MADHUR JAFFREY INDIAN HOME COOKING
Review by Barb & Ron Kroll
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey: Simple, Delectable Dishes from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka
(Alfred A. Knopf) ISBN 978-0307268242 0307268241
Madhur Jaffrey provides quick recipes for Indian vegetarian cooking, meat, fish and egg dishes, Bangladeshi food, Pakistani cooking and Sri Lankan food. With her simple recipes, it is easy to make Indian meals that are delicious and healthy.
Home cooks can make delicious appetizers, soups, main courses, relishes, desserts and drinks with the easy recipes in this Indian cookbook. At Home with Madhur Jaffrey also features a guide to buying Indian spices, with cooking and storage instructions.
Fast ways to cook Indian food
In her 301-page cookbook, Madhur Jaffrey makes Indian home cooking easy by using fewer spices and fast cooking techniques. Instead of browning dry spices, meat and wet ingredients, like onions, separately, she recommends marinating meat with seasonings, then roasting it so the oven browns the ingredients.
In the chapter introductions, Madhur Jaffrey describes different types of Indian foods and how they are prepared. For example, she explains that dal means split peas, but the word also encompasses dried beans and lentils.
Types of dal
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey notes that there are many types of dal e.g., moong dal (mung beans), toor dal (pigeon peas), sabut masoor (red lentils), kali dal (black beans), urad dal (yellow split peas). She explains that there are many ways to cook dal in Indian cuisine (saucy versions to ground dal flour, such as chickpea flour, for making fritter batter).
Madhur Jaffrey introduces each Indian recipe with cooking tips. For the pappadoms recipe, she explains that, in classic Indian cooking, pappadoms (also called papar and papad) are fried in hot oil. In her simple pappadom recipe, Jaffrey cooks them in the microwave.
Christopher Hirsheimer food photos depict Indian dishes prepared from At Home with Madhur Jaffrey recipes, as well as Indian spices, vegetables and scenery. Photos of Madhur Jaffrey cooking include step-by-step images of her chopping and grating ginger. Decorative drawings by Madhur Jaffrey begin each chapter.
Indian spices
The chapter on spices, seasonings and oils used in classic Indian cooking explains how to buy Indian spices online and at Indian groceries, how to grind spices and store them.
Madhur Jaffrey describes the flavor and scent of each Indian spice and how to use them in Indian cooking. She explains that the black seeds inside green cardamom pods taste like a mixture of orange peel, lemon, camphor and eucalyptus. Madhur Jaffrey recommends buying green cardamom pods because the white ones are bleached and have less flavor.
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey includes recipes for Indian fast food and Indian snacks, such as spicy popcorn, roasted almonds with black pepper and chickpeas seasoned with chaat masala for nibbling.
Sample Indian recipes
Spiced roasted cashews. Shrimp and onion fritters. Red lentil curry soup. Chicken curry with cardamom. Peanut chutney with sesame seeds. Chicken with apricots. Tandoori-style duck breasts. Pakistani-style grilled lamb chops. Hot, salty and sweet pork chops. Baked beef curry. South Indian-style baked beans. Potatoes with cumin and mustard seeds. Sweet and sour butternut squash. Pan grilled zucchini. Red lentils with ginger. Yellow basmati rice with sesame seeds. Poori (deep-fried puffed bread). Zucchini yogurt. Sweet mango lassi. Easy masala chai (spiced tea). Rice pudding with saffron and nuts.
Contents
- Introduction
- Appetizers, Snacks and Soups
- Fish and Seafood
- Eggs and Poultry
- Lamb, Pork and Beef
- Vegetables
- Dal
- Rice and Other Grains
- Relishes and Some Drinks
- Desserts
- Spices, Seasonings, Oils and Techniques
- Index
Author
Madhur Jaffrey's cooking books include Flavours of India, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, Madhur Jaffrey's Cookbook, Quick and Easy Indian Cooking and Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking.