Popping in to say hello on a busy day, and to tell you this is AWESOME and another new favourite. It takes about 1.5 to cook (mostly reducing the sauce for an intense flavour). Another winner from #FromGujaratWithLove

Lasaniya Batata, Garlic and Potato Curry, from the Kathiyawadi region.

#IndianFood #GujaratiFood #FromTheKitchen #WhatIAmCooking

🧵 4/Mumbai Modern/Amisha Dodhia Gurbani ⬆️

(cont.) All in all it is a very thoughtful book, written and laid out with discipline, and no doubt, good editing by the publisher.

This is a book for those interested in Indian food, and like the crossover of flavours from India to the West, and vise versa.

Recommended.

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🧵 3/Mumbai Modern/Amisha Dodhia Gurbani ⬆️

(cont). And Oh! The recipes! It is unashamedly American, with sliders, for example, and ingredients like Monterey cheese. But we can forgive her and find our own style within her recipes.

The recipes are disciplined. They begin with an extensive introduction, explaining the place in Indian (or other) food, memories and family thoughts. The ingredients and instructions are well laid out, and divided into sections when necessary.

There are recipes that don't appear often in Indian cookbooks - Grilled Bombay Sandwich 🤤 , Vegetarian Frankies 😋 Ragda Pattice 😋 🤤

There are American-ised dishes - Ultimate Mumbai-California Veggie Burger, Squash Blossom Tacos with Kachumber Salsa, Indian-ised Pizzas, Corn Mushroom Tomato Chilli Cheese Danish, Aloo Tikki Aranchini.

The cakes and desserts move more away from India and more towards the US, but that just reflects the author's love of baking.

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🧵 1/Mumbai Modern/Amisha Dodhia Gurbani ⬆️

(cont). The book is quite thick and without any attached bookmark ribbons. It lies reasonably flat when opened. Not perfect, but sufficiently so. The paper is probably conducive to ink-based comments and definitely for biro or pencil.

The Table of Contents lists the recipes under chapter headings ✅ and they are arranged by course. Unusually the Snacks chapter is the last one, not first, although the Appetisers chapter includes some dishes that I'd class as snacks.

There is an excellent and extensive introduction to Indian food, spices, equipment, techniques etc at the beginning of the book (28 pages).

The index seems comprehensive enough and includes Indian names for dishes.

The photographs are plentiful and indeed mouth-watering. They are a little chefy-style and I love them.

⬇️ (to be continued...)

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🧵 1/Mumbai Modern/Amisha Dodhia Gurbani

After the disappointment I felt keenly with yesterday's book, I am glad to say I have a fab cookbook for you. It is a marriage of traditional Gujarati cuisine, Mumbai street food, and modern innovation inspired by the bountiful fresh ingredients on offer in the author's current home base in California. A fusion-ish type of book, but pretty fabulous. PLUS it is completely #vegetarian. 💃

Mumbai Modern: Vegetarian Recipes Inspired by Indian Roots and California Cuisine, by Amisha Dodhia Gurbani
Published: 2021
Publisher: Countryman
Pages: 400
Price: Around $45AU, but always check around as prices vary. Ebooks can be cheaper.

100 recipes - all vegetarian, as mentioned 💃

Another Gujarati book! This is the fourth (?) I have reviewed recently. Clearly there is excellent food in Gujarat.

This book presents as a little chefy, although not intimidatingly so. But Gurbani writes about herself: "I am a recipe developer, food photographer and a food stylist, in that order. I am an extremely passionate home cook, who loves to cook all dishes vegetarian, crazy about baking (yes, I bake a lot at night!), jamming and creating healthy, nourishing, fresh meals for my family."

She writes for the food section of the SF Chronicle newspaper, in a column called Modern Vegetarian. Her website is here: https://thejamlab.co

⬇️ (to be continued...)

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🧵 3/ Masala: Recipes from India, The Land of Spices/ Anita Jaisinghani ⬆️

There are so many dishes to love in this book. Pakoda, spicy salads, a cactus curry!, dals, soups. Some Indo-Chinese dishes. The dishes come from or are inspired by many regions of India, but all have the trademark Gujarati simplicity.

Recommended for those who want to push their knowledge of spices to a new level, people who love Indian and Indian-influenced cooking and people who get excited by pushing the boundaries of their cooking repertoire.

#cookbookReviews #cookbooks #cookbookReview #LTCCookbookReviews #cooking #Masala #AnitaJaisinghani
#IndianFood #GujaratiFood

🧵 2/ Masala: Recipes from India, The Land of Spices/ Anita Jaisinghani ⬆️

There is much to love in this book. I love that she calls curry leaves as kari leaves (far more correct that curry leaves) but am disappointed that she calls some dishes like dals and bean dishes as "stews". For a book that is so educational, it is a pity that that approach has not also carried through with the recipe nomenclature. I guess she needs to appeal to the American market.

The paper is beautifully matt, so excellent for note jotting and inspirational thoughts.

There is a quick Table of Contents with chapter names - the recipes are divided by dish type - and also a second ToC that also lists the recipe names. A big ✔️ for that. The index is extensive.

It does not have an in-book bookmark, sadly. A book of this size needs 2 at least.

⬇️
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#IndianFood #GujaratiFood

🧵 1/ Masala: Recipes from India, The Land of Spices/ Anita Jaisinghani

The third in the pile of 4 Indian cookbooks that I am reviewing (and running a little behind on). Surprisingly, this is also a book whose author is also from Gujarat! That's the 3rd book in recent times highly influenced by the wonderful Gujarati cuisines.

This book is increasing in chefy-ness, also as promised. Anita runs Pondicheri restaurant in Houston, Texas. An interesting name - Pondicherri (now reverted to Puducherry) is a beautiful town in Tamil Nadu with huge french influences due to French colonisation.

Masala: Recipes from India, The Land of Spices, by Anita Jaisinghani
Published: 2022
Publisher: Affirm Press
Pages: 304
Price: Around $40AU, but always check around as prices vary. Ebooks can be cheaper.

171 recipes, 120 of which are meat-, fish- and egg-free. Not a bad ratio. 👯

This book will change the way you think about spices. It begins with a huge (and fascinating) 70 pages of information about India, India's food history, the Indian approach of food as medicine, Ayurveda and its 6 tastes (Sweet, Salty, Sour, Astringent, Pungent and Bitter), key spices and more....

It is not a book of traditional Indian recipes, although many are there, and not quite in the genre of #ModernIndianFood. Its very interesting approach is to take the spices, and therefore flavours, of India and create dishes that could be Indian.

The book feels like a reference book. It is, at the same time, like a book you'd find in a chef's kitchen, and a teaching/informing book with information about each recipe and its ingredients. MANY RECIPES HAVE NOTES FOR A PLANT-BASED VERSION. 💯

There are not as many photos in this book, although there are still plenty.

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#IndianFood #GujaratiFood

🧵 3/ Plant-Based India: Nourishing Recipes Rooted in Tradition/ Dr. Sheil Shukla ⬆️

Note that Shukla spells dal as dal (https://mastodon.au/@LifeTimeCooking/110521413501643592), more specifically dāl, the most correct transliteration imo.

Another aspect that I adore about this book is that he introduces and humanises his recipe testers some pages devoted to them and their favourite recipes from the book. Thank you Sheil. SO MANY authors these days do minimal testing. HE USES 39 TESTERS!

The recipes are straight forward with sufficient instructions. They are introduced with a paragraph about the recipe or dish, or some memories associated with it.

There are some real favourite recipes in this book, but also many that you might not have been exposed to before. I am loving the Kale (or spinach) and Broccoli Pudla! Pudla is a favourite of mine, a chickpea flour pancake. He amps up the nutrition with the vegetable inclusions.

Pasta is a newly introduced and much loved addition to Indian cuisines (usually overcooked by our standards), and he includes a delicious looking Creamy Chilli Pasta. Thankfully this one uses pasta cooked according to package instructions.

Another innovation are the Masala Dosa Rolls. Imagine these for a picnic.

The Sambar (spelt sāmbār) uses drumstick vegetables, my favourite along with eggplant sambar.

Honestly, I love everything about this book, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It is recommended for everyone!! At least all of you beautiful people that love eating and cooking Indian food,

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🧵 2/ Plant-Based India: Nourishing Recipes Rooted in Tradition/ Dr. Sheil Shukla ⬆️

The book begins with around 20 pages of introductory notes on nutrition, the Indian Pantry (in an informative table style), and notes on Indian cooking. I especially love the inclusion of eno, under Misc in the Pantry section - the fruit salt but also a little known leavening agent used extensively in India.

In general you could put this into my category of #ModernIndian cuisines - I have covered a couple of such books lately - books that take traditional recipes, treat them with great respect but update them to modern fashions/ preferences and common ingredients.

Have I mentioned the photography? Outstanding. Each recipe has its own temptful, mouth-watering pic.

And I absolutely adore that traditional names for dishes are kept where appropriate, without accompanying translated names. We should respect the food of other cultures and aim to build some fluency in the cuisine languages.

The Table of Contents is one to love, with each dish included. The index is extensive and looks workable.

⬇️

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🧵 2/ Plant-Based India: Nourishing Recipes Rooted in Tradition/ Dr. Sheil Shukla

A little while ago I reviewed From Gujarat with Love, a cookbook I fell in love with (https://mastodon.au/@LifeTimeCooking/110466347620082545). Today I have another cookbook based mainly around Gujarati food, and guess what!! I love it. 😍

This is the second of four Indian cookbooks I am currently reviewing.

Plant-Based India: Nourishing Recipes Rooted in Tradition, by Dr. Sheil Shukla
Published: 2022
Publisher: Affirm Press
Pages: 256
Price: Around $45AU, expensive for a cookbook these days, but always check around as prices vary. Ebooks can be cheaper.

99 RECIPES AND ALL OF THEM #VEGAN / #VEGETARIAN 💃 🎈 🙌 💯

Now, I am not such a fan of modern terms like #PlantBased, #ProduceForward instead of good old healthy eating terms, but I'll get used to it. And I understand the commercial aspect of cookbooks and target markets. And I will certainly forgive it for this book.

Dr. Shukla is a medical doctor with.a passion for nutrition. He focused on Gujarati food because that is his background, but also because it's simple approach lends itself to nutritious eating. It generally consists of a vegetable dish, a dal, a grain (usually rice) and roti, a wholemeal flatbread. So it is a great palette for interesting, tasty, fabulous plant-forward food.

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