Product Description

Classic and contemporary Indian cuisine with a healthy focus.

This new cookbook introduces a modern concept in Indian cuisine -- dishes that can be prepared in less than 25 minutes.

The healthy recipes in Everyday Indian prove that Indian cooking doesn't have to be complicated. Bal Arneson provides recipes that use everyday spices and common techniques to create simple, mouthwatering dishes that even the novice cook can whip up at home.

Arneson also offers low-fat options for the health conscious without ever compromising taste. Indian food is simple, quick and delicious with dishes like:

Indian cuisine is easy for the home cook using this comprehensive cookbook.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #102237 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

About the Author

Bal Arneson was born in Punjab, India, where she learned to cook traditional Indian cuisine from her elders at the age of nine. Today she teaches cooking classes and is sponsored by Cuisinart and Denby. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Customer Reviews

A real breakthrough: delicious Indian meals in 25 minutes
If we are thinking about healthy food with lots of flavor, we gravitate to the cuisines of China and Japan. They use meat, but chopped and sliced and diced so a little goes a long way. They make vegetables interesting. They have integrity --- their recipes don't call for Westernized industrial products. As for preparation, they're generally quick.

But why stop there? Why not go right on to Indian food?

Ignorance, mostly. We believe that Indian recipes call for enough spices to fill a walk-in closet. And we suspect that Indian recipes are complicated, requiring hours of preparation and constant attention.

Gandhi liberated India once. Now it's Bal Arneson's turn. And in "Everyday Indian", she really does present "100 fast, fresh and healthy recipes."

Fast? She was raised in a small village in Punjab, where a woman's day was filled with chores. There were no "modern conveniences" --- all chores were done by hand. Water had to be fetched from the pump. Cooking was done over an open pit, with cow dung patties for fuel. Better believe those women were swift.

Ingredient-heavy recipes? "Garam masala (a mixture of dried spices that can be found in most specialty stores) and turmeric powder were the only two spices I used to cook with on a daily basis."

When she was 20, an arranged marriage brought her to Canada. Now remarried and living in Vancouver, she was not challenged by the demands of raising two children and running a house. She went back to school, then started to teach cooking classes as a way of paying off her student loans.

Her culture has stayed with her, which is a fine thing for people who like interesting food without courting heart disease. Her recipes cut out butter, oil and cream; the depth in her food comes from the spicing. And she's still fast --- most of her dishes take less than 25 minutes.

Fresh Indian. Simple Recipes. Delicious.
I have only had the opportunity to make a half-dozen of the dishes. But every one of these has been delicious.

Some real favorites in there: My Mother's Chickpeas, Cherry Tomato & Paneer Salad, Tandoori Quesadillas, Bal's No-Butter Chicken.

Several things stand out.
1) Beautiful photography of the dishes.
2) Entertaining narrative for each dish. I felt like I know the author after just reading a couple of recipes. Very, very warm and personal.
3) Focuses on fast - fresh - and healthy... just as the subtitle says. She got me on the grapeseed & flaxseed oil kick when I cook.

One note. You should take the time to prepare her masalas and various spice blends as it will help prepare some of the dishes.

One small criticism. Give me a list of all of the recipes that use a given masala.

Still give it a 5 star. Please note the 3 star of another reviewer was a criticism that the book was not cut correctly. Not really a reflection on the content of this book and hardly the author's fault.

Delightful read - great recipies!
What a lovely book - I've only had it a short time, but I've already made three of the recipies ("Chicken South Indian style" is particularly yummy), and read the book cover-to-cover . . . then again, I'm a cookbook nut - I read them like most people read romance novels. This is the first cookbook I've owned that is Indian-food themed - a terrific introduction.