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The Curry Secret: Indian Restaurant Cookery at Home

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This is the curry book with a difference! It reveals the secrets of Indian Restaurant Cooking, usually closely guarded by chefs worldwide, so that you can reproduce that elusive taste in your own kitchen. Learn how to create chicken, lamb, fish and vegetable curries of mouth-watering quality, as well as a wide variety of other Indian dishes.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

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About the author

Kris Dhillon

14 books4 followers

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5 stars
163 (46%)
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96 (27%)
3 stars
62 (17%)
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19 (5%)
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10 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
Profile Image for Liquidlasagna.
2,983 reviews110 followers
July 24, 2024

the wild Amazone

the secret is in the sauce, and the measurements are correct

excellent book on curries as they are served in *British* curry houses. I think this is where the confusion with the measurements arise.

Someone before mentioned that the measures do not add up:

they do add up if you are using British pints (550ml)
and read the book carefully

the author mentions at the beginning that a cup is
'approximately a quarter pint or 5 fluid ounces'.

If you use these measurements then
3/4 pint (412ml)
425ml
or 3 cups (3*1/4pint) add up quite well

Veit Schenk
Profile Image for Darren.
1,193 reviews64 followers
April 29, 2012
This is one of those books that you might overlook in a bookstore in favour of more colourful, larger, illustrated tomes on the same subject. Yet that could a very costly mistake indeed.

The Curry Secret sets out, modestly, with the aim of showing the reader how to cook "real Indian restaurant meals" at home - and in its modest 128 pages one can conclude that it does exactly that.

The author drops you straight in at the start with a concise lesson about the different key spices and herbs used within Indian cookery before promptly letting you loose in the kitchen. Each page is concisely written without colourful aspirational pictures to get in the way, leaving you to focus on the to-the-point instructions and the dish at hand.

Tips about how the various food dishes combine together in a busy restaurant are given that will allow even the busy home cook plan their Indian meals ahead, such as by part preparing standard components and freezing a bulk lot and using the same sauce as a base for later configuration.

Whilst reading the book you feel that the information just flies by and can often be left wondering "is that it?" when you are confronted with just how relatively easy it can be to produce such food. Of course, many dishes are not a five minute preparation and cook process, but with careful planning and consideration you could have a restaurant quality dish at home in less time than it may take to go out to a takeaway restaurant and return home.

It is strange yet not many text-only books in the cooking world are capable of being inspirational but The Curry Secret manages to reach that target and deliver more besides. Whilst you will not be a restauranteur overnight, by careful reading of this book you will become a much more versatile cook of Indian food and a more confident customer when dining out at an Indian restaurant with a wish to try something than "the usual."

The Curry Secret: How to Cook Real Indian Restaurant Meals at Home, written by Kris Dhillon and published by Right Way. ISBN 978-0-7160-2191-9, 128 pages. Typical price: GBP6.


// This review appeared in YUM.fi and is reproduced here in full with permission of YUM.fi. YUM.fi celebrates the worldwide diversity of food and drink, as presented through the humble book. Whether you call it a cookery book, cook book, recipe book or something else (in the language of your choice) YUM will provide you with news and reviews of the latest books on the marketplace. //
11 reviews2 followers
January 24, 2008
The only curry book you need (assuming you only really ever want to eat chicken tikka masala/korma/etc, which is truer for a lot of people than they may want to admit).

Also it's really cheap.
42 reviews2 followers
July 18, 2011
This book really does contain a great little curry secret.
Profile Image for Russell.
5 reviews
July 9, 2013
Easily the best Indian cook book I've ever used. Recipes take a long time to do properly but the results are far better than most Indian Restaurants! I've almost worn this book out, it's excellent.
Profile Image for Julie.
389 reviews10 followers
February 5, 2016
Delicious chicken tikka masala, but it doesn't take anything like what I've eaten in a restaurant..and it took two days.
Profile Image for Tina.
600 reviews35 followers
January 19, 2018
Helped me with the chicken tikka masala problem I've been having!
642 reviews
July 19, 2014
This book reads very well and the recipes look simple to make. Will definitely be trying some of these in the near future.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews

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