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Although I have liked eating curry all my life, I was never interested in cooking it until Madhur Jaffrey began her television series in the 1980s. All of a sudden the complex blends of spices and the long lists of ingredients began to make sense. Madhur's authentic Indian curry recipes inspired me to invest, not only in her book, plainly entitled Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery, but in the beginnings of my spice collection.
Indian Cookery, along with Madhur's other books, isn't just a cookery book. There's plenty of narrative covering everything from Indian eating habits to menus and what goes with what, details about spices and what cooking equipment you need and how to make tandoori chicken without a tandoor.
This book contains recipes for Indian restaurant favourites such as Rogan Josh, but I suspect that you wouldn't recognise the delicious result as the same dish. There's also an authentic Goan recipe for pork Vindaloo, which contrary to popular belief doesn't have to blow your head off.
As well as some quite simple, authentic curries, there are dishes suitable for dinner parties such as whole leg of lamb in spicy yoghurt sauce (Raan Masaledar). The lamb is covered in a mixture of almonds, onions, garlic, ginger, chillies, yoghurt plus cumin, coriander, cayenne, salt and garam masala which is also pushed into slits in the meat and marinated for 24 hours. Before roasting, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and peppercorns are fried in hot oil then poured over the joint. The dish is served scattered with sultanas and almonds.
However, my best discovery is a recipe for spiced Basmati rice, which is completely foolproof. It's baked in the oven and in fact, I have altered it to make it suit a microwave. The result is always lovely fluffy (not soggy) rice with a great flavour.
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