The Best of Indian Cooking [antikvár]

This booic is intended for those who enjoy Indian-style food and would like to learn to cook it for themselves, their family and friends. It covers a wide range of basic recipes and cooking methods, as well as providing serving suggestions and recipes for traditional accompaniments. The entertaining seaion (p. 9 ) gives ideas for cooling drinks to serve with hot curries, and guidelines for Indian-style dinner parties.Wherever possible, curry recipes have been listed with a hot, medium or mild rating.All the ingredients used are readily available in supermarkets, grocery stores and shops specialising in spices or Eastern foods, and the instructions are given in simple, step-by-step form.It is not necessary to buy a wide range of exotic ingredients (which wiU perhaps be used only occasionally) to make the recipes in this book. The spices and inpedients on page 7 that are marked with an asterisk (*) are those used most often. Once these are at hand, you will be able to complete most of the recipes in the book.Alternatives have been suggested for spices and foods which you may not have. If no alternative is mentioned in the recipe itself, check through Basic Ingredients (on the following pages) where possible substitutions are listed after the description of each foodstuff. Substitutions will not always give the same flavour to a dish as the original ingredients, but they will go part of the way towards it. (An exception is the substitution of evaporated milk for cream of coconut. Obviously these flavours are not similar. The alternative is intended for people who do not like the taste of coconut. The evaporated milk balances the recipe and gives a creamy effect without a strong coconut flavour.)For many people who are just beginning to cook Indian dishes, the idea of working with strange spices can seem rather daunting. But in fact a few of the spices will be quite familiar cloves and cinnamon, for example, and perhaps chilli, paprika and ginger. The interested cook will soon learn to recognise and work confidently with cumin, coriander, turmeric, cardamom and the rest.Spices should be as fresh as possible. It has been assumed in the recipes that most spices are to be used in powder form. They can be bought by weight at health-food stores and shops which specialise in Indian foods, or, more expensively, in jars and packets in supermarkets and grocery stores. If you intend to use the spices infrequently, buy only a small quantity at a time. Keep spices in tightly capped jars to keep them fresh.When using spices, remember that they need to be cooked to produce their rich, distinctive flavours. It is unwise to add extra spices at the end of the cooking, in order to change or correct the taste of the dish. The spices will taste 'raw' and will conflict with the tastes of the cooked spices.