Fresh India: 130 Quick, Easy, and Delicious Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day

Product Information

Here are surprising recipes for every day made using easy to find ingredients: mushroom and walnut samosas, oven-baked onion bhajis and beetroot and paneer kebabs. Over time my hands found a rhythm with the rolling pin and I got a feel for the dough, and now my chapatis are both round and pillow soft, like my mum's. There are no rules, but I've made some suggestions in the introductions to each chapter, or under the recipes themselves, for what will go with what. But when the weekend hits, I love to take my time and make a couple of things, or cook a big batch of dal to last a few days.

Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here. However, in the 10 Ways to Raise Your Game section, N°1 states Taste as You Go; if salt is an issue for you, ignore the quantity specified and TAYG!There is the cheela (here), the ultimate fallback, the gold champion of a snack, a pancake into which you can throw anything, made with every Indian's favorite pantry ingredient, chickpea flour. Often people think the chile should be the hero, but that's rarely true, and especially not when it comes to fresh vegetables. Whole spices last longer because their oils are kept intact, but you'll need to invest in some time in the form of a pestle and mortar, or money in the form of an electric spice grinder.

However, by and large, Indians from bankers to street kids are wobbling their heads at this sort of stuff, and the man on the street still reigns supreme, with his upturned fuel can, selling his freshly made snacks with his dubious health-and-safety credentials. To make the papadums, preheat the oven to 300°F and line a couple of baking pans with lightly oiled foil. Vindaloo doesn’t have to blow your brains out with heat, it has to be flavoursome with a kick and this recipe fits the bill. My mother, born and bred in Italy, I was used to Mediterranean flavours and having travelled to many foreign lands over the years have tasted a multitude of wonderful foods, I am not easily impressed and know what I like and don’t and I like this book very much. Not to mention fire-smoked aubergines, chicken livers in cumin butter masala and beetroot and feta samosas.In this collection, Meera serves up a feast of over 130 delicious recipes collected from three generations of her family: there’s everything from hot chappatis to street food, fragrant curries, to colourful side dishes and mouth-watering puddings. Then there are those snacks which everyone loves and are irritatingly addictive: beet shami kebabs (here) and Darjeeling momos (here). And finally, there are those snacks that I would eat a lot more of, if only they weren't deep-fried. That stated, there is no reason why one can’t modify the ingredients for the more time consuming and possible cholesterol inducing versions (!