"And it burns, burns burns.....the ring of fire" (50 Great Curries of India - Camellia Panjabi)

Member Name: yackers1

Product:	50 Great Curries of India - Camellia Panjabi
Date:	20/04/09 (372 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A great insight in to curries, some fantastic recipes that are easy to follow

Disadvantages: Lots od different spices required, time consuming (but satisfying) to make a curry from scratch

**** About the author****

Camellia Punjabo, was born in Mumbai and read economics in Cambridge before being appointed Marketing director of Taj Hotels, which is claimed to be India's most prestigious hotel group. Despite her background Camellia's passion for Indian cuisine took over and in 2001 she left her marketing job to join her family's restaurant company, Masala World.

****The book****

Published in 2005 by Silverdale Books 50 Great Curries of India (ISBN 978-1-84509-264-1) is in between a paperback and a hardback. All the information is printed on thick and very good quality paper. Whilst this makes it great value for money it does make the book too good to keep open on the worktop whilst you're actually making the curry as it would be sacrilege to spill anything on it. This means that any recipe I follow will be scribbled on a scrap piece of paper so it can be close to hand whilst I am cooking the dish.

This book does make a nice addition to any library though.

****Contents****

This book has greater depth than a 'standard' recipe book and contains much more than just a list of ingredients and what to do with them. There is a large section at the front of the book, i.e. before the recipes, that details the philosophy of Indian cuisine, explanations of what constitutes an authentic Indian meal, the true definition of a curry, the herbs and spices that are used and, probably more importantly, how and why they are used as well as a couple of somewhat useful hints and short cuts.

Whilst this preamble isn't as useful as the actual recipes, nor is it likely to improve your curries it is quite interesting (that is if you want to know about the back ground behind curries) and is quite a good read. The section on herbs and spices is quite good and there are some useful bits but most of it is pure background reading.

As well as narrative there are many photos used to break the paragraphs up. Some cookery books go way over the top with photography of the finished dishes and appear to go for looks over functionality or usefulness. This book does not do that and there is no more emphasis on the photographs over the text or vice versa. The text/photograph mix is absolutely spot which makes the whole layout very attractive, easy to read and very easy to follow.

****The recipes****

As the title suggests this book contains 50 curries of India that Camellia considers to be the best. The recipes are from all areas of India including Goa, Kashmir, Chettinad and Mumbai amongst many others. From the very hot, such as the Goa lamb vindaloo (my personal favourite), to the very mild, such as fish molee, and everything in between this book contains a recipe to suit all tastes of curry. In addition both meat eaters and vegetarians are catered for.

For each recipe there is a brief section on what the dish is, where it came from, the history of it, how it was traditionally cooked and any specific features. After the description there is a list of all the ingredients, and the quantity required, to make enough of the curry for 4 people and a step-by-step guide to produce the curry. On the opposite page there is a picture of curry showing 'how it should look'.

As well as the curries this book also has a section on rice that gives guidance on the different types of rice, instructions on how to cook rice and recipes for different sorts of rice, such as lemon rice, fried brown rice and dill rice amongst many others.

Following the rice section there is a section on Indian breads or rotis (and how to make and cook them), side dishes and how to make them (such as spinach with curd cheese, stuffed aubergines and moong dal amongst much more), chutneys and how to make them (including red chutney and groundnut chutney) and deserts (such as mango mousse and shahi tukra amongst others). As with the curries each recipe gives a list of al the required ingredients (that need to be scaled up or down accordingly) and a step-by-step guide on how to make them. However, unlike the curries there is not a photograph of each of the recipes so you are sometimes in the dark as to how the finished product should look.

****Price and availability****

This book is available from many offline and online retailers. According to the back of the book the recommended retail price is £9.99 although I managed to get my copy for the bargain price of £3.99. At the time of writing a quick online search has shown that this book can be bought for £6.49 (with free supersaver delivery) from Amazon.

As with most products I would recommend shopping around to ensure that you get it for the best price.

****My opinion****

Overall this is a fantastic book that I would recommend to all curry lovers. The book is attractive, clear and concise with useful text and photographs. In my opinion it is far too good to have close to hand whilst cooking the dishes so I ensure the recipe is jotted down on a scrap of paper.

The recipes detail all the ingredients required along with step-by-step instructions on how to cook the dishes. The pictures make the book attractive and nice to read, but I think they have limited use as the finished product seldom looks like the picture in the book, but then I find this the case with most cookery books regardless of the cuisine.

I find that cooking curries from scratch is very time consuming, smelly and quite difficult to create that dish that tastes like you can buy from your local Indian restaurant. In addition, curries contain so many different varieties of herbs, spices and other 'special' items that to buy these is expensive. That said, once you have made the initial purchase there will be enough ingredients there to make several curries. For these reasons I often wonder why I bother when you can get a decent jar of curry sauce that you simply pour over cooked meat and then warm up. I do find making my own curries very rewarding when I do get them right, but also very frustrating when they don't taste right.

I find that the same type of curry will taste totally different from restaurant to restaurant. For example in my local area the lamb Vindaloo from Wroxham is so hot that it obliterates my taste buds. In total contrast the lamb vindaloo in the Spice Lounge in Norwich is more fragrant and not so fierce. It is these variations that make curries such a versatile dish as it can be tailored to suit specific tastes. All you need is the 'basic' recipe that you can change by adding the ingredients/herbs/spices in different ratios to suit your own specific taste, and this book will give you the basic recipe, that is so simple to follow, to experiment with.

Summary: Basic recipes for many types of curry giving you a starting point to experiment