Product Description

A unique, stunningly produced Indian cookbook, featuring the French créole cuisine of Pondichèry in southern India.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #593967 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Though the close-up photographs of tandoori grilled prawns and a chef holding a skewer of seven large eggplants are both beautiful and amusing, cooks won't be laughing after they've spent hours making mushy and bland Smoked Aubergine Crush (Rougail D'Aubergine) or incendiary and acidic Bombay Style Potatoes (Bombay Aloo). The premise seems promising: the book is based on the award-winning London restaurant of the same name where the food is inspired by French Creole pockets in India's regional cuisine. Hence, Tandoori Foie Gras. Sounds stimulating, but these recipes are better suited to restaurant than home cooking. The deep fryer dominates the hors d'oeuvres chapter; a live coal is recommended to smoke the foie gras. Many recipes use components that need to be prepared ahead of time (there are no cooking time estimates included with the recipes), like boiled onion sauce in the recipe for the sour cilantro-based Green Fish Curry (Nilgiri Machi)-the recipe is found 60 pages later and produces twice the amount needed. Trying to use up the sauce? The index is worthless. Spotty conversions will frustrate American cooks; the recipe for Kerala Chicken Stew lists "200 g potatoes, peeled and cut into 2.5 cm/1 in cubes." However, the pictures are oddly appealing-an abstract shot of a torn-apart lobster faces the recipe for Char-Grilled Lobster (Lobster Anarkali)-making this a book better suited for the coffee table than the kitchen.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Publisher
The acclaimed La Porte des Indes restaurants in London and Brussels offer a style of cooking inspired by the créole cuisine of French colonial India. Dishes like Scallops in Saffron Sauce, Roasted Duck Breasts in Banana Leaf, and Crushed Basmati Rice and Clotted Cream Pudding blend French and Indian ingredients and flavors to dazzling effect. In La Porte des Indes Cookbook, Executive Chef Mehernosh Mody presents the restaurants’ very best recipes, as well as other regional specialties from across the subcontinent. Introductory chapters cover the ingredients and equipment used in Indian cooking, as well as native teas and compatible wines. These are followed by more than 80 recipes for hors d’oeuvres, soups, fish and seafood, meat and poultry, vegetables, rice and bread, chutneys and sauces, and desserts. Throughout, gorgeous photographs capture the sumptuousness of the finished dishes.

About the Author
Mehernosh Mody graduated from the Bombay Catering College and joined the Taj group of hotels where he gained experience in all types of cuisine; Indian and European, before being recruited as Executive Chef of La Porte des Indes restaurant in Brussels. He moved to the London branch when it opened in 1997. He appears regularly on television food programmes, including UK Food Live. Joint author of the book is John Hellon, a restaurant critic and food writer based in Brussels. He is the author of Brussels Fare (Logos, Belgium), the Blue Elephant Cookbook (Pavilion) and the translator into English of the Comme Chez Soi Cookbook.

Customer Reviews

Transform your Indian adventure with this book
Imagine a twist on traditional Indian faire, namely one with a resounding French influence. I was so taken by the outstanding cuisine of this London restaurant that describes itself as "Indian Cuisine with a Difference" I pined for their cookbook. My five year wait is over. Is it ever impressive!

I had never dreamed that I could create credible tandoori grilled salmon or prawns on my own outdoor grill at home by following the recipes described in the cookbook. The grilled prawns are such an absolute knock out that unsuspecting dinner guests who instinctively must reach for cocktail sauce find themselves instead reaching for yet another grilled prawn! The green fish curry made with monkfish, with its novel presentation, was another succulent dish expertly nailed.

Tadka Dal (tempered yellow lentils) and Yellow Lentil Soup are other dishes prepared that our guests readily savor. They also made delightful autumn themed additions to our table, what with the blend of yellows, reds and greens.

Mehermosh and Sherin Mody have compiled an exquisite work that is easy to follow and even includes recipes for a number of delectable chutneys and sauces that greatly complement certain foods. Many superb photographs visually accompany dozens of recipes. They sent me scurrying to my local Indian spice shop to round out my spice cabinet. And, I now keep on hand lots of fresh garlic!

Whether one's experience level with Indian cuisine is novice or sophisticated, one will find the cookbook easy to follow and informing. For me, it was well worth the wait. For my friends who cook, well, let's just say they have tasted their way into ordering their own copy of the La Porte des Indes Cookbook!

A Little French Influence on Indian Cuisine, Magnifique!
La Porte des Indes Cookbook is one of my favorite cookbooks and I have scores of Indian cookbooks, as I'm sort of a gourmet chef. I wrote a cooking column for a sailing magazine for a couple years and one of my favorite articles was my "Two Ways to Tandoori" which you can read in one of my "Amazon So You'd Like to Guides," if you want. Tandoori chicken is just delicious. Anyway, while I was making the guide, I listed fifty cookbooks from my collection. I have more. I know, I know, one would think a couple books would be enough, but it's sort of an obsession with me, making food taste great and I just love to see how others have done it.

While I was doing the guide, I pulled out all my Indian Cookbooks, had them all stacked around me. Then I decided to pull out all the ones I didn't think I could live without. It came to an even dozen and La Porte des Indes Cookbook was one of the books. The recipes are just divine. I've never been to India, been a lot of places, but never there. Delhi, Bombay, Ganges, names that just ring with adventure. I imagine I'm there every time I cook up something Indian. I can feel the smells as they wrap their delicious flavors all around the kitchen, or galley, if I'm cooking on board the sailboat my husband Dub and I live on half the year. You won't go wrong with this book. Check it out. Check out my other eleven too. Cook up something from India tonight, taste the adventure.

Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne