper. That is a flaw of the publishing house, I suppose. India: The Cookbook has a glossary of ingredients with good descriptions, but to really be considered THE COOKBOOK, one must have pictures of the ingredients! There are no pics of ingredients! That is a major flaw. I know Indian cooking very well and am fluent in Urdu/Hindi, so I know what many ingredients are, but what about a neophyte Indian cook? Some of the ingredients are new to me (like Cambodge petals???) and I will have to use Google to assist me. Also, I prefer when books give the names in Indian languages next to the English name so I can be sure I know what the item is...instead, in India:The Cookbook some items are named in English, others in Hindi, and others in Tamil if they are for South Indian ingredients. That is the biggest flaw of the book, the glossary of ingredients. That can be gotten around if you already know a bit of Indian cooking, or if you are willing to use other resources for ingredients you don't know. If this book is ever updated, to really be a comprehensive tool to for Indian cooking, there must be pictures of ingredients in the ingredients glossary. This is not a book for beginners for this reason.
The recipes are easy to follow and given simply. One could complain that some of the recipes have a very long list of ingredients, but that is truthfully how a lot of Indian food is made, there is no getting around that. The introduction is very simple, and contains a bit of info on each major region. The book's worth is in its diverse recipes. There isn't in deep background given for each region, or thorough explanation about the cuisines.
The book has gorgeous pictures, though only for a selective number of recipes. I wouldn't recommend this book as an introduction to Indian cooking for a newbie. But it is definitely a must have to anyone committed to learning more about Indian cooking, which is something that I am always up for. You will not find another book with such a diverse collection of authentic Indian recipes.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Cornucopia of recipes for advanced cook Jan 10, 2011
By pripen
"pri3"
I recently borrowed this book from local library. I have tried a couple of recipes ( Achari Paneery and a lentils recipe). I am Indian and am not a beginner cook. I know my way around cooking, especially Indian cooking and Indian ingredients. And yet, this book took some detective work on my part. The glossary is incomplete; doesn't have descriptions of any ingredients. The recipes are not complete. For example: In the stuffed chillies recipe, the chillies never get stuffed. Some recipes are duplicated, literally just printed twice. Example: Matar Paneer. This recipe is just printed twice back to back.
Having said that, if you have some experience in Indian cooking and know your way around Indian ingredients, this book has a lot of good recipes. There are some Indian cooking books ( Julie Sahni comes to mind), which are very good but take a lot of time and experience to work through. Madhur Jaffrey's books are good but sometimes the recipes are repetitive and I would recommend them highly to beginners for her clarity of instructions.
Pushpesh Pant's book needs a better editor. But, if you can work your way through the typos and extrapolate some, the recipes are varied and there are a lot of them. I am impressed by the range of recipes and the recipes themselves.
7 of 8 found the following review helpful:
An excellent recipe book with some caveats Feb 12, 2011
By G. Venkatesh
Summary: This cookbook is a must for people who typically cook using cookbooks, have reasonable experience with cooking (any cuisine) or have had an exposure to Indian cooking, not looking for dumbed-down Indian cooking and possibly have "Jaffrey-fatigue" and looking for something different (people who have cooked a lot with Madhur Jaffrey's formulaic style will know what this means). The book's minor flaws pointed out by people here don't diminish the value of this book to anyone interested in getting their taste buds tickled and challenged the way good Indian food cooked at home (not in restaurants) will. The list-price is a bit too much for what this book is and probably pays for the gimmicky packaging. The typical discounted price is more reasonable.
Details:
Like with any well-developed and complex cuisines (say French or Italian), no two Indian households cook any recipe the same way and there are as many variations as the number of households. The complexity of the cuisine results in a very large spectrum of variations for the same dish. So whether any particular Indian will like the style of cooking in this book will depend on what he/she is used to. For non-Indians, most recipes will require a tolerance to "heat" somewhere between medium and hot in an Indian restaurant to appreciate them fully. Don't buy this book if you plan to mellow it down by holding back on spices, it will destroy the balance and the character of the recipes.
People who have used other Indian cookbooks will notice some significant differences. It has an in-your-face style of cooking that doesn't hold back on the ingredients. If you use this book regularly, you will notice that you will be running out of stock ingredients (onion, ginger, chili powder, etc) more often when using this book compared to others! It uses a lot more of each of the side-ingredients compared to others for most recipes but the recipes remain well-balanced (a characteristic of good Indian food) and that is not easy to pull-off. It also uses more of fresh (or wet) stock ingredients (onions, garlic, ginger, cilantro, curry leaves, tomatoes, coconut, etc) relative to dry spices than most other Indian cookbooks which often get stuck in a repetitive cumin/coriander/turmeric/chili powder routine. The result is dishes that taste more flavorful. Most of the recipes aren't the rich, restaurant-style Indian cooking that don't lend themselves to healthy diets. Whether you are a vegetarian or not, you can create healthy dishes for daily menus with this book.
The regional selection of this book is similar in style to another recommended book "660 curries" by Raghavan Iyer with which it begs a comparison. While both books attempt to cover all of India, 660 curries remains centered around South Indian (Tamilian) cooking while branching out, while this book remains centered around Awadh(Lucknow) cooking while including samplings from other regions. 660 curries has more contemporary and fusion creations from the author.
660 curries is a better book for starting with Indian cooking with flavorful even if a bit mellowed-out recipes, and a friendly personalized writing style. This book is just the opposite. There is absolutely no personality coming through in the recipes in this book as there is not a single comment or even a single word in any recipe that isn't part of the cooking steps. Like 660 curries, it doesn't come fully illustrated for each recipe or for each ingredient. This makes it very difficult for people not familiar with Indian cooking to select a recipe that suits their current mood or inclination (and that is an important part of enjoying the food).
Another problem for beginners is that the book is a bit sloppy in being specific about how an ingredient might be sliced/chopped. Many Indian recipes require ingredients (for example, onions) to be cut in specific ways (sliced thickly, chopped into "cubes", thinly sliced into half-rings, finely minced, etc) that affect the texture and taste. It is also sloppy in leaving out the weight of some ingredients in many recipes while specifying the number. For things like tomatoes and onions that come in widely varying sizes, it would be necessary to consistently include a weight as well.
The index is good if you are looking for recipes based on main ingredients (so many cookbooks fail at this) but not if you are looking for a particular recipe by name (although the regional variations in the names would make this non-trivial). Cookbooks like this should really have two separate indexes - one by ingredients and one by name/type of dish (along with variants for the names).
The thin paper is delicate but for a book of this many pages, heavier stock would have made this book very heavy and difficult to handle. Serious (or messy) cooks should invest in a cookbook stand with a plastic cover anyway. The size of a page in this book keeps most recipes in a single page, without which it would have been a disaster for such thin paper.
There is an attempt in the included photographs to make them look authentic as might be served in the region where the recipe comes from, but the hodgepodge of utensils used that don't complement the dishes very well and lack of any attempt to "arrange" the food for visual appeal (even if that is the norm for Indian food) might make those pictures unappealing for some western audiences.
The publisher should create a second edition of this book soon addressing the flaws raised in these comments.
Recommended nevertheless.
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