kaye16's Profile

Joined: December 21st, 2009

Pasta e Fagioli from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

An easy and delicious soup. I used lardons for the meat. We were thinking that chicken sausages would be good, saucisse de volaille or merguez de volaille, cut in quarters lenghtwise, then into little... read more >

recipe reviews (1461)
book reviews (64)
useful review votes (310)

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kaye16's Reviews

30 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 30Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking

By Madhur Jaffrey
Barron's Educational Series - 1983

Pretty, tasty, and easy (as these things go). If I'm in a hurry, I skip soaking the rice and just give it a good rinse. Making a 1/3 recipe (to serve 2 in theory) still makes a lot of rice. This is OK if it will be served under a saucy main, but too much if it's a real side.

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Tasty and easy. Once you've done the prep, the dish cooks easily in less than 10 minutes.
Makes a *lot*. I made a half recipe, which should serve 2, but would easily serve 3.

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This book has two very good carrot salads (on facing pages). This one takes a little more effort, but is my favorite. The smaller amount of cayenne is fine (we like things hot, but still ...). I serve this with lots of things, not just Indian.

To soften the texture and flavor of the onions a bit, I either toss them into the boiling carrots just before draining or put them into the sieve and pour the boiling water through them.

I've made this with radishes, cut similar to the carrots, replacing some of the carrots. This worked quite well, and was even more colorful.

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Very good side dish, easy to do.
The potatoes and cauliflower can prepped well ahead. The rest of the prep (measuring some spices) is quick. The final cooking takes about 10min and is easy to do while the you're working on the rest of the meal.

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I made a half recipe (for two) will all the spices, except that I halved the max cayenne (but won't do that again). A tasty and easy way to serve eggplant.

I made a quickie little sauce to accompany it, with yogurt, a bit of lemon juice, freshly ground black pepper, and chopped cilantro.

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I've been making this fairly regularly (half recipe with all the spices). Tonight, I broiled the eggplant bits, adding no oil at all. They were pretty tasty, but we thought they were a bit dry. A squeeze of lemon helped that somewhat. Might try tossing the spiced up eggplant with a bit a oil before broiling next time.

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May 91: Very good.
Notes:
- Can be started early in the day and simmered a longish time.
- Since the vindaloo paste is a bit of work to make, make twice the amount and freeze half.

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Made this for the second time this evening. Both time have been with beef. Tonight I made the whole recipe and three of us finished it.
Quite easy to make, with long bits of time where not much attention is needed.
Would probably be a good buffet dish.

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This book has two very good carrot salads (on facing pages). This is the simpler, so I make it more often.

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Have made this many time. It's good and easy. The green beans can be prepared ahead, and the recipe finished 10-15 min ahead of serving.

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1aug98: Good!
26feb05: Yum! (half recipe)
15may05: Still yum
9apr09: Half. Yum

Have used both haddock and cod.

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Very tasty.
The recipe asks for a lot of oil. I started with about half for frying the onions, then added bits more while browning the meat.
I used the maximum amount of cayenne and this dish was spicy but not at all challenging.
This a good company dish because you can do all the preparation early. It simmers without much attention for a long while and isn't fussy about exact timing at that point. Not to mention that it's delicious, with tender chunks of lamb in a tasty sauce.

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27may96: Yummy!
6dec98: Half recipe very good
17oct04: Good sauce!

I.e., we liked it lots.

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This is a household standard; two of us eat the entire recipe with rice for dinner. Yum! Generally don't use the pressure cooker variation. Use the largest amount of cayenne, or every more. Simple and tasty.

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This is a good rice dish, and could easily be served with non-Indian meals. It's easy enough to do. It's supposed to serve 6, but we found a third recipe too much for 2. A quarter recipe was still a lot, but a reasonable amount.

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An absolute favorite. Be sure to make it ahead, so that the onion can "cook" in the lemon juice. I don't only serve this with Indian food. It's delicious!
(You might want to cut the salt from 3/4tsp to 1/2tsp.)

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Good way to serve potatoes. The potatoes are cooked early in the day or even the day before (doesn't everyone keep cooked potatoes in the fridge?) and the finishing is quick and relatively unattended. Except for grinding 1-1/2tsps of black pepper.

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This is quite quite easy if you've good boiled potatoes hanging around your fridge. (Doesn't everyone? Very handy, indeed, although I usually forget.) Otherwise, there's minimal prep (measuring the seeds for the start and measuring the salt/cayenne/lemon juice for the end).
- Don't skimp on the oil. I usually find Jaffrey's recipes call for too much oil, but in this case, not. You're frying those potatoes and you need it all.
No reason to restrict this to an Indian dinner. This potatoes would go with any meaty dinner where you might serve some sautéed potatoes.

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This is a favorite, and easy, rice accompaniment to an Indian or non-Indian meal where cumin would fit in.

The recipe uses 2 cups of rice, to serve 6 people. I make a quarter recipe for 2 and these were quite large servings.

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Think I may have nailed this finally after trying the recipe multiple times. The trick is to use her timings for the cooking exactly. It will still be sloshy while it's cooling to lukewarm, but once it's completely cooled, it's perfect. (Always before I've try ed to see that the liquid has thickened a bit. This resulted in a delicious, but too thick, pudding.)
The sugar seems too much. I used only 1 liter/quart of milk with 65g of sugar. (Should have been ~75g.)
Use the finest vermicelli you can find, or break up angel hair.
Yum.

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Very good stuff. Once all the prep is done, the dish goes together very quickly.
- I made a half recipe, using more or less all the spices.
- I misread the amount of water, so added too much, but I think it was even runnier than I caused. Better to add about 1/2-2/3 of the water then add more if you need it.
- Using frozen cooked shrimp, boil the sauce for a bit before adding them, to avoid overcooking
Yum.

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Very good rice, another household standard. I usually make it in smaller proportions.

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Very nice and very easy. I've made this twice, both times serving with the "Rice with Peas" and "Red Split Lentils" as suggested, both of which I've made several times in other meals.

This time I used all thighs for the chicken.

This is a nice recipe for company. The chicken can marinate till you're ready for it. About an hour before serving, you pop it in the oven, and turn once about halfway through. Yummy

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Have made this a few times, always omitting the tomatoes. It's still good.

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I've looked at this recipe repeatedly, but never managed to make it. Finally did, as part of our new year's day meal, and delicious it is.

I cut my eggplant into quarters lengthwise and then into thick slices. Instead of frying these, I tossed them with olive oil (less than a quarter cup, I'm sure), and broiled them. (My stove has a built-in broiler.)

We really like this. I will not wait years to make it again.

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A very nice Indian relish/condiment. It complemented the Shrimp in a Dark Sauce very well.

I saw Jaffrey make this on TV. She suggested making it with mint instead of coriander. Both ways are good.

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This is very tasty. I have yet to make it as good as what I've been served in a restaurant, but I keep trying. Somehow, I always seem to over-reduce the milk and it turns out much too thick. But it still tastes wonderful.

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Very very good.
This is a good company dinner, since most of the work is done the day before. The lamb marinates for a day before cooking, and cooking it just involves popping it in the oven and basting at bit at the end.
Oops, I left off the fried spices that I should have poured over the lamb before popping it in the oven -- . that meant I didn't have much oil to spoon off the sauce. :-)
Definitely a do-again.

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This is the best raita recipe. Cut back salt. Only use fresh mint.

On TV, Jaffrey decorated this with a crossed lines of paprika and a mint leaf in each quadrant, a pretty for presentation for a party.

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Super yummy. Three of us ate all of this; I suppose it could have been stretched to four.

The recipe (in my edition) doesn't mention what to do with the cayenne, tomatoes, and ginger. I added these with the rest of the ingredients in this part of the list.

Because of tomato allergy in house, I used some home-made (seedless) tomato sauce plus a bit of tomato paste instead of the canned tomatoes.

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It's always a surprise to me to find another winner recipe from such a well-used cookbook. Not sure why I've never made this. It's definitely good.

I used frozen, cooked shrimped (thawed, of course), adding them with the spices and stuff after cooking the zuke.

The recipe neglects to mention what to do with the cayenne, tomatoes, and ginger; I just added this with the other ingredients.

This is actually fairly quick to prepare. Cutting up the zucchini is a bit tedious, but doesn't really take all that long.

As suggested, served with Spiced Basmati Rice

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