Mangoes & Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent
Jeffrey Alford, Naomi DuguidHome cooks discover the Tibetan-influenced food of Nepal, the Southeast Asian tastes of Sri Lanka, the central Asian grilled meats and clay-oven breads of the northwest frontier, the vegetarian cooking of the Hindus of southern India and of the Jain people of Gujarat. It was just twenty years ago that cooks began to understand the relationships between the multifaceted cuisines of the Mediterranean; now we can begin to do the same with the foods of the Subcontinent.
From Publishers Weekly. With their most recent cookbook, Home Baking, the authors of Seductions of Rice and Hot Sour Salty Sweet strayed slightly from the kind of pungent Asian food that is their strength, but they're back on track with this paean to the subcontinent, which they've been visiting separately and together since the 1970s.
The many dals, like soupy Easy Karnataka Chana with chickpeas and salads like Nepali Green Bean-Sesame Salad are simple and terrific. Entrees are often spicy and always authentic, like Goan Pork Vindaloo, made by rubbing a vinegar-spice paste into the meat. A chapter on street foods is full of promising tidbits, including the suggestion that readers make fried foods such as Mushroom Pakoras with Fresh Herb Chutney for guests (so long as they don't mind spending a whole lot of time in the kitchen).
Reading Alford and Duguid's chatty text and headnotes is like receiving envy-inducing postcards from a college friend who never gave up backpacking—if you have the sort of friends
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