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Smorgasbord of Indian Recipes: A Collection of Indian Dishes Most Popular In India and All Over The World

Achala Kshirsagar
Outskirts Press (2011)
ISBN 9781432768096
Reviewed by Kam Aures for Rebecca’s Reads (09/11)

Achala Kshirsagar’s “Smorgasbord of Indian Recipes- A Collection of Indian Dishes Most Popular in India and All Over the World” is offers around 250 recipes.  The book opens with an introduction to cooking techniques such as how to make ghee and chakka, and also gives instruction on tempering, deep frying, and browning.  After the basic techniques are discussed, Kshirsagar goes on to discuss the important spices used in Indian cooking and tells us about masalas, which are blends of different spices.

Following these introductions, Kshirsagar shares many different delicious sounding Indian recipes in the categories of soups, appetizers and snacks, raitas, kachumbers and salads, chutneys, vegetables, dais, meats, chickens, fish, rice and pulavs, Indian flat breads, and sweets.

There were many recipes in the book that I wanted to try.  I did, however, find it difficult to find many of the ingredients in my local grocery store.  In the book, Kshirsagar recommends buying the ingredients in an Indian grocery store, but my area does not have one.  I think, however, that in larger metropolitan areas, the ingredients are probably much easier to come by.

With that being said I chose recipes to try where the ingredients were readily available to me.  With a surplus of tomatoes in our garden, the first recipe that I decided to try was the “Cucumber, Tomato and Onion Raita.”  I followed the instruction completely except I did add more salt and pepper as I found the amounts called for to be too little for our liking.  The recipe was a hit and I will be using it as a regular summer side in our home.  The yogurt combined with the fresh vegetables made for a nice cool, refreshing dish.

The second recipe that I tried was the “Potato Soup” recipe.  I found it quite simple to make and the ginger, green chili, and cilantro flavors blended well together.  This will be a great recipe for a cold, winter day.

Of course I also needed to try a curry and ended up choosing to try the “Salmon Curry” recipe.  Once again the recipe was quite simple to make and had a wonderful, authentic taste.  The combination of salmon, green peppers and coconut milk was interesting but worked well.

I recommend “Smorgasbord of Indian Recipes” to anyone who enjoys Indian food and would like to try making it at home.  The recipes are straight-forward and simple to follow.  I look forward to trying out many more recipes from Kshirsagar’s book.

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