Indian Cuisine: Authentic Flavors from the Land of Spice

Indian Cuisine is a culinary guide and recipe collection for Indian and Pakistani food curated by Vivek Singh. Due out 6th Oct 2020 from Penguin Random House on their DK imprint, it's 192 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

This is a beautifully presented and thorough guide to the best loved dishes of the Indian subcontinent. Every dish I could think of is represented here in one form or another. There are curries of course, homemade condiments, sauces, meats, and many many vegetarian selections both spicy and mild, biryani, pilau, ghee, naan, roti, and more. 

The layout is very basic and unfussy - easy to understand and accessible. A thorough introduction to ingredients which might not be familiar to western cooks is divided into geographic/cuisine areas North India, South India, and Pakistan.  The recipes are arranged by category: vegetarian, fish, poultry, meat, rice & bread, and staples/sauces/spices (used in other recipes). Many of these are -hearty- dinner dishes that my meat loving family really devoured with relish.

Ingredient measurements are supplied in American measurements, with metric/SI measures in parentheses (yay!).  Nutritional information is not included.  Extra tips or recipe alternatives are listed in sidebars with the recipes. The recipes themselves are fairly straightforward and are mostly made with easily sourced ingredients. The author has included a handy abbreviated glossary in the back of the book, along with a cross referenced index which includes ingredients indexed with their recipes. Regional recipes are also identified in each recipe heading.

The photography is clear and abundant; almost all of the recipes are illustrated, and the serving suggestions are attractive and appropriate. 

This is a large collection of recipes and even allowing for the fact that some of them are similar to others in the same category, this will keep Indian cooking fans going for ages. Many of these are simple "everyday" recipes which are anything but boring. We tried several dishes and all of them were tasty and well written, without discernible errors. Whilst most of the ingredients will be found at any well stocked grocery store, some spices and vegetables will be more easily sourced at a specialist/international food store. 

We're definitely going to try more of these recipes.  Well written book, tasty recipes.

Five stars. This is a solid recipe book which will be used. It would make a superlative housewarming gift to a friend or family member - college student, new graduate, newlyweds, kids flying the nest, etc. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.