wester's Profile

From: Soesterberg, Utr Netherlands

Joined: September 24th, 2009

About me: I love cooking, I love eating, I love discovering new recipes. I have so many cookbooks I sometimes lose track of which recipe is where - though this site helps a bit. I have gone low-carb in 2010, so that's different recipes to explore again. This also means I may not agree with my own reviews anymore if they were written in 2009 or before. ------------------ I have a lovely husband and ten-year old twins who also love eating. ----------------- You can also find me on LibraryThing, BookMooch and EatYourBooks, using the same handle.

Favorite cookbook: The Complete Meze Table by Rosamond Man

Favorite recipe: Melissa Clark's Roasted Broccoli with Shrimp

Daond Pasha (Meatballs with Pine Nuts and Tomatoes) from The Complete Meze Table

The meatballs were very tasty, but I did not really like putting all the pine nuts together - it made for fussy cooking and I think I would prefer finding a pine nut here and there instead of finding them... read more >

recipe reviews (741)
book reviews (74)
useful review votes (327)

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wester's Reviews

Cookbook Reviews

Madhur Jaffrey's Spice Kitchen: Fifty Recipes Introducing Indian Spices and Aromatic Seeds

By Madhur Jaffrey
Clarkson Potter - 1994

If you are going to have only one Indian cookbook, have this one!

It is small, it contains only 50 recipes, but all are very different and all that I have tried are very nice. I tried 10 of them in the first two weeks I had this book, and I usually don't cook Indian that much. The recipes are all very aromatic and need not be hot.

What I really like most about this book is the explanations of how and why to use Indian spices. She will tell you why one spice is added at the very beginning and another at the end, and what effect this should have. This also gives a good idea of what the finished dish will be like.

Masterly.