cover image Regional Indian Cooking

Regional Indian Cooking

Ajoy Joshi, Alison Roberts. Periplus Editions, $24.95 (176pp) ISBN 978-0-7946-5025-4

India is a vast country, whose regionally and culturally diverse inhabitants have different culinary traditions. This volume, while not comprehensive, is a good introduction to distinct Indian cooking styles; beautifully photographed and stylishly designed, it's also user-friendly enough for cooks who don't know coriander from coconut. Representing West India are such curry house favorites as oily Onion Pakoras, spicy with chili powder and garlic; and hearty, soupy Red Lentil Dal. Goan-Style Lamb , which can also be made with beef or goat meat, is fork-tender and unctuous. The chapter on East India features several appealing seafood dishes, like fragrant Fish In Mustard Oil With Five Spices and finger-licking Fried Fish With Tomatoes. South India offers filling vegetarian dishes, including Stuffed Eggplant and addictive Fried Potatoes with Dill. The most unexpected desserts are northern India's Warm Apple Pudding and central India's Bread And Butter Pudding, both tasty reminders of India's colonial past. The volume also includes a brief discussion of ""the elements and how they affect your dining pleasure,"" alongside a perhaps more practical guide to unusual ingredients. While it's interesting to know how the element of air might affect one's meal, it's almost certainly more helpful to know how cumin will do the same.