La Porte Des Indes Cookbook: The Legacy of France in Indian Regional Cuisine

Though the close-up photographs of tandoori grilled prawns and a chef holding a skewer of seven large eggplants are both beautiful and amusing, cooks won't be laughing after they've spent hours making mushy and bland Smoked Aubergine Crush (Rougail D'Aubergine) or incendiary and acidic Bombay Style Potatoes (Bombay Aloo). The premise seems promising: the book is based on the award-winning London restaurant of the same name where the food is inspired by French Creole pockets in India's regional cuisine. Hence, Tandoori Foie Gras. Sounds stimulating, but these recipes are better suited to restaurant than home cooking. The deep fryer dominates the hors d'oeuvres chapter; a live coal is recommended to smoke the foie gras. Many recipes use components that need to be prepared ahead of time (there are no cooking time estimates included with the recipes), like boiled onion sauce in the recipe for the sour cilantro-based Green Fish Curry (Nilgiri Machi)-the recipe is found 60 pages later and produces twice the amount needed. Trying to use up the sauce? The index is worthless. Spotty conversions will frustrate American cooks; the recipe for Kerala Chicken Stew lists ""200 g potatoes, peeled and cut into 2.5 cm/1 in cubes."" However, the pictures are oddly appealing-an abstract shot of a torn-apart lobster faces the recipe for Char-Grilled Lobster (Lobster Anarkali)-making this a book better suited for the coffee table than the kitchen.