Masala: Recipes from India, the Land of Spices

Jaisinghani, chef and owner of Houston’s Pondicheri restaurant, brings an education in microbiology and a passion for the holistic lifestyle known as Ayurveda to bear in this vast and flavorful collection. Creating a “life of balance” by eating the proper foods in the proper combination is key to her approach. She advises, for example, that raw foods should not be eaten with cooked foods because they are “energetically incompatible” and will result in digestive distress. A treatise on Indian cuisine’s essential spices explores their three functions—medicinal, preservative, and seasoning—and includes a handy chart listing flavor characteristics and proper pairings. Breakfast pancakes take a savory turn with avocado mushroom chillas, made with chickpea flour and topped with crumbled feta, while a large sampling of street foods include pomegranate pani poori, as well as samosas filled with potato, crabmeat, or grilled corn. Elsewhere, the Indian societal relationship with eating meat, from sacrilegious act to signifier of wealth, is noted in a fascinating preface to a chapter offering such delicacies as vindaloo ribs and hearty sayel goat. Fruity chutneys, traditional breads, and fragrant rice pilafs round out the work, leaving room for desserts like saffron chocolate bread pudding, washed down, perhaps, with a coconut lassi. Mindfulness and spiritual energy prove to be essential ingredients in this insightful guide. (Aug.)