Maya MacMillan - Curried Favors - 9

Post by **Darb** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:37 pm

Curried Favors: Family Recipes from Southern India

One of my favorite cuisines is Indian ... particularly Southern Indian, which is vastly under-represented in both the number of available cook books and restaurants here on Long Island in America (there are easily 10-15 restaurants and/or cook books focusing on Northern Indian cuisine for every 1 restaurant or book focusing on Southern Indian).

My chief nits about this book are as follows:

1) The Authoress focused almost exclusively on her own family's recipes, which at times left me (as a reader) wishing for more in-depth coverage and representation in areas of the cuisine that she glossed over or neglected entirely. Weighing in at a mere 180 pages, this book comes up a bit light in terms of both scope and depth. She could & should, for instance, have focused less on things like lamb & goat (which is decidedly Northern in emphasis) and focused more of her page count on classic 'southern' ingredients, like seafood based curries & yogurt products (most first time cooks will pull their hair out the first time they try to finish a curry with yogurt, only to have it 'break' on them - the authoress includes no helpful information on why that happens and how to avoid it). The authoress also could have spend more page count on techniques, tips & recipes for working with the (sub)tropical fruits & seasonings native to her region - like coconut, mango, chilies, etc.

2) The authoress, in some of her lamb recipes, makes overly terse statement that ground lamb and ground beef are interchangeable. While certainly true from the perspective of most Westerners, there's some faux pas potential there that the authoress glosses over. Cows are considered sacred throughout many parts of India, and aside from the authoress's home region of Kerala, eating beef is generally considered taboo. Just like you need to be mindful about the potential faux pas of preparing pork or shellfish for Jewish friends, the culturally sensitive reader should be mindful of the same, when it comes to beef for people from India.

3) There's only 1 recipe for pork (vindaloo, in this case, which although excellent, is dangling all alone in this book). I'd have liked to have seen more pork dishes ... as well as some helpful explanation that pork is primarily only eaten in parts of Goa, and that it's generally considered taboo in much of the rest of the country.

These three nits are outweighed by one all important point - TASTE. Most of the recipes I've tried from this book (roughly 20% as of this writing) are all straight forward, well polished, unpretentious, and taste excellent. From me, that's fairly high praise.

Her book also lists ingredients in large print, in logical order. The cooking times are resonable, the instructions are clear and concise, and the binding is generous enough to allow the book to lay open on the counter without splitting or trying to squeeze itself closed. Some of the recipes (although not enough for my preference) even include helpful and exquisite photos - I'd expect nothing less from someone who specializes in food photography.

All in all, despite its shortcomings, this book is well above average, and is recommended by yours truly. It is also a winner of the "Julia Child Cookbook Award", which is a fairly well respected industry award for cookbooks.

Highly recommended

Post by **Darb** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:53 pm

For those who are interested, here's my own personal variant on her recipe for Pulisheri soup on page 54 (her version is built around cucumber and curried buttermilk). She made a 1 line reference, in passing, to a banana version made by her grandmother - I reverse engineered my own version, because the idea sounded very tasty. As it happens, the recipe turned out great, and I've since had several professional chefs friends go gaga for it.

[quote]Origin: My own recipe, inspired by comment made in passing by the authoress of â€œCurried Favorsâ€

Post by **Darb** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 3:22 pm

KVETCH: before I forget, thanks for nudging me about several typos. Fixed.

KVETCH: [EDIT] Thanks again for 2nd round of typos. I deleted the applicable posts to avoid causing a distraction.

Post by **Darb** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 3:36 pm

Say, did I mention that the authoress is drop dead gorgeous ?

Check out page 3 of the pdf photo excerpts from the book.

And unlike Nigella Lawson, she's modest too ... her face appears NOWHERE else on the internet.

Post by **Darb** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:08 pm

Incidentally, I wrote this review today because, by concidence, I cooked a recipe from this book for dinner last night: "Spicy Dhal with Tomatoes", pg. 66. It's become a semi-regular staple in my house, because it's a simple, fast and easy dish that can be made year-round with dried lentils (I use the red 'masoor' variety, which cook up soft and creamy in just 20-25 mins), onion, spices and canned diced tomatoes packed in juice.

I'll post a copy when I get around to typing it up for my recipe log.

Post by **Darb** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 7:03 pm

4th Book Nit (forgot to mention it): most of the "serves" portion sizes for her various recipes are TINY. In general, if she says something served 6-8, the portion size is roughly equivalent to a small thali-sized side dish. Figure that about 3-4 such portions are equivalent to a western-style adult entree.

Post by **Darb** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 7:59 pm

Here's my adaptation of the dhal recipe mentioned above:

[quote]Spicy Dhal with Tomatoes

Origin: Adapted from p.66 of â€œCurried Favorsâ€

Post by **Darb** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 3:26 pm

I really love that dhal recipe - it's so fast and easy, and very tasty. Plus, unlike rice and pasta dishes, I can eat my fill of it without having my blood sugars get tanked by a surge of simple starches (re: lentils are complex carbohydrates, and therefore have a lower glycemic index curve).

Echus Cthulhu Mythos · Tue Jan 18, 2005 3:54 pm

Mmm!!! I love curry.

You rock Brad. I NEED that book!

Post by **Kvetch** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 3:55 pm

I love lentils!

Post by **Darb** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 5:06 pm

Thx.

BTW, if you like stronger flavors, I've seen variants on that dish in which you can intensify it by substituting vegetable stock for the water, and then finish it with a half cup of coconut milk (unsweetened, either light or heavy) at the very end. I usually don't bother, because jazzing up a recipe that, by nature, is one of simple elegance, is counter productive.

I have plenty of other cookbooks that I've yet to enter and review ... and more than a few are Indian, so stay tuned.

p.s. Just because I occasionally engage in a little friendly vegan-bashing doesn't mean I don't love and appreciate vegetarian cuisine.

Post by **Kvetch** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 5:53 pm

p.s. Just because I occasionally engage in a little friendly vegan-bashing doesn't mean I don't love and appreciate vegetarian cuisine.

Post by **Darb** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:09 pm

Comments 2 & 3 in my original review were rewritten, to further clarify regional food taboos.