The wonderful Hetty Lui McKinnon expresses my benchmark perfectly.
"When I see a cookbook, my first question is: what gap does this book fill? What is its purpose? Is this cookbook 100% unique to the author; could anyone else have written this book?"
At the moment, in the saturated cookbook market, quantity is more prevalent than quality, trends have overcome traditions. I have not been tempted by any cookbooks this year (so far).
I am making a 5-lentil dal for breakfast, called Dal Punj Rattani (The Five Jewels). I often have some sort of grain or lentil for breakfast - millets, chickpeas, kitchari, etc. This one really hits the 3-grains-lentils-etc-per-day goal that Michael Greger advocates 😄 (I don't aim for this, just a mix of grains, lentils etc across the week.)
Recipe is from The Complete Indian Regional Cookbook by Mridula Baljekar.
I am not cooking enough Indian atm - time taken up with fermentation - so I am planning my next one. Stuffed Peppers, Indian Style, by Das Sreedharan who has this recipe in a couple of his cookbooks.
A spicy marinated tofu is out of the freezer for this evening's meal. I love having these packs on hand, and I vary the marinade every time I make packs for the freezer.
#Food #Cookbooks #CookbookBrowsing #IndianFood #FromTheKitchen #WhatIAmCooking #Vegetarian
Vegan Indian Food by Ragini Dey
A bright catchy book with a style more suited to younger cooks than my ancient age. A nice range of recipes.
But I have one hangup about this book. I want to see LOTS of recipes with LOTS of protein in them if a book claims to be "vegan" or "vegetarian" (or similar such as "plant-based"). LOTS. Like maybe 2 dozen in a book this size. There are perhaps 8 or 9 in this book
Ragini is well known in Adelaide, running Ragi's New Deli in Hutt St, and featuring on Ragini's Spice: http://www.raginispice.com.au/#/ She ran The Spice Kitchen for many years, an extremely popular place. It was so successful that they expanded to include Indian cooking and spice-appreciation classes and became renowned for making everything from scratch, right down to the pickles, chutneys and spice mixes.
I met the person who her partner/husband (?) at that time, and after the restaurant closed, and we were good coffee mates until we both shifted and were no longer able to catch up so often. I still run into him occasionally. Lovely to talk spice and cooking adventures with someone who understands.
This is her third book. I hope it does well.
#CookbookBrowsing #Cookbooks #RaginiDev #Vegan #VeganIndianFood #IndianFood
Potatoes are in the instant pot, cooking so I can make a Gujarati potato curry. It's a dry curry, meaning no sauce. Just cubes of potatoes and peas sauteed with
onions, chillies and a beautifully balanced mix of spices.
It reminded me of a comment on my blog years ago, from an irate gentleman. He started to cook one of my Madras curries which was also a dry curry, and he wanted to know where the sauce was, and it wasn't a real curry and so on and so on.
Ah well.
The recipe I am making is from To Gujarat with Love by Vina Patel. It is all in the spice mix 😋
To have with the Dal with Greens I made yesterday.
Come round 🍽️
#FromTheKitchen #whatIAmCooking #whatIAmEating #indianFood #Food #GujaratiFood #CookbookBrowsing
#Ottolenghi's new cookbook will be released later this year - Simple Too. By all accounts, simpler than Simple.
Plus a lovely butternut recipe that is a contender for the book. Butternut Parmesan.
I can relate. Good food does this to you.
A comment on a Sweet Potato Momo recipe from East, by Meera Sodha.
"I tried to follow the recipe, with Ube (purple sweet potato). I got distracted by the world, so it wasn’t exact. And then I was so fried that I talked myself even out of pleating. And then my teenagers left for a Friday night out with teenagers, so I talked myself out of dipping sauce too. But I loved them. A lot. Thank you, Meera. This fed my terrified heart. I can keep going. "
Cookbook browsing ....
I once read that a very senior editor in a top publishing house considers it good going – a downright success, even – if the consumer cooks two recipes from a cookbook they buy. Two!
(Margaret Fulton's daughter writes about cookbooks: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/nov/05/whats-the-point-of-cookbooks-hope-love-and-beauty-but-not-cooking).
I have a determination to not let that happen. I love cookbooks. And I want them to be an active part of my everyday-ness. I love to browse them, just like I might a photograph album. And read them, just like I might a novel.
In sharing my browsings, I hope you too will occasionally get a cookbook down off a shelf. Or from your eReader. Flick through it. Maybe read a recipe or two. Be inspired by them.
But remember, recipes are not reality (like a photo, really). They reflect the author's intent, and that is not always to have you cooking easy, healthy and delicious meals for yourself and your family. Plus, and its a big plus, it is a competitive world, and everyone wants to put out a cookbook. Choose wisely.
So, push and prod those recipes into something that uses what you have or are prepared to purchase, without moving too far away from intent and flavour profiles (unless you are comfortable doing so ).
Ganga