Book of the Month

Posted on November 22nd, 2007 at 7:29 pm by admin under Books

Modern Indian Cooking
by Hari Nayak and Vikas Khanna

When you flip open the pages of Modern Indian Cooking (Silverback Books 2007) by the dynamic young duo — Hari Nayak and Vikas Khanna, who have co-founded the organization Cooking for Life — you will certainly be dazzled by its artful design and the luscious color food shots.

You’ll also be impressed by the book’s foreword by chef extraordinaire Daniel Boulud, in which he writes:
Vikas Khanna and Hari Nayak have been adding the flavor of India in so many ways to our kitchen and lives. Their passion for the culinary arts and the drive to reach out to the communities around the world have given new dimensions to food.

At this point, you are probably rubbing your hands with great glee, anticipating some contemporary twists to the classical Indian recipe.

But as you start reading the recipes, you will probably have one of four different reactions.

If you are a purist, you will wonder why anyone would use Japanese wasabi in a recipe for lamb kebabs — Wasabi Chili Lamb Kebab — or sprinkle soy sauce into an Indian prawn saute as in the Konkan Chili Prawns.

If you are a grammarian with a copyeditor’s heart, you’ll be flustered by all the inconsistencies in style and recipe editing — is it cinnamon stick or stick cinnamon? — toasted or roasted spices? And how can you measure 2 teaspoons of unchopped cilantro or 1 cup of ungrated coconut?

If you are a serious cook who loves to serve forth elaborate meals, you’ll find frustrating the lack of recipe headnotes that explain the dish, describe how to use unusual ingredients, and give serving tips. You might also miss an introduction or a standard glossary to explain such things as nigella seeds (black onion seeds sold at Indian groceries and are available online) and the kadhai (the Indian cook’s version of the wok). And, if you want to tackle one of the book’s paneer-based dishes, you’ll wish that the recipe for how to make the paneer (Indian fresh cheese like a cross of ricotta with cream cheese) itself comes before many recipes that call for it.

Finally, if you are a light-hearted cook who looks at kitchen work as a weekend activity, you may enjoy experimenting with some of the slightly wacky dishes with offbeat flavor combinations. Maybe wasabi plus hot pepper sauce with ground lamb does make flavor sense, after all.

There are, indeed, plenty of other tempting, if unorthodox, recipes that wake up the taste buds and jolt the senses.

Take the Cashew Coconut Meatballs, for example. Despite its call for 21 ingredients — including fennel seeds and ground fennel, chilies, garlic, and ground turmeric — it reads well and its accompanying photo suggests a promising, flavor-packed, and succulent entree. But what to serve it with? Rice? Noodles? Mashed potatoes?

You may want to kick off your meal with something really unique, such as the Spicy Pan Seared [sic] Scallops with Cilantro Chimmichuri [sic], only to discover that the 1⁄2 pound of sea scallops is set to serve 6. (Hmmmm, maybe 2 servings at best.) You will have better luck with the Ginger and Lemon Grilled [sic] Chicken a few pages over. That calls for 2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breast, also to serve 6. (That’s more like it!)

As for the meal’s conclusion, the Shahi Bread Pudding Bites served with the Spiced Hot Chocolate sound totally decadent, if not totally Indian. But you’ve already decided that this series of recipes is a contemporary take on the Indian kitchen with overt international overtones.

Even more, you’ve already looked up Cooking for Life online and discovered that the organization makes contributions to humanitarian efforts, and that the founders want to bind the world’s people together through gastronomic events. That’s a noble cause, after all.

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November 22nd, 2007