Indian Home Cooking: A Fresh Introduction to Indian Food, with More Than 150 Recipes: A Cookbook

by Suvir Saran, Stephanie Lyness

With its exotic aromas and complex flavors, Indian cuisine is one of the world's best. It's no wonder that so many people adore it--and also no surprise that it could seem daunting to cook Indian food at home. Now, acclaimed chef and cooking teacher Suvir Saran cuts out the fuss, sharing casual, home-style Indian dishes that are perfect for everyday cooking.

Indian Home Cooking is a celebration of the food Indians cook in American kitchens today, using ingredients found in most supermarkets. With streamlined techniques and intense, authentic flavors, Indian Home Cooking heralds a new generation of Indian cookbooks. From slow-simmered curries with layered flavors to quickly sautéed dishes, these approachable recipes explore the wide world of Indian cuisine, including:

*Irresistible snacks and appetizers, such as Puff Pastry Samosas with Green Peas, and Spinach-Potato Patties
*Seductively spiced lentil dals, from the North Indian classic flavored with whole cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves to a Southern Indian version with dried red chilies, mustard seeds, and curry leaves
*Aromatic meat and seafood curries, like Coconut Chicken with Cashews and spicy Goan Shrimp Balchao
*An incredible range of vegetable dishes, including Stir-Fried Green Beans with Cumin, and Cauliflower with Sautéed Green Peppers, Tomato, and Yogurt
*Easy, colorful chutneys and pickles to fill your pantry

Filled with gorgeous photographs, fresh flavors, and practical advice, Indian Home Cooking is an illuminating guide to real Indian food.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, India, Reference, Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published August 31, 2004

About the author

American Masala isn't about traditional Indian food-it's about adding new flavors to the great American melting pot, using spices to liven up the old standbys, and enjoying dishes that are as exciting and diverse as life in the big city, and yet as familiar and comforting as your mother's cooking."

Reviews

[Gretchen]

Huge vegetarian section, great drinks section and a lots of fun!

[Melissa Lee-Tammeus]

Absolutley love this book - borrowed in from the library and now it is on my wish list. Beautiful coffee table style book with colorful pictures of the recipes and each one is laid with major details out so you cannot screw these up if you tried. Everything from spice combinations like garam masala to dal, I highly recommend this book if you want to try your hand at Indian cooking.

[Anna]

I might like American Masala slightly better, but taken together, these two cookbooks have an amazing selection of wonderful dishes. This earlier cookbook has more simple dals. I've turned several of them into plastic-bag "soup kits" to give as gifts. The two cookbooks have at least one or two duplicate recipes, but this one has been well worth the addition to my library.

[Beth E]

Impressive collection of recipes, including lots of rasam and raita recipes.

[Patricia]

I don't even really know what most Indian food tastes like, let alone how to make it. But this book is full of authentic Indian recipes. Most of them take a little time to make and all of them will call for ingredients that you don't have in your kitchen, but are available at the regular grocery store. Some recipes we loved, some we didn't, but it was fun to learn an entirely new cuisine. And now my pantry is stocked for the next time I check this out at the library. I recommend the Laoori Chicken.

[Ilene]

Great introduction to Indian cooking. Easy to follow recipes with clear directions take the fear factor out of Indian cooking. Nice photographs but I would have preferred a photo of each recipe. With a cuisine that I am not entirely comfortable with yet it makes it easier for me if I have a reference photo to look at. The author gives easily accessible substitutions for hard(er) to find ingredients.

[Emily]

Most Indian cookbooks you buy in India assume you already know the basics, and most Indian cookbooks published solely in the States insult your immediate taste knowledge. In constrast, this book is accessible, thorough, and beautiful. My favorite recipe is the stir-fried green beans with coconut (and mustard seeds!).

[Mandy Leins]

We had the good fortune to meet the author and take a cooking course with him at the ICE in NYC. His food is simple, delicious, and fun to make. It's not food you will find in a restaurant, for his recipes are what people prepare at home, which is a very different kind of cooking altogether. If you're looking for yummy stuff but don't need 10,000 steps, this is it.

[David Ward]

Indian Home Cooking: A Fresh Introduction to Indian Food, with More Than 150 Recipes by Suvir Saran (Clarkson Potter Publishers 2004)(641.5954). This book is full of wonderful recipes and photos that made my mouth water. Exceptionally tasty chutney recipes stole the show. My rating: 7.5/10, finished 6/10/14.

[Jeffrey St.]

Some Indian cookbooks have recipes so convulted that the preparation of relatively simple meals can sprawl across the afternoon and into the evening. But this book offers simple recipes for complex meals. Beautifully illustrated and clearly written.

[Gail]

Once you get all the spices, the recipes are very easy to follow. I love the layout of the book, in that the first recipes in a section give you and introduction to the tastes and get successively more complex.

[Kellea]

This is a great book. I've recently become interested in Indian cooking and this is a great intro cookbook. I will definitely add this to my collection and I think I definitely need to get my spice game together if I plan to do authentic Indian cooking.

[Jenn]

I really want to learn to make a few great Indian dishes. While the author of this book touts the recipes as "accessible" to an American home cook, I still found many of them more complicated than I would venture in my own kitchen.

[Erika]

This is a really good introduction to making Indian food. Mindy, if you're going to be a stay at home mom you might as well learn to cook something good and these recipes are the easiest Indian ones I've seen.

[LemontreeLime]

a neat book, with lots of great ideas, but after hording it several years now - i've found i personally never actually make anything from it. gorgeous photos, though! Have since passed it on to a better home than mine, where it will be (hopefully) loved and used.

[Kanani]

I'm cooking my way through this right now. It's a great read and oh, so delicious!

[Lori]

This one wasn't quite as fun to read as the Thai cookbook. But the recipes seem much more doable and the ingredients more common to our Southern grocery stores.

[Molly]

Just looking at this book I would have assumed it is a more show than tell cookbook. But, many of the recipes I tried were wonderful.

[Beka]

Interesting and more attainable than most, but still nothing grabbed me.

[Joan]

We love all the vegetarian dishes we have tried - probably ten or so recipes so far. The meat dishes have not impressed as much.

[Leslie]

Excellent recipes. Not too difficult and the results have the deep flavors that characterize this cuisine.