Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey

Madhur Jaffrey Indian Cooking Reviews

• 
  notgettingenough

  I guess if you live in parts of the world that don’t have proper summers you wouldn’t understand that in Australia there are often long periods of those months where you simply can’t cook. It is too hot for both the process and the result. After a while you long for the cold and the possibilities of cooking that become so much wider. Now as winter begins in Melbourne curries are very much on my brain.
  
  This book changed my life. It was the first cookbook I read that explained the processes going on. Why do you fry the onions this much and not that? Why fry the yoghurt until all the water in it has disappeared and then add water? I love to understand what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, so this book was a revelation to me. I was about thirty when Claire gave it to me, and before long I became a ‘good’ cook, though it was still a long time before I learned how to cook toast. I can see that to some extent the reason for the depth of explanation in this book is that Indian cooking is by far and away the most profound, complex food in the world. The average Italian cookbook, in retrospect, I understand says nothing much about process because there really isn’t much to say. A few basic rules to be repeated over and over, if I may generalise. Indian cooking could not be more different.
  
  This recipe was the first Indian dish I made. Rogan Josh. The most important thing to take note of is the gradual incorporation of the yoghurt, ensuring each spoonful is blended in very well before continuing with the next. It is this that ensures you don’t get a separated/curdled sort of result. Patience! There is no point rushing this. And, please. Full fat yoghurt, not that horrible stuff that's like dishwater.
  
  As usual with Indian meat dishes, make extra and freeze. It’s silly not to.
  
  
  Red lamb or beef stew: Rogan Josh
  
  Prep time:
  30 mins
  Cook time:
  2 hrs 20 mins
  Serves:
  4-6
  
  Ingredients
  • 2 x 2.5 cm ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
  • 8 cloves garlic, peeled
  • 4 tbsp water, plus 300-450ml
  • 10 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 900 g boned shoulder or leg of lamb, or stewing beef (chuck) cut into 2.5cm cubes
  • 10 cardamom pods
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 6 cloves
  • 10 peppercorns
  • 2.5 cm cinnamon sticks
  • 200g onions, peeled and finely chopped
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 4 tsp bright red paprika, mixed with 0.25-1 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1.25 tsp salt
  • 6 tbsp natural yogurt
  • 0.25 tsp garam masala
  • freshly ground black pepper
  
  Method
  1. Put the ginger, garlic and 4 tbsp water into the container of an electric blender. Blend well until you have a smooth paste.
  
  2. Heat the oil in a wide heavy pan over a medium-high heat. Brown the meat cubes in several batches and set to one side. Put the cardamom pods, bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns, and cinnamon into the same hot oil. Stir once and wait until the cloves swell and the bay leaves begin to take on colour. This just takes a few seconds. Now put in the onions. Stir and fry for about 5 minutes or until the onion turn a medium-brown colour. Put in the ginger-garlic paste and fry for 30 seconds. Then add the coriander, cumin, paprika-cayenne and salt. Stir and fry for another 30 seconds. Add the fried meat cubes and juices, Stir for 30 seconds. Now put in 1 tbsp of the yogurt. Stir and fry for about 30 seconds or until the yogurt is well blended. Add the remaining yogurt, a tablespoon at a time as before. Stir and fry for 3-4 minutes.
  
  3. Now add 300ml water if you are cooking lamb and 450ml if you are cooking beef. Bring the contents of the pan to a boil, scraping in all browned spices on the sides and bottom of the pan. Cover, turn heat to low and simmer for about an hour for the lamb and 2 hours for beef, or until the meat is tender. (It could be baked, covered, in a pre-heated 180C/gas 4 oven for the same length of time or until tender.) Every 10 minutes or so, give the meat a good stir. When the meat is tender, take off the lid, turn the heat up to medium and boil away some of the liquid. You should end up with tender meat in a think, reddish-brown sauce. Spoon off the fat. Sprinkle garam masala and black pepper over the meat before you serve and mix them in.
  
  Many of the recipes in this book are now a regular part of my Indian cooking. I can't recommend it highly enough for somebody starting out who needs to be spoonfed. But that's not to say you won't get a lot out of it if you are experienced. It's a classic.
• 
  Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)

  I can only give this book four out of five so far, as I've only started to use it. But the recipes I've tried have worked, and been easy to understand. No long involved lists of ingredients and faffing around with complicated methods. Again, curry cookbooks written by women seem to be more straightforward and easy to use. There are good sections on utensils, techniques and spices as well as suggested menus...after all Jaffrey was the one who really got us started cooking Indian at home.
  
  However there are a few cons to the book as well. First, the font used is unreasonably small, given the size of the pages. A 12 to 14 point font would have fit just as well and not caused eyestrain on the part of the reader; besides which the tiny typeface looks rather ridiculous, lost in the huge pages of this heavy hardback book. Given that there is only one recipe per page, and few photos, they could easily have made the book more readable (and usable in the kitchen) by using normal-sized fonts. What is the use of all that empty white space?
  
  Second, I find by looking at the masthead that this is a re-edition of a book first published in 1982 under the title Indian Cookery, released for the second time in 1994 "revised and updated" as Madhur Jaffrey's Illustrated Indian Cookery (the illustrations must have got lost along the way), before appearing in the 2002 edition as "Indian Cooking". Who knows, it may have reincarnated yet again, as another 12 years have passed.
  
  I had been told by friends that Ms Jaffrey has "several cookbooks" to her name. Perhaps not--perhaps it's just the same one with different titles. Not admirable. I'm glad I got this one second-hand; it seems useful, but I won't be investing in other books under Ms Jaffrey's name, for fear I'd end up with several copies of the same recipes.
• 
  C

  I saw Madhur Jaffrey on a cooking show one day, and enjoyed watching her. Her books are as accessible and enjoyable as she is on tv.
  
  This is a great "tackling the basics of indian cooking" style book.
  
  Try:
  Whole Chicken Baked in Aluminum Foil
  
  Yep, it really does say leave it on the counter unrefrigerated for 2 hours. The acids in the marinade inhibit bacterial growth. Still, I would do this in a pretty neutral temperature room and perhaps not, say, mid July.
  
  Either way, it is worth the trouble... the chicken is not only delicious, but is so tender it can be easily cut with the side of a fork.
  
  Chicken in Butter Sauce - quite good
  
  Minced Meat with Peas + Onion Relish
  
  
• 
  D

  so far every recipe i've tried has worked beautifully, and the introductory explanations on creating an authentic indian menu and the in-depth discussions of spices are incredibly helpful.
  
  but the production quality is quite poor. the pictures are few and relatively unappealing (small, undetailed, with a weird, sickly yellow tinge), and the graphics are amateur and very dated.
  
  invest in this book for a good array of starter indian recipes, not for the lush reading experience.
• 
  Kathryn

  This is a fantastic book. Once you have got a core set of spices,the world is your oyster. The recipes are easy and you can alter the spice levels to suit.We love the Black Beef and Yoghurt, Lentils and Spinach, Spinach and potatoes.. The list goes on. Also the Indian Tea recipe at the back is lovely.
• 
  Mindofwinter

  This book is amazing. If you use one cookbook for Indian cuisine, this should be it. The recipes are time-consuming, but worth it. If you follow the directions you get a perfect meal every time. My favorites are the samosas, chicken with tomato cream sauce, the spinach and lentils, sour chickpeas, and the cover recipe of chicken with lemon and coriander.
• 
  Terri Ann

  The entire book chants YUUUUUMMMMMMM! Can't wait to start making scratch Indian dishes. Dean and I started enjoying Indian cuisine when we moved to Seattle and now would probably eat it most nights of the week. I've relied on bottled and paste curries so far, and I'm ready to make the leap!
• 
  Basil

  Intrigued by the cooking and refreshments featured in Vikram Seth's, A Suitable Boy, I made it my purpose to add an Indian cookbook. And so, off I went to my favorite haunt at the mall. That was 2013. I was so ecstatic to have this book on the shelf and at such a bargain price. What a score!
  
  I pored over every inch of this book. It didn't even matter that I was a complete noob at this kind of cuisine. Every spice, ingredient, method and their uses were explained before recipes were introduced. And speaking of the recipes, they were fairly easy to follow. I had a lot of fun cooking some of the recipes and eating them was a whole new experience.
  
  It was in this book that I've first learned that curry isn't always yellow and to be used only for chicken. I sincerely apologize for this ignorance but where I'm from, red curry was completely unheard of during that time. "Curry" was just store bought curry powder mixed with ground turmeric, native chicken, coconut milk, lemon grass and a pandan leaf.
  
  My only copy has since been ruined beyond repair, all thanks to monsoon season. I'll be scouring the shelves for this book again!
• 
  James

  A decent, older cookbook that covers a nice selection of Indian dishes from all over. I've cooked a couple of recipes from this one and and a fair number from one of her earlier books. She's a good cook and they are decent, they are mild to middish spicy. Worth picking up if you see it cheap in a book sale.
• 
  Shelley

  read this cookbook like it was a novel. and then started cooking
• 
  Beth E

  A lot of recipes.
  This does not have a lot of photos, which I always find disappointing in a cookbook.
• 
  Shane C

  the book was very original!!
• 
  Marguerite

  A fine introduction to Indian cooking. Madhur Jaffrey has schooled me in some of the basics of the array of subcontinental cuisines. I'd made my own curry spice mixture for years, thanks to Laurie Colwin. This book helped me to move beyond curry. Jaffrey includes useful encyclopedic information about ingredients. The recipes are written so they can be reproduced by cooks on both sides of the pond (metric and not). I particularly like the vegetable recipes (when I made Cauliflower With Potatoes, there were no leftovers). The photos are mouth-watering. The book was meant to accompany a BBC series, but it's useful even without the video. My only complaint is that it's difficult to keep the book open while cooking.
• 
  Alanna

  This book truly is inspirational. Most of the recipes are very time-consuming, but it's the sort of book that makes you want to do things the proper way, and reap the rewards. I'm vegetarian but some of the meat dishes were so inspiring I'm tempted to cook them for other people. Ahhhh, some day I will have the time to work my way through this book!
  I made three of these recipes for friends the other night and they were all excellent: Prawns in a Dark Sauce, 'Dry' Potatoes with Ginger and Garlic, and I converted the Chicken in a Butter Sauce into a vegetarian dish using tofu and vegetables. Yum yum!
• 
  Rachel

  This is the cookbook to which I refer most often. I've tried about half a dozen recipes, and they've all been winners, so now I'm trying to work my way through the others. The description of spices and techniques is really helpful, as are the suggestions for pairing dishes and the inclusion of recipes for relishes and pulses (raitas and daals) as well as appetizers and main meat or vegetable dishes. The photos are beautiful. Some of my favorite Indian dishes are not included in this book, but the recipes that are included cover many different regions of India and many styles of preparation.
• 
  Carol

  I remember the first time I had Indian food. My father took me to an Indian restaurant near the UN in New York. I don't remember what I had but I do remember being seduced by the spices: coriander, cumin, cardamom. They were so exotic, so exciting, a whole new world...a mystery. Indian food remained a mystery until my friend Sue gave me this book. It was a revelation that I could follow a recipe and enter that exotic world. I have made every dish in the book. I have recently added a few more Indian cookery books to my collection, but this one will always be my bible.
• 
  Gillian

  A brilliant introduction to the taste of India. This paperback is not large, long or lavishly illustrated but has turned out to be one of our best thumbed cookery books.
  A cousin gave it to us for a wedding present and 24 years on we still use it regularly, especially each winter.
  Rogan Josh, Gujerati style green beans, potato and spinach curry, raita, rice dishes, roti, chicken dopiaza, lamb vindaloo, chutneys and relishes ... Jaffrey's easy to use recipes for many years defined curry and other Indian recipes for us.
  Lovely!
• 
  Amy

  One of my favorite cookbooks. It has been used so much that the pages are yellow from all the turmeric I've spilled on it. My favorite recipes in here are: Kashmiri Meatballs, Rogan josh, Spicy Baked Chicken, Shrimp in a dark sauce, Cabbage with peas, Cauliflower with Fennel and mustard seeds,Potatoes with Black pepper, Simple buttery Rice with Onion, Rice with peas, Delicious Cocktail Koftas, and Spiced Tea.
  
• 
  John

  My copy of this is in a sad state, pages curled and stained with all manner of spices and sauces. For a cookery book, this is a strong endorsement.
  A classic of its day; here in the UK, getting the spices and equipment could be a challenge at the time, but should be a lot easier now. The recipes are simple, easy to follow and quick, with delicious results.
  My only quibble is that the index references are off by a few pages (in my old imprint, anyway).
• 
  Trudy

  In this classic cookbook Madhur Jaffrey introduces readers to the exotic delights of Indian Cuisine. She provides everything you need to know about Indian cooking including information on equipment and techniques, a comprehensive list of essential ingredients, advice on creating authentic Indian menus and a definitive collection of recipes—from long-standing favorites to more contemporary dishes.
• 
  Keswickian

  The recipes were great, but the layout left something to be desired. We made the samosas at our cookbook club which turned out great. The lamb curry was better the next day. The seafood curry, wonderful. Hard to know with this book what was going to be excellent and what wasn't. I was very surprised with our dessert which was mango puree with strained yogurt, yum!
• 
  Meredith

  Easy to follow instructions, lots of simple recipes.
  
  Have tried the spinach with ginger and green chilies which came out excellently, likewise a variation of her mushroom curry. The cauliflower with green chilies was less of a hit.
  
  My darling dear successfully followed the fresh herb egg recipe which was like a spicy frittata, and very nice it was too. :)