Product Description

Curry is Salmon with Garlic and Turmeric. Curry is Grilled Chicken with Cashew-Tomato Sauce. Curry is Asparagus with Tomato and Crumbled Paneer. Curry is Lamb with Yellow Split Peas, Chunky Potatoes with Spinach, Tamarind Shrimp with Coconut Milk, Baby Back Ribs with a Sweet-Sour Glaze and Vinegar Sauce, Basmati Rice with Fragrant Curry Leaves. Curry is vivid flavors, seasonal ingredients, a kaleidoscope of spices and unexpected combinations. And 660 Curries is the gateway to the world of Indian cooking, demystifying one of the world's great cuisines.

Presented by the IACP award–winning Cooking Teacher of the Year (2004), Raghavan Iyer, 660 Curries is a joyous food-lover's extravaganza. Mr. Iyer first grounds us in the building blocks of Indian flavors—the interplay of sour (like tomatoes or yogurt), salty, sweet, pungent (peppercorns, chiles), bitter, and the quality of unami (seeds, coconuts, and the like). Then, from this basic palette, he unveils an infinite art. There are appetizers—Spinach Fritters, Lentil Dumplings in a Buttermilk Coconut Sauce—and main courses—Chicken with Lemongrass and Kaffir-Lime Leaves, Lamb Loin Chops with an Apricot Sauce. Cheese dishes—Pan-Fried Cheese with Cauliflower and Cilantro; bean dishes—Lentil Stew with Cumin and Cayenne. And hundreds of vegetable dishes—Sweet Corn with Cumin and Chiles, Chunky Potatoes with Golden Raisins, Baby Eggplant Stuffed with Cashew Nuts and Spices. There are traditional, regional curries from around the subcontinent and contemporary curries. Plus all the extras: biryanis, breads, rice dishes, raitas, spice pastes and blends, and rubs.

curry, n.—any dish that consists of either meat, fish, poultry, legumes, vegetables, or fruits, simmered in or covered with a sauce, gravy, or other liquid that is redolent with any number of freshly ground and very fragrant spices and/or herbs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21767 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-27
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 809 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Iyer (The Turmeric Trail) makes the enormous spectrum of Indian curry dishes enticing and accessible in this hefty tome, bound to be a must-have for lovers of Indian cuisine. Cooks already familiar with this food will be inspired as they cook through its pages. The term curry encompasses a vast range of dishes, and Iyer has uncovered the best from the subcontinent's many regions and cultures, working his way from Goa (chicken in coconut milk sauce) to Kashmir (hearty braised lamb shanks in broth), Calcutta (tilapia in yogurt sauce), Kerala (spinach in pigeon pea-coconut sauce), and everywhere between. The largest chapter features an extraordinary selection of curries using India's rainbow of legumes, but Iyer includes meat, cheese, fish and vegetable curries, plus appetizers and snacks, biryanis and elegant rice variations and breads. Access to a well-stocked Indian grocery is vital, but past that hurdle Iyer makes the recipes quite approachable thanks to his chatty introductions, many thoughtful preparation tips and helpful ingredient glossary. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"What a wonderful book! I would shovel my way through a blizzard for Raghavan Iyer's cooking and 660 of his recipes will hold me for a while."—Lynne Rossetto Kasper, Host of public radio's national food show The Splendid Table, from American Public Media

From the Back Cover
Curry is the gateway to Indian cooking. It is the backbone of Indian cooking, it's the glory of Indian cooking. Curry has nothing to do with powder in a can and everything to do with amazing flavors. Curry is the dazzling layering of spices and ingredients, the familiar made new and the exotic made accessible. Not to mention all that tasty sauce to mop up with rice or bread.

660 Curries is Salmon with Garlic and Turmeric, Grilled Chicken with Cashew-Tomato Sauce, Lamb Shanks Braised in a Fennel and Cumin-Kissed Broth, Toasted Tamarind-Rubbed Shrimp, Pork Ribs with a Sweet-Sour Glaze. 660 Curries is traditional, contemporary, extraordinary, and it's jam-packed with easy one-dish dinners that dance on the palate, in recipes created for the home kitchen.

Customer Reviews

Simply Fantastic!
I just got this book about a week ago. I've already tried several recipes and spice blends. I couldn't wait to write a review and tell everyone who loves Indian food that this is a "must-have" Indian cookbook. If you're only going to get one Indian cookbook, get this one! The recipes are pretty easy and just plain wonderful.
I lower the heat in most of the recipes by reducing the amount of chili peppers.
I just made the Spicy Potatoes and Spinach with Blackened Chilis and Coconut Milk. Superb! My husband loved it! I served it along side crispy fried chicken(it's the 4th of July weekend so I needed something with lots of deep fried goodness.) Indian food goes very well with fried chicken or roasted chicken. Try it, you'll be hooked.
This potato recipe called for a special spice blend called Panch Phoron. The dish(including the spice blend) was extremely easy to make.
I get all my spices and dried chilies from Penzey Spices. I buy the tiny fresh Thai peppers from a local Asian market. They are sold in a small bag by the produce section(tiny red and green ones in the same bag.) When I don't have any fresh chili peppers on hand, I just use some cayenne pepper.
What I love so much about this book is that no two curries taste the same. It's all about the use of spices and herbs. Once you get the hang of grinding and blending the whole spices, the curries come together in a flash. You will be so happy with the results! Penzey's makes it easy to make these flavorful spice blends. They even have hard-to-find spices like Nigella seeds and white poppy seeds.
I must say that have blended and grinded my own spices for years, using recipes from other Indian cookbooks. But, Raghavan is "spot-on" with all his spice blends. He instructs you to use these specific blends for each curry. The results are complex and delicious.
As a person who has spent about 5 years(in her own kitchen) learning how to cook Indian food, I consider this cookbook to be the best one so far. I have lots of Indian cookbooks ranging from classics like Madhur Jaffery's "Indian Cooking" to the gigantic "The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking." Already, I can tell that 660 Curries is the one book I will be reaching for again and again. I'm so excited to try many more recipes.
Thank you, Raghavan, for your hard efforts in searching for and testing each one of your wonderful recipes. You've created a truly amazing cookbook!
Oh..vegetarians will love this book too(tons of flavorful veggie and bean curries.) Raghaven also does wonderful things with the humble potato, which he is very fond of. He will have you re-thinking boring mashed potatoes.
I can go on and on about this cookbook! I feel certain that if you buy it, you'll love it!

660 curries
Whether you're a novice or expert at Indian cooking, you're bound to love this thick cookbook that just bursts with flavour. Raghavan Iyer describes his first attempt at cooking with the generic American spice called "curry powder," and his subsequent disappointment at its failure to evoke the spicy heritage of his home. His book 660 Curries is both an homage to the great foods of India and a guide to making those foods for people who have perhaps always thought of curry as something blazing hot that's seasoned with a can of curry powder.

But just what is curry? If you had asked me before I read this cookbook, I'd have responded that it's a dish consisting of vegetables, perhaps meat, cooked in a fiery sauce and served with rice. Very nondescriptive. Here's what Iyer says about curry:

In England and the rest of the world, "curry" describes anything Indian that is mottled with hot spices, with or without a sauce, and "curry powder" is the blend that delivers it. In keeping with my culture, I define a curry as any dish that consists of meat, fish, poultry, legumes, vegetables, or fruits, simmered in or covered with a sauce, gravy, or other liquid that is redolent of spices and/or herbs (p. 3).

I remember once making a curry for dinner, and later meeting up with a friend. "You had curry for dinner tonight, didn't you?" she asked me, and I stared blankly at her, wondering if my telltale breath had given it away. It turned out that she had already seen my husband, who told her the news. That curry, like every other curry I've ever prepared, was seasoned with a curry powder blend that I purchased at the grocery store. Now, however, thanks to Iyer, I'll be preparing my own blends. He gives you a variety to work with, tells you where to find ingredients that may not be readily available at your grocery store, tells you the best ways to prepare and store them, and a variety of useful tips.

Many of the recipes in the book relate back to the section about "spice blends and pastes," as those are the essential ingredients in preparing the other dishes. Iyer recommends-and I wholeheartedly agree with him-that you carefully read the entire recipe before you begin preparation, and make sure you have everything in place and at hand. If your recipe includes a spice blend found on page 28 (Sesame-Flavored Blend with peanuts and coconut-Maharashtrian Garam Masala), prepare the blend, if you haven't already, and make sure it's ready for use.

This book has curries and side dishes to tempt any appetite, including appetizer curries (did you ever think of having a curry dish as an appetizer?), meat curries, paneer curries, legume curries, vegetable curries, contemporary curries, and biryani curries. There is also a section on curry cohorts, in case you were wondering what to serve with the Cauliflower and Potatoes in a blackened red chile sauce (Alur Phulkopir Jhol) on page 481, for example. I like a good naan, and on page 729 there is a recipe for Salt-Crusted Grilled Flatbread with ghee (Naan) that I will be trying out before I get very much older.

The recipes are laid out step-by-step so that they can be easily followed, and tips about techniques, alternatives, etc., frequently follow the recipes. The recipe section is followed up with a very useful guide that includes metric conversion charts, a thorough glossary of ingredients, the basic elements of curry, mail-order sources for spices and lgumes, and a good bibliography for the chef who wants to learn more.

FABULOUS book for Indian cooking and curries!!
This is a FABULOUS book for Indian cooking and curries!! I highly recommend it. It's chocked full of recipes and stories and much more!! I had the privilege of attending a cooking class with this author recently in Chapel Hill. The book is huge too! It'll certainly keep you entertained and busy for quite a while. The recipes I've made so far are delicious!