I don't make Indian cuisine often, but once I started reading Flavorful India: Treasured Recipes from a Gujarati Family by Priti Chitnis Gress, however, I couldn't wait to get out to the grocery to search for ingredients and hurry back home to start cooking.
Gujarat (a western Indian state) is largely known for vegetarian dishes, and although we didn't make any of those (we made Tandoori Chicken, Cocktail-Size Meat Samosas and Sweet Dough Balls with Coconut) the dishes we did make were perfect. My very-hard-to-please husband loved the tandoori and the dough balls; something I thought he would turn his nose up at, and the kids ate the samosas as I was cooking them so there weren't many left once we sat down to dinner. I'm confident that the vegetarian dishes would elicit the same response, and we'll be making them to test that theory.
I love that each recipe has a story to it, and the sections on cookware and utensils, spices and Indian ingredients are priceless. This is Indian food at its most uncomplicated. It's homey, delicious and fitted for the Northern American kitchen. There isn't one recipe that is too difficult for a novice cook to handle.
While not a comprehensive compilation of Gujarati recipes, Flavorful India is at once personal, informative and basic, drawing from Priti's own family traditions; the perfect addition to any kitchen, but most especially the vegetarian home.
Find your copies:
Softcover at Hippocrene Books
Hardcover at Amazon
Also check out, Hippocrene Cooks, a blog with entries from the many Hippocrene cookbook authors, including Priti Chitnis Gress!
1 comment:
Once I conquer this baking thing, or at least get a handle on it - Indian Food is next on my list. I'm so clueless on how to mix the spices effectively.
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