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Joined: December 21st, 2009


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October 17th, 2022

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 >


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kaye16's Reviews


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26 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 26Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

Madhur Jaffrey's Quick & Easy Indian Cooking

By Madhur Jaffrey, Philip Salaverry
Chronicle Books - 1996

26th September 2017 (edited: 26th September 2017)

"Hamburger" Kebabs--Chappal kebab : page 27

This is a book that I use frequently, and I'm still surprised to find yet one more super recipe here.

I made a halfish recipe using 350g beef. The beef wasn't triple ground by the butcher. Instead I put all the ingredients in the food processor and zapped it all together. Easy and absolutely delicious. Might be good on the bbq also.

Served with Fresh Red Chutney with Almonds.

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16th June 2010

Beef or Lamb with Spinach : page 36

Good stuff! Having not grown up with a pressure cooker, I'm always amazed how it makes such tender meat in such a short time.
As with most recipes in this book, this is pretty easy to assemble. Except for the lamb itself, the other ingredients are things I usually have on hand.
I had 800g lamb cubes, so made one and a third recipe which was close to the limit of my pressure cooker.
- Knowing that Jaffrey's recipes often use quite a bit of oil, I didn't increase the oil. This was fine.
- I think I might coarsely chop the spinach next time.
- I used the max amount of cayenne. The result was nicely tingly, but not challengingly hot.
- There was a lot of liquid to boil off. It might be a good idea to measure the water a bit short.
- With the extra meat, we served two generously and have another biggish serving in the freezer. I served, only rice as an accompaniment. The advertised 4 servings must be for a meal where this is only a part.

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Cream? This can't really be Indian, can it?
Well, never mind, it tasted good, and would be a good company dessert, since you can have the cream and the apples ready, leaving the apples on the stove to warm up just before serving if you want.
Not especially Indian, could be served any time you want a fruit dessert.

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22nd December 2009

Delicious Chicken Bits : page 14

Every repeat of this says "Simple. Good." Serves 3-4 as main. (It's listed as an appetizer or snack.)

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22nd December 2009

Easy Chicken Kebabs (Murgh tikka) : page 15

Good stuff.

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Well, breakfast, brunch, or a light dinner. Easy and delicious. Serves 4 only as part of a selection. Serves 2 for dinner with a bit of salad.
- I have used ghee for the vegetable oil. This was good.
- Omit the second bit of salt. You can add more at table if you feel you need it.

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22nd December 2009

Fresh Green Chutney : page 113

Yes! This is the wonderful green sauce sometimes served in Indian restaurants. Delicious.

Be sure to divide the yogurt as the instructions indicate. If you put it all in the blender, the sauce is too runny.

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26th September 2017 (edited: 26th September 2017)

Fresh Red Chutney with Almonds : page 114

Another surprisingly good recipe. Neither of us are fond of raw bell peppers, but puréed in this sauce they are delicious.
Didn't add the optional dill. Something to try next time.
Made a whole recipe to go with a half recipe of .

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22nd December 2009

Gingery Cauliflower Soup (Gobi ka soup) : page 11

Every repeat is marked with an exclamation point. At our house, serves 2-3, rather than 4-6 as advertized.

See also, a similar recipe in Jaffrey's Spice Kitchen, p28.

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2nd December 2011

Green Beans with Mushrooms : page 86

Very good tastes here.
- Making a half recipe, you need more than half the water, but that's normal for this kind of thing.
- I never use the tomato, since we have tomato allergy in house.
- DH doesn't like his green beans "crispy". Even haricots verts, at 15 minutes are not quite done enough for him.
- Once everything is ready, this is quite easy to assemble at the last minute, well, at the last 20-25 minutes. It doesn't take too much attention and can be done while other things are finishing.

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22nd December 2009

Green peas in a creamy sauce : page 87

I've written "Half recipe serves 2-3", but on our last repeat, I wrote "1/3 recipe was too much for 2".
Can prep everything and finish at the last minute.

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23rd December 2013

Hard-Boiled Eggs Masala : page 41

Good stuff, easy and fast as they all are in this book.

I used frozen puréed (seedless) tomatoes from the summer bounty and only a pinch of brown sugar. Nice tastes.

Serves 2 as a vegetarian, one-dish main over rice.
Would serve 4 only as part of a bigger meal.

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22nd December 2009

Indian Mashed Potatoes : page 90

Funny idea, good stuff! Sometimes serve this with non-Indian dinners.

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10th March 2017 (edited: 10th March 2017)

Lamb Stewed in Coconut Milk : page 34

Delicious, as usual for this book.
- Pressure cooker.
- Even with that I don't think this would qualify as "quick". Maybe I was doing too much multi-processing, but it seemed to take me forever to get this ready to go.
- I was a bit short on meat; we thought it would only serve three.
- The recipe calls for "1 to 2 fresh, hot green chilies". There are no instructions for chopping or seeding them, so I plonked them in whole. Worked ok, I guess, but chunks or slices might have looked better.
- I used two chiles, plus all the cayenne. It was hot but in no way challenging.

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18th February 2017

Lamb with Cardamom : page 30

Extra yummy. And easy.
Pressure cooker.
Serves 6, she says. I think it would be a stretch to serve 4 if there were some side dishes. Two of us managed to eat it all, but that was a bit of a stretch.
For the pressure cooker version, she has you add 2 cups of water. This was too liquid at the end. I think 1-1/2 or even 1 cup of water might be sufficient when using the pressure cooker.

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21st November 2012

Mushroom Curry : page 79

This recipe has been tagged for a long time, but I've just gotten around to making it. Don't wait. Very good.
I used about half the oil asked and it was fine. (I often find Jaffrey's recipes use too much fat.)
A half recipe made a very tasty and satisfying dinner.

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22nd December 2009

Onion fritters (Onion bhajia) : page 20

I'm trying to reproduce the onion bhaji from my favorite recipe, and this is the closest I've come. The amount for the water ingredient is missing; I use a short 1/2 cup. I also slice the onion, rather than chopping it, since this is what I'm copying. Serve with her Fresh Green Chutney (p113).

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2nd October 2012

Onion Fritters(Pyaz ki Bhajia) : page 20

This is the only onion bhaji recipe I've tried, and it turns out quite nice. I'm not big on deep frying, but this is an occasional treat for us. In restaurants, bhaji are either fritters like this or long strips of onions slices. One of these days, I'll try this with slices rather than chopped onion.

The ingredient list omits the water. I use a short half cup, starting with about a third cup and adding more until the batter looks about right.

The mixing is easy and it can wait around for some amount of time. But the bhaji need to be served directly after cooking, so it's a bit fussy when there's company.

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22nd December 2009

Pork or lamb vindaloo : page 33

Very high payoff for minimal work. This isn't especially quick (well, maybe if you use the pressure cooker), but it's unattended for a long period. It's the only vindaloo recipe I've seen with coconut milk, but it works fine. We find the 4 tsps cayenne is fine, hot, but good. Two of us usually eat all of this in one sitting.

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30th March 2015

Rice with Mushrooms and Mustard Seeds : page 102

I was a bit surprised to find a rice recipe in this book that I hadn't yet tried. Having some shiitakes needing to be used, I made this. For two, I used 1/4 of the rice asked (thus 1/2 cup) with about 1/2 of the rest of the spices and shrooms.

The result was tasty, not at all spicy, and would be fine with any kind of a meal.

The recipe as written, with 2 cups of long-grain rice, is supposed to served 4-5. I used only 1/2 cup rice for two and it made an enormous amoung (as expected). This would have serve 3-4 easily. Something's wrong with the quantity, but the taste was fine.

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2nd December 2011 (edited: 6th December 2011)

Shrimp Steamed with Mustard Seeds : page 64

Quite tasty. Easy and relatively few ingredients. The last time I made this the steaming bowl tumped over and the shrimp were swimming in water rather than sauce. This time, I managed a more stable steaming setup. Good tastes, served over plain rice.

For the two of us, I used a 300g package of shrimp with all the sauce. The shrimp and sauce over plain rice were pretty darn good.

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22nd December 2009

Shrimp with garlic and chilies : page 17

Good, fast, simple. Half recipe served 2 for dinner.

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Have made this several times; surprised I haven't reviewed it before.
A nice Indian side dish, and a change from the usual browny/yellowy monotone. Slicing the cabbage takes a bit of time, but once the prep is done, the assembly goes quickly and the cooking can be done without too much attention, just an occasional stir.

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26th March 2017

The Most Delicious Meat Cubes : page 29

Very good, yes. I've made this with pork and lamb, with and without the pressure cooker. Easy and delicious. In the PC, it needs more than 2tbl of water; a third to half cup is good.

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28th September 2014

Turmeric Rice : page 100

A nice rice side dish, easy to do.
- Reportedly it serves four, but I find 2 cups of rice for four people quite a lot. I usually make 1/4 of the rice (thus 1/2 cup) with 1/2 the spices.
- The instructions have you only rinse the rice. If you have a bit of time to let it soak, it won't hurt. I usually let it soak a bit while I get everything else ready.

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22nd December 2009

Whole green lentils with cilantro and mint : page 82

This is side or a main, depending on your meal. Made without the tomato (allergy at our house).

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