At Home with Madhur Jaffrey

Starred review from May 31, 2010
Legendary chef, notable actress, and prolific author Jaffrey demystifies Indian cuisine for the home cook in this appealing and flavorful collection. Jaffrey highlights dishes that are simple, straightforward, and ideal for time-pressed cooks by utilizing simpler methods and fewer steps than traditionally used. Her recipes hail mostly from India but also from southern Asia and reflect the diversity of this large geographical area. From chickpeas for nibbling or chicken mulligatawny soup to eggplant with fennel and cumin, she showcases easy-to-make dishes with readily accessible ingredients. She offers a wide array of fish and seafood dishes including spicy stir-fry shrimp, mussels in a creamy coconut sauce, and squid curry. Jaffrey also includes chapters on eggs and poultry, meat, rice and grains, and desserts. Not surprisingly, sections on vegetables, dal, and chutneys are especially tantalizing, with South Indian–style green beans, potato chaat with variations, green lentils with green beans and cilantro, black-eyed peas with butternut squash, and peanut chutney with sesame seeds. With more than 30 color photos, this book is as attractive as it is appetizing, and Jaffrey's legions of fans will eagerly embrace her newest compilation.

September 15, 2010

James Beard Award winner Jaffrey (Indian Cooking) explicitly spells out the goal of her new cookbook--to help readers and home cooks successfully create Indian dishes by using simplified methods and recipes. The harried pace of everyday life led her to take this approach, and she unapologetically embraces shortcuts such as using canned products and microwave ovens. The recipes are generally under one page in length, and many of the ingredients will be readily found without resorting to specialty stores. Jaffrey establishes that she intends to hold the reader's hand, and while this sometimes results in a grandmotherly tone and cozily subjective descriptions (What makes paprika "nice"?), it is likely that readers will find many easy gems to enjoy time and again. VERDICT An accessible and approachable set of recipes with dishes to suit every taste. This could also be a springboard to more complex cooking for the adventuresome.--Peter Hepburn, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2010
Jaffrey adds to her already considerable output with a very attractive new cookbook of easily prepared, thoughtful, and unusual dishes from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Anyone looking to explore Indian cooking for the first time will find this volume uniquely helpful. Jaffrey limits ingredients in most recipes to fewer than a dozen, and she restrains the range of required spices to a small handful that can generally be bought in any decently stocked supermarket. In addition to the sorts of stewed vegetable dishes typical of Indian cooking, there are meat and seafood offerings less generally recognized. Lamb shanks braise in an aromatic sauce. She even offers pork sausage patties. Cooks who dont ordinarily consider Indian cuisine at home may be intrigued by Jaffreys inventory of appetizers such as spicy popcorn and perfumed almonds, which present unexpected flavors that will wow as preprandial snacks or between-meal munchies.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)