The Indian Kitchen: A Book of Essential Ingredients With over 200 Easy and Authentic Recipes

by Monisha Bharadwaj

An Indian-cookery sourcebook of ingredients and a wide range of more than 200 recipes. The entry for each ingredient is self-contained for ease of reference, and serves to illuminate the culinary, medicinal and even mythological properties.

Genres: Cookbooks

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Shafia · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the book has a variety of recipes, none of them follow the authentic methods of cooking. A simple recipe of Apricot sweet, Khubani ka Meetha, in which the dried Apricots are first soaked overnight and cooked after removing the pits, and then sugar is added and cooked further. In her recipe, the soaking is skipped, the fruit is boiled with the seeds, which are removed after boiling..definitely whoever tries the recipe the outcome will not be as good as it’s traditionally done. Similarly, there are several recipes for just name sake, but lack authenticity in method of cooking.

[Subashini · Rating 4 out of 5]

240 pages of the book are filled with gorgeous color photos of the herbs & spices, the cooked dishes & the people from different part of India. The usual format of the cookbooks has been skipped here, it follows by ingredients. Every spice & herbs used in Indian cooking were explained its medicinal value, how & which region of India it belongs, storing information, and also two recipes for each spice or herb. It contains both Non-Vegetarian & Vegetarian recipes, most of the recipes are relatively easy provided we are able to get the ingredients from our local Indian stores. Very tasty & mouth watering read.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a companion to The Chinese Kitchen by De-Ta Hsiung and my comments are applicable to both.
If you are interested in a clarification of Indian ingredients, appearance, usage, and not the least the Indian name then this is invaluable.
For some reason I have never seen either of these books for sale in a bookshop. My copies have been from charity shops.
So, if you see one, buy it, you may not see another copy.