Really disappointed!!, May 7, 2010

I bought this book because I love some of the curries in our local Indian. I am a keen home cook and make a lot of home cooked style curries, but was never able to replicate an Indian restaurant style curry. I made the basic curry sauce as described and then made my curry with it. It tasted just like tomato soup without any kick!! I can't believe this soupy sauce has had such good reviews!! I had to use many more spices and tricks to make it taste decent. Even my husband, who normally wolves down my home made curries, didn't want to eat it. It doesn't taste anything like the curries from my local curry house... Although I do believe that Indian restaurants work with the basic curry sauce principle (this makes perfect sense practically) I don't think this is THE sauce to use. I would use much less water in the base sauce, and many more spices in the curry, so that it has at least a bit of a curry kick!! It's a shame, but I think this book will go to my local charity shop...

      Very good book, April 21, 2010

Love this book as it tells you the basics of a good curry. The chicken curry recipe says that you can add an extra teaspoon of chilli power to turn it into a Madras or double this amount and you will get a vindaloo. I followed the recipe for the onion bhajees and they are amazing!!

      Time consuming but rewarding, March 31, 2010

There are a lot of mixed reviews about this book and this in itself did make me question if I should purchase it or not however I took the plunge and did. The book is laid out in a non conventional style, for example there are yoghurt dips in both the front pages and in the yoghurt section at the back so unless you have read the book from cover to cover you may miss something. I have tried the chicken korma and balti passanda recipes from this book, they are quite good however did need zesting up a little bit as it was pretty bland using the basic 1/4 tsp of this and 1/4 tsp of that, so in most cases I doubled and tripled the spices to aid the flavour. The spices are easy to source from an Indian supermarket and to be honest are of a far better quality than the ones found in everyday supermarkets. However the best recipe in my opinion is that for yoghurt mint dip, it is so refreshing, works well as a snack and is so easy to make. I used this book to replace curry and side dish recipes sourced on the internet and I think it does a treat, the simple combination of spices are not confusing to the pallet and as long as you have added more spices to match your tastebuds you may find that you are able to define each spice used, rather than tasting a mish mash of spices added which to me doesn't taste too nice.

      Small but yummy, March 28, 2010

I was surprised that the book was so small but it is packed with great recipes. Wish my family would eat curries.