Six Spices: A Simple Concept of Indian Cooking

Shortly after I became a vegetarian, I became very bored of bland vegetables and beans. Then one of my friends kept bringing her mother's Indian cooking over and I was instantly in love and decided vegetarian dishes really can taste much better than meat dishes. Whenever I asked her for the recipes, she would say they were very complicated or I would never find the ingredients or she doesn't even know because none of it is written down. So I began my own search for vegetarian Indian recipes and was becoming very frustrated at the laundry list of ingredients they all required. Stumbling across this book was a true blessing. Here's what I love about this book: - ORGANIZATION: This cookbook has the best organization of any cookbook I have seen. Each chapter features a cooking technique and all the recipes from the chapter use this technique. Each chapter also has similar types of recipes (like Chapter 2 is mostly vegetables, Chapter 3 is mostly dals, etc.). At the beginning of each chapter is a short list of spices and fresh ingredients. As long as you have these on hand, most recipes will only require one or two additional ingredients. - INFORMATIVE AND CONCISE: The author provides enough information without making the reading overwhelming. Each chapter begins with an introduction and helpful tips necessary to make the recipes in that chapter. Then each recipe has an English name and Indian name and a sentence or two on how to prepare and serve the recipe. The last chapter called Tips and Techniques has a lot of useful information too, and should probably be read first. This cookbook is more than just a book of recipes. - UNIQUE RECIPES: The recipes are similar enough to each other that you do not need an abundance of ingredients, yet they are all very unique. I really like how the author focuses on changing the main ingredient but keeping the spices relatively consistent. This allows you to eat a variety of different foods without spending too much money on ingredients you rarely use. - EASY TO FIND INGREDIENTS: While there are some ingredients which can only be found in Indian grocery stores, this book uses relatively few compared to other books I've seen. The ingredients used in this book which are not easy to find are: ghee, asafetida, curry leaves, paneer, and some dals. There are some other ingredients, but they don't appear in many recipes. - VEGGIE-FRIENDLY: This isn't a book for vegans, but vegetarians will love it. When I was first looking for an Indian cookbook, I was limiting my search to books with vegetarian in the title. I'm glad I broadened my search because this book is nearly all vegetarian recipes. The meat recipes are almost all in Chapter 5, leaving Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 6 full of vegetarian recipes. There are great seasoned vegetables ranging from corn and potatoes to okra and mustard greens. There's a recipe for almost all beans and dals. - LOOK AND DESIGN: The book is very pretty and colorful. It has pictures throughout but you can tell they are not used as fillers. The book conveniently lies flat so that it's easy to read while cooking. The font and layout for the recipes is consistent and readable. This book is one of my two favorite Indian cookbooks. My other favorite is Flavors of India by Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff. Happy cooking :)

We love Indian food and I wanted to get a gentle introduction to cooking it. Starting with 6 spices seemed a good way to do that. That turned out to be spot on. In the 3 weeks i've had this book I've tried 10 recipes. While not all of them will become favorites, not a one was less than good. This book isn't just about reproducing authentic Indian food, but more about using Indian style cooking and flavors with ingredients I can get at the local market. That's fine. Since I've never been to India, i wouldn't know authentic if it bit me. I do know when I'm getting tasty food and with that Neeta Saluja comes through. What's more, the recipes are straight forward to prepare. Also, the instructions are clear. I would appreciate photos of each dish, but that's a minor quibble and doesn't distract from my enthusiastic recommendation of this cookbook. Another plus is that many of the dishes are vegetarian, and I've been wanting to move more in that dietary direction. What I don't want is to simply substitute tofu and soy meat for things I'm used to eating. Yuck. With the new tastes I'm experiencing and with dishes that are intended to take advantage of their natural ingredients, the lack of meat is not taste a problem at all. Healthy is a byproduct of good food, not an idea imposed upon dishes that weren't developed for vegetable based ingredients.

This is an excellent introduction to use different types of cooking by blooming spices on to Indian cooking. It really depends how each dish or recipe is being prepared, cooked with varying degree of spices, chili powders, and other unique herbs and ingredients. I enjoyed this book especially decoding different techniques on indian cooking. This is the book that I am looking for since I knew an Indian chef who knows how to flavor well his cooking with only 6 spices. I am a garde manger by profession but I am.also a food blogger that makes recipes, new techniques to make simple & great food.

These recipes are clearer and easier to follow than any other Indian cookbook I've used -- and the food tastes really good! I should know -- my family is from India and my mom is a good cook! The author's explanations of different ways to prepare spices (dry mixes, wet pastes, roasting, etc.) gave me a better understanding Indian cooking. This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to cook Indian food.

Good info, easy to follow

We moved from a major metropolitan area with world class ethnic cuisine readily available, to a more remote area with few "world class" restaurants of any kind. This book has helped us to satisfy our craving for great Indian food. I have made more recipes from this book than Julia Childs' book. It is so great the way the techniques are broken down, and it really motivates experimentation. I now own a masala dabba, and love using it. If you like to cook, and love Indian food, don't hesitate. Buy this book!

really simplified Indian cooking - breaks down which spices add flavor to the oil before adding vegetables, which spices to add during the cooking and at the end. surprised to learn how few spices are actually used to make these delicious dishes.

I've had the cookbook for 2 weeks and have tried 5 recipes from it. All were tasty, easy, and definitely going on the "repeat" list. Things I like: The formatting of the book. The majority of the recipes fit on one page, so there is no getting lost when flipping between pages. There are a lot of pictures to motivate and inspire. The ingredients are all readily available in my central Canadian city. An ingredient and a recipe index. While there are meat recipes in the book, the majority is vegetarian and I would be comfortable recommending this to vegetarians.

This has become my "Go to" cookbook for Indian cooking as it has a unique and winning structure so you learn and understand how to create deep flavours with few ingredients - a far cry from other Indian cookbooks where the list of ingredients will frighten many and too expensive. Not so with this book. I have cooked good curries for years and have benefited from living in the region for years too but my Indian cooking has improved in depth and complexity in flavour thanks to this book - and with much simpler and faster methods than in all my other recipe books. This book therefore beats the more complex cookbooks on the market because Neeta Saluja uses relatively few, ordinary/cheap and accessible ingredients and spices but more importantly the structure of the book is built up so you actually learn how different basic Indian cooking approaches are built up to achieve deep flavours with few ingredients. Armed with this knowledge of how to build up depth in the curries e.g. you can expand and create variations from there, substituting ingredients etc. Although it is very much southern Indian recipies the knowledge easily translates to other Indian regional recipies. The mild flavouring is great to begin with - I have ended up increasing the amounts of spices to get the flavours we like. I can highly recommend the book to anyone who wants to create genuine flavours and depth in their curries and other Indian food..

Me encanta! lo recomiendo para aprender a usar las especias en la cocina india y perderle el miedo. Las recetas, comprensibles y con ingredientes accesibles para todos. Un libro sin pretensiones que te cambia la manera de ver la cocina india..ahora hasta me parece sencilla y todo! muy recomendable!.

Love this book! And plan on making many of the tasty recipes!

My sister, who had just returned from a holiday in India loves this book. I bought it along with the spice tin and spice spoons, so it made it a nice present...I think