Good Korma

The great cookbooks on Indian multi-regional cuisine are, for me, where the curry journey gets serious.

Meera Taneja, Pushpeshpant Pant and Julie Sahni all take a panoramic view of the classic recipes across the country – and each book, in its own way, helps convert you from ‘spice pedestrian’ into ‘spice pilgrim’.

Google ‘best Indian recipe book’ (as I often do… adding ‘gourmet’, ‘authentic’, ‘collectable’, etc to take me to new volumes) and the name Meera Taneja comes up time and gain. Given that Indian Regional Cookery was first published in 1980, it’s a tribute to the author that copies and reviews of the book are to be found all over the web… more than 30 years later. My mint condition, first edition copy reached me a month ago, and Taneja’s ‘Moong beans and coconut’ and ‘Gujurati stuffed aubergines’ were both spectacular. I cannot wait to attempt the ‘Fenugreek leaf fritters’. Indian Regional Cookery is a landmark – written way ahead of its time – and steers you across the regional masterpieces with skill and feeling. (And if the styling of the photos reminds you ever-so-slightly of 80s album covers, then that’s all part of the charm.) The fact it’s published by Mills & Boon also gives you a bodice-ripper on your spice shelf! Seriously good book.

Moving on, we come to the ‘Odyssey’ that is Pushpesh Pant‘s India Cookbook. No other book I know shouts its metric weight from the spine (‘1.5 KG’) and no other cookbook I’ve ever used takes you on a journey through 1,000 recipes. First, though, the list of criticisms. As literally dozens of reviewers point out online (India Cookbook stirs up a lot passion), the book is rich with typo’s, missing ingredients, missing cooking stages and extra ingredients that never get never get factored in (not to mention an entire recipe that’s repeated verbatim on consecutive pages – 318/19, if you’re interested). But, for me, all this carping misses the point (kind of like criticising War & Peace for having too many characters). I love the India Cookbook, and as a family, we’ve cooked over 20 recipes from this meisterwerk. As with every new curry, we write an instant review on the page, and I’ll let the food critics at our table speak for themselves: Broad beans with coriander ‘Yum… never, EVER enjoyed broad beans so much!’; Tadka dal ‘Oh, oh, oh! Heavenly’; Thali Peeth ‘It’s bread, Jim, but not as we know it… massive, earthy flavour’. I could quote more, but you get the point. The recipes in this book take your cooking to a new level – and with 1,000 to choose from, you will never have an ingredient in your home or in your Asian foodstore that you cannot transform into something delicious. The India Cookbook is definitely not for beginners – but if you want a walk on the wild-side with the Tolstoy of India cooking, Pushpesh Pant is your man.

Peek inside the cover of our copy of Classic Indian Vegetarian Cookery, and you’ll find the following words scribbled inside: “April 14. Cowabunga Julie, you is on fire!! Just ate your: braised butternut and jaggery; 5 jewels dahl; saffron mango chutney, Nirvana bread. Incredible.” Not the most balanced piece of prose – but sometimes you have to shout it rather than write it. Classic Indian Vegetarian Cookery succeeds on so many levels that it’s difficult to know what to praise first. The intro’ is simply a master-class in understanding and cooking Indian food. The recipes not only work – but actually redefine your understanding of the words ‘delicious’ and ‘curry’. (If you need convincing, please try Sahni’s ‘Courgette in sweet milk sauce with chilli flakes’.) Time after time, she helps you create perfection on a plate. And if that’s not enough, every recipe starts with a mouth-watering overview that places the dish in time and place – before Sahni seduces you with her pillow talk. Maybe it’s just me, but phrases like: ‘fragrant butter-laced’, ‘silky rice smothered in’ et al make me almost as hungry as the food itself. There may be a more thrilling curry cookbook out there than Classic Indian Vegetarian Cookery – but Littlewoods would need to offer huge odds for me to chance a fiver on it.

For almost all of us, Indian cuisine starts with eating someone else’s cooking – and wanting to cook your own. The good news is that there are tried and tested recipe books which will help you do just that. And from the crack of the starting gun, you’ll be cooking some of the most delicious food you’ve ever eaten.

But which book do you choose?

Some books choose you.

The first Indian recipe book I owned was Cooking Class Indian: step-by-step to perfect results – a birthday present from wife Sue. I’ve cooked from it for four years, and the ghee and turmeric stained pages are proof of its happy times in our kitchen. Even now, I’d rate the recipe for Prawns Dhania Massala as one the most delicious  Indian seafood dishes I’ve eaten (and if you come to our home for a dinner party, you’ll get to know it). The recipes for Aromatic rice, Mixed dal and Mango kulfi are all sure-fire winners. If you’re feeling high-brow, then the numbered, step-by-step recipes and illustrations might feel a bit kindergarten. (And if you’re an alpha male, the Women’s Weekly masthead might be a deal breaker). But for everyone else, Cooking Class Indian is a practical, colourful and delicious first-step on a curry journey. Thank you, Sue.

Camelia Panjabi’s 50 Great Curries of India does what it says on the tin (or on the cover, to be more precise) and steers you through the masterpieces of traditional Indian cooking. The fifty page intro’ is a treasure trove of advice on the philosophy, ingredients and techniques on curry making. Panjabi’s CV as a restaurateur is world-class (Taj Hotels, Bombay Brasserie, Chutney Mary, Veeraswamy, Amaya) and the book oozes love for – and deep knowledge of – Indian food. The recipe for Lamb with plums is a personal all-time favourite. (And I could have cried with gratitude when Panjabi not only told me how to cook the dish – but when I’d seriously overdosed the chilli at a meal for 20 guests – also told me in the intro’ how to dial down the fire in any curry … simply add more of the astringent, in this case… plums). A landmark cookbook.

But we all have to have a favourite starter book, and mine – without question – is The Food of India: a journey for food lovers. Overlooking the fact that the word ‘food’ is repeated twice in the title (and that this wonderful volume comes from the dark star known as Murdoch Books) – The Food of India is a joy to own and cook with. Illustrated with mouth-watering images of street-food from end to end of India, the book steers you effortlessly from simple but delicious classics (Chilli Lamb Cutlets, Chuchumber, Methi Aloo) to high-end delights you struggle to find in gourmet cookbooks (Spiced Banana Flower, Chilli Crab). Every single recipe works with spectacular results, and if you cook your way from cover to cover you will be tempted to think you’re a Domestic Goddess (or God) of Indian cuisine.

In fact, you’ve dipped your little toe in the shallow end of the curryverse.

And you’re starting the culinary adventure of a lifetime.

If you’re reading this as a member of a foodie Asian family, then this post probably won’t make much sense. You KNOW how to make a great curry, and the recipes are in your DNA. You know your achar from your elaichi. Curry genius is all second nature.

For the rest of us… there are recipe books.

If there’s one national cuisine that you truly can’t bluff you way through, it’s Indian. The sheer number of spices, herbs, seeds, grains and legumes you’ll need (not to mention the thousands of different permutations of grinding, mixing and cooking with them) make the chances of guessing your way to a great curry virtually zero. In fact, take your eyes off a curry recipe for ten minutes – and you’re almost certainly heading off-piste (in a bad way).

Curry recipe books are the Magna Carta of successful Indian cooking.

If you start your search for Indian recipe books in Waterstone’s, it doesn’t look too intimidating. Even the bigger branches stock 15-20 curry cookbooks at any one time – normally a smattering of ‘British Celebrity Chef does Curry’ (Hairy Bikers, Gordon Ramsey… take a bow) plus a selection of books by Indian authors. It all looks pretty manageable.

Then you go online, and experience your culinary Big Bang. Like medieval man swapping a geocentric view of the solar system for a glimpse of Planet Earth as a grain of sand on a beach – you realise the ‘curryverse’ is infinite.

Try it for yourself.

Search for a curry cookbook online, click on ‘people also bought’, click again, again, and again… and you’ll never even glimpse the horizon. Splintering off into sub-sections (vegetarian, regional, religious, seasonal, travelogue, historical, nutritional… and many more) there’s an infinity of Indian recipe books out there.

And you want the best of the best.

You want a cookbook that’s perfect for your stage in your ‘curry journey’. You want a book with soul, a book that will give you the alchemical power to cook the most delicious food that you or your friends have ever eaten.

That’s where my next posts will go.

Over the coming days, I’ll review dozens of curry cookbooks under the following themes:

• Getting started (great, simple recipes)
• Multi-country (cuisines of different Asian countries)
• Multi-regional (cuisines of different Indian states)
• Regional (cuisines of individual Indian states)
• Masterclass (gourmet/ restaurant)
• Beyond beyond (historical/ encyclopaedias)

And somewhere on that journey, I promise to review ‘fennel-scented parathas with sugar’ – a pan-fried bread which we cooked at home this week and re-defines the concept of ‘savoury and sweet’. Indescribably delicious.

Can anyone tell me the Hindi for ‘bon appetit’?

It’s a fact that – as a curry cook – you may want to surf across the cuisines of the Middle East and Asia to find the place where your palate says ‘wow’!

If you do, then are some great cookbooks to keep you company.

Feast Bazaar, Where Flavour was Born, and Spice Market all sit on my shelf at home – and each has helped me along my curry journey.

Where Flavour was Born took me on a spice safari from Zanibar to Malaysia and beyond, persuaded me to wear gloves when chopping fresh chilli (a must), and painted an unforgettable picture of the author foraging for fresh tamarind pods among a herd of wild elephants. Feast Bazaar toured me happily through the great dishes of Morocco, Syria and India. Spice Market planned the food journey a different way – with chapters on every seed/ berry/ root and spice known to man – all linked back to great recipes defined by that ingredient.

Each of these books is beautifully illustrated, and packed both with great recipes and insightful curry knowledge. The authors know their curry onions. If you’re hovering between the spicy delights of a Berber tagine, Balinese suckling pig and Cape Malay curry – then you are in perfect company.

But… but… if you’re a ‘masalaholic’ – and your curry journey is all about India – I don’t think these are the books to inspire you.

As a ‘masalaholic’, you want a cookbook that you find yourself devouring cover-to-cover like a novel… an author you want to invite to dinner… and recipes so delicious you want to tattoo them on your chest.

Feast Bazaar, Where Flavour was Born, and Spice Market might inspire you to do one or two of the above.

I guarantee that future cookbooks in Good Korma will inspire you to do all three.