Healthy South Indian Cooking, Expanded Edition Hardcover – September 1, 2008

I cook out of this ALL the time. And have recommended it to friends, and bought a second copy for my second home. This is my go-to.South Indian cooking is quite different from what you've had in restaraunts - it's quite delicious and very vegetable-forward. This is a really great intro for both an Indian and non-Indian cook - and written for North Americans, so it uses our weights and measures. This is particularly helpful, because your friends that were raised cooking in India don't use formal measures, and will give you vague guidelines on quantities. This book is great at clarifying the process and telling you what to shoot for.Highly recommend it as a first Indian cookbook, especially if you are trying to stay healthy and limit your oil intake.

This is a must have book for anyone who has ever had southern Indian cuisine. The recipes are easy to follow and the author gives a thorough list of the spices you will need to cook all the recipes in the book. I became familiar with the author through my local PBS station where her program ran for quite awhile. Now I can cook authentic and classic Indian dishes for my friends that are now Americans that came from south India to begin with. Most of the dishes are vegetarian, All are flavorful. It will bring and element of exotic cuisine to any gathering or any meal. If you know someone who is vegetarian it would make a really wonderful gift.The great thing about these recipes Chicken, seafood and fish could be added to most any of them to complete a meal. The spices are completely adjustable so you can season to taste. Unlike what a lot of people think South Indian Cooking is not spice hot.

After watching Alamelu on PBS, I couldn't wait to have her book in hand. She learned how to prepare Indian food after moving to the U.S., so she is careful to explain all the little steps in a genre, and not expect you to have to fill in the blanks. This perspective overcomes a problem with many Indian cookbooks that may address a specific recipe but don't convey the similarities that help the cook to expand their own menus. The sections cover a genre with excellent notes and explanations about other combinations using the same basic technique. In the book and on the shows Alamelu carefully explains spice preparation and combinations. Without this knowledge, usually handed down in the generational kitchen, you will never get the taste right. Her own cross cultural experience makes this a great resource for the American cook. South Indian cooking is very delicious and not as well represented, at least in my region, with restaurants, cookbooks, etc.

The recipes in this book won't produce Indian food like you get in most Indian restaurants. It will be better.To save time and ease preparation, most Indian restaurants use a pre-made master sauce to which they add spices and other ingredients to produce specific dishes. While the result may be tasty, it isn't what you'd be served in an Indian home.With this book you start (more-or-less) from scratch and get the real thing. The result is delicious.Despite the title, I wouldn't call most of the resulting dishes 'healthy'. While they feature the vegetarian cuisine of South India, they also use a lot of clarified butter and other oils.The great bugaboo of learning Indian cooking is the intimidating list of spices you need to do it properly. It's easy to blow $40 or more just on spices in an Indian grocery store to make your first Indian dish. This is true even if you do as the author does and used pre-mixed spice mixtures rather than grinding the spices yourself. However despite the list of ingredients, Indian cooking is not difficult. It is essentially one-pot cooking and if you add the ingredients at the right times, the result is just about guaranteed. Do take the time to read and understand the recipes however. Like a lot of Asian cuisines, things happen fast when you actually start cooking.Is the result worth it? In my opinion Hell yes! Indian cooking is wonderful and this book is a good way to start.

too much focus on grains, which I am coming to understand have a great impact on insulin and blood sugar, even greater than sugar, apparently. So many people in India are diabetic, that one would want to reconsider this diet. Love the spices, and veggies, however.

Love this book. I am not much of a cook but even I was able to make yummy food with this book.The recipes are easy to follow and they are very delicious. My husband and I love Indian food and were tired of spending so much at the restaurant when we had the "crave" for it. The average trip to the Indian restaurant cost us $40.I was able to spend about $60 at the Indian grocery store and go home with the majority of spices and lentils to make 90% of the recipes in this book. The list provided makes it super easy to get everything you need.Cooking each dish is simple with a little prep time to chop and pre measure what you need. Small prep dishes make this really simple, once all ingredients are chopped and measured it is a matter of getting the ingredients into the pan and 10-20 minutes later you have dinner! Everything we tried so far has been even better the next day. If you like Indian food and are not afraid to cook this book is for you.

I was looking for an easy introduction to Southern Indian cooking, in the sense of acquainting me with the staples I would need to purchase, how to identify ingredients at the ethnic grocery store, what different food terms meant, what utensils I might need to purchase. I wanted to know exact quantities of ingredients rather than "put in some of this and that." I needed precise steps and wanted some pictures. In other words, I am totally ignorant. I have no idea that what I will cook will turn our right or wrong, because I do not know what it is supposed to taste like. So if you are in this situation, this cookbook is a great choice.