Skip to main content

Book Review: How to cook Indian by Sanjeev Kapoor

Image credit: Monicabhide.com

The books that I have reviewed during the past one year all had something in common, The authors were first & foremost, passionate about food, the history & traditions behind it & ultimately, the art of creating a perfect dish. Reviewing this book has put me into a totally new turf. The author, Chef Sanjeev Kapoor is  the most well known celebrity chef in India and amongst the Indian diaspora worldwide. which clubs him in the exclusive clique of such personalities as Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck & Mario Batali. The task of being objective is made just a tad bit more challenging.

What drove me to buy this book was the curiosity about how Indian cuisine was represented. Its an unfortunate fact that cuisine from Southern India still continues to play second fiddle to its more well known Northern Indian counterpart and this may be partially because it lacks a celebrity force to champion its unique flavors. (Top Chef's Padma Lakshmi may be of South Indian origin, but I'll take the 'fifth' commenting beyond this!).

Chef Kapoor, metaphorically speaking, wears two hats, the first, a chefs toque,  represents his inborn passion for food & its myriad nuances. His blog http://chefsanjeevkapoor.blogspot.com/ is one I look forward to reading as much as I love needling the multitude of fans who throng his facebook page. Its a simple expression of what he believes is the innate goodness in food and its benefits. No frills, plain language. The other hat is that of a glitzy media celebrity focused on selling food as an entertainment commodity,  running a booming hospitality business via his chain of 'Yellow Chilli' restaurants all over India, constantly evaluating publicity aspects, & optimizing monetization strategies. So which hat was he wearing when creating this tome?

Back to the book. To call this a mere recipe book is an understatement. It is a huge compendium, a collection of about 500 recipes,  vegetarian, meat & fish. Given my dietary constraints, I cannot comment on the latter two, so I'll  focus on the vegetarian aspects. The saffron colored cover immediately reminds one of a spicy curry or the South Indian version of the dessert sheera known as 'kesari'. and the careful selection of the text color hints at the various colors of the delectable gravies, that are part of the rich repertoire of recipes contained within.

The book is divided into 15 sections, from the basics which cover fundamentals such as spice mixtures, to desserts. The dishes in each section, for the most part are arranged in alphabetical order of the vegetable they feature as the main ingredient. The one section that is poorly represented w.r.t the others, is the one on rice dishes, a mere 20 odd recipes, with notable omissions of flagship dishes such as Bisibela and the quintessential  South Indian 'Thayir saadham' (Yogurt rice). The book showcases Indian food for what it is, no shortcuts  or substitutions, but resplendent in its magnificent complexity.


To be fair, There is a  representation of cuisines from all four geographical regions of India with an emphasis of using the regional language nomenclature ( notable exceptions being that for Tamarind rice described in Hindi as 'Imli Til ke chawal',-  wondering if that was the neutral choice when faced with 4 different variants of the name among the 4 southern states?). The gastronome in Chef Kapoor  is evident when he talks about the dishes that are close to his heart. The street side chaats of New Delhi & Mumbai, and his self confessed affinity for spinach (a disproportionate number of vegetarian dishes feature this leafy greens, but given his emphasis on the benefits of a vegetarian diet & healthy eating, something that can be overlooked). Being a Punjabi native of Delhi, it is but natural that his version of Punjabi home food does get prioritized, but then that is something all of us can relate to. Also noteworthy is the ample selection of classic gujarati recipes such as Undhiyu & Srikhand, food from his wife, Alyona Kapoor's home state of Gujarat, and gravies such as amti and sabudanyachi vada (deep fried Sago patties) from Maharashtra, the state in which he is currently based.


The entrepreneur in him competes for attention in the form of recipes for specialty dishes that are typically served in restaurants. Dishes that one looks forward to on a special dinner and the like. Noteworthy in this category is the 'Paneer piste ka Salan' or Chandi Korma, a chicken dish garnished with edible silver (Hey, I may never savor this in real life , but its to the chefs credit, that the very description of the recipe kindles a synesthetic jolt!). Detailed S.O.P (Standard Operating Procedure) instructions for such dishes, in my opinion is a double edged sword. On one side, it is a chance to experiment & familiarize oneself with recipes that one can only hope to taste outside the home, and the flip side, it negates the aura of the dining experience. It seems too much of a coincidence that the menu list of one of New York city's newest restaurants Tulsi , reads like a subset of the books Table of Contents. (Note to self: If I get a 'stinker' mail from Chef Hemant Mathur of Tulsi, this is why!!). I'd like to assume that its a testimonial to Chef Kapoor's reputation.

In conclusion: A well balanced input from the  chef & celebrity. Priced at USD 29.95, this book makes for a good value for the content, even for a hardcore  vegetarian like me who's never going to go past reading half the recipes. The book is available at through Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com & other book stores through out the USA.



My homage 'Panfusine' recipe from this book has already been created, photographed & devoured, and will be the topic of my next post.

Comments

  1. I;ve been eyeing that book ever since I saw it on Monica's website! So cool to get your copy autographed! I treasure such cookbooks :)

    Btw, I got that puttu maker from Kerala. I'm sure you will find it in other Southern States as well...it's by a brand Anna Aluminium.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks ria I've been eyeing one of these ever since I bought Ammini Ramachandrans book Grains greens & grated coconuts absolutely awesome book
    ...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Loved ur review...very insightful, objective and well written!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to hear feedback from you, your thoughts, ideas and suggestions.

Popular posts from this blog

Sputtering back....

I seriously feel like this scene from the movie 3 idiots .. remember this one? The way I kept racking up drafts and eventually stopped doing that as well. Lulled into complacence by the quick high from Instagram posts. Recipe measurements hastily scribbled into a Moleskine notebook faithfully depending upon my moods. The truth is that I keep over thinking the backstories needed to make the post more interesting while in reality the truth is that ideas and inspirations just occur spontaneously (like little itches , sneezes or twitches) whenever the opportunity happens to strike. Some really cool ideas that scare the beejeezus out of me and yet prove to be utterly delightful and simple in the end. Others, that seem so trivial that I feel it wouldn't be worth crowing about -- even if there are enough other recipes in that genre that get so much publicity simply because the author happens to have the right marketing knack. So in the past 4 years that I've been

Product Review: Ninja Mega Kitchen system and a recipe for Masala Dosa

 One of the biggest reasons for attending conferences is the priceless experience of meeting fellow bloggers and get an invaluable exposure to all things  culinary. This includes vendors with new products to savor and get inspiration from. I had no complaints about whatever appliances I had for making traditional Dosa (Traditional South Indian rice & lentil crepes) batter, a sturdy tabletop stone grinder that you could add the Urad dal, turn the timer on , and 30  minutes later, come back to a container full of fluffy, batter with the consistency of whipped egg whites. The The cons of this is the cleaning up, of the various parts, the roller, the grinding bin, the multiple trays on which the rollers need to be placed while transferring the rice & lentil batter, the invariable drips of thick batter on the counter.... you get the point, It takes quite a bit of time. I was pleasantly surprised when the appliance company, Ninja asked me if I'd like to try any of their

Pickling & preserving the Buddha's Hand!

 Got your attention with that sacrilegious sounding title on this post, didn't I? Well, I'm as spiritual as the next person out there, and never in my life will I ever commit that variety of Blasphemy, so nothing to fret about. I still wonder why these curious looking citrus entities (other than the obvious visual reason) were called such. It turns out that these fruits are used as a religious offering to the Buddha. My neighboring Whole Foods Market (which is quite some distance away, in Princeton) had a stock of these weird looking citrus and I must have been the oddball customer who immediately went cuckoo on spotting them. Since I had never seen one before, I immediately went for the biggest fruit with the most tentacles (since they were sold as individual units rather than by weight) The first three 'tentacles' were peeled off for their zest, dried in the oven and went into making a citrus salt for my Food52 Secret Santa .     Making