Cookbook: Raghavan Iyer's 660 Curries: A World of Flavorful Recipes to Spice Up Your Kitchen

Daniel Pincus: My only caveat is about the table of contents. In a book of 600 recipes, you should be able to feast your eyes on all of them all, organized in the TOC. Not so with in this Kindle edition. Listed are categories of curries, but not the individual recipes. The publisher would do everyone a big favor to fix this.

United States on Oct 01, 2023

online customer: Adequate usage plus added variety on hand. Thank you.

Canada on Jul 10, 2023

SLK: At first glance this book can appear a little overwhelming to those who are not intimately familiar with Indian cooking. The recommended equipment may not be standard in many kitchens and the amount of unfamiliar ingredients and pre-prepared sauces are probably too much for those who don’t plan to prepare the included recipes regularly. Nevertheless, there are many recipes in this book that can be made without much fuss, preparation or concern for pre-preparing sauces. I highly recommend this book for the novice and advanced enthusiast alike. There is something for everyone and people who really enjoy food would be remiss not to take a serious dive into Indian cuisine. Failing or deciding it isn’t for you is fine but please give it a try.

Canada on Apr 07, 2021

Reblaus: You want pictures - Google the dish at other sites. So you have eaten Indian and now you want to try your hand at cooking your own. This is your book ! Excellent recipes with clear instructions. The non-initiated will run across all sorts of new and not previously heard of ingredients. No problemo - just Google those items and learn. You must have a good sized Indian grocery store in your town [city] though which also carries fresh greens. Otherwise forget it and stay with local cuisine. An excellent book for everyone with a passion for adventures in food.

Canada on May 11, 2020

V. C. Tirumalai: I borrowed this book from my Library because I wanted more variety in my cooking. I was getting bored with my usual cookbooks and my usual curries. After trying out a few of the recipes I decided that I had to get this book. I usually do not get books that have a lot of meat recipes as I am a vegetarian (what is the point?). I also have a rule to throw out a cookbook for every new one I get. So I do take care before ordering. This way I am not just accumulating books but actually using them. I got rid of my copy of the Joy of Cooking. I had not used that in 2 years. I now expect 660 Curries to join my rotation: which is usually from

1) Madhur Jaffrey: World Vegetarian
2) Chandra Padmanabhan: Dakshin
3) Habeeb Salloum: Vegetarian Middle Eastern
4) Nancie McDermott: Real Vegetarian Thai
5) Eileen Lo: Vegetarian Chinese

I expect Raghavan Iyers book to replace the Madhur Jaffrey book as my first go to book for Ideas on what to make. Even though I have other books, I usually do not cook from them regularly. Books like the Indian Slow Cooker (Anupy Singla), Cooking with Pedatha, Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Vegetarian, Mark Bittman's Vegetarian doorstop, 1000...

United States on May 14, 2013

A. Soares: This book is almost overwhelming. Thicker than some of my uni text books (but perhaps more read).

I will not lie to you - these recipes are not quick by any means. Indian cooking takes time, effort and a multitude of spices to get the flavouring just right. For vegetarians, there is a huge volume of options (for meat eaters there is a ton too). Every "curry" recipe that I can think of is here... and more - much, much more....

This is a great book to have for figuring out what to do with almost every vegetable and meat (and many options for each). For those of you who like pictures, there are none so be warned, this may not be the book for you... If you do not have Indian spices you will need to find a good Asian store to stock up.

660 curries is a lot of material and the recipes we've tried so far have been great. Warning: if you are not big on heat, adjust the curries for some of the recipes here...

Canada on Mar 30, 2013

Urvashi: I grew up in India and cooked Indian food for years. Recently started up again and Raghavan Iyer's book is phenomenal. My husband--who had never cooked Indian food before--and I have made at least 35 dishes from this book, and only found two of them to be not to our liking (and I suspect I messed up on one of the recipes, not his fault). Everything else has been exquisite.

Why I would suggest you buy this book rather than all the others out there:
1. He starts with fresh ingredients, including spices that are freshly ground and the difference in taste as a result of the extra 5 minutes to grind them is well worth it when you taste the food.
2. He covers a variety of cuisines. Unlike a lot of other books that tend to focus on one region of India vs the other, Ragahavan covers a wide swath of India and gives you everything from Cochin to Kashmir, from Bengal to Bombay. Wonderful way to sample a diverse range of cuisines.
3. The recipes are quite different from each other. I can't tell you how many cookbooks--and how many dishes I have made--all start with frying onions, garlic and ginger, adding tomato, blah blah blah. That's a fairly standard base for many Indian...

United States on Oct 12, 2010

Mr. M. Douglas: I purchased this book after reading a review from a cookery website. I bought this particular book because I had been looking for some good vegetarian recipes, while I am not a vegetarian I was looking to make some new healthier curries. I wasn't disappointed with the results. If like me, you have a passion for curries and love to read about anything curry I'm sure you will enjoy this book. If you are expecting to re-create a curry similar to a takeaway/restaurant curry then I think you will be disappointed.
I have owned this book for just over a month now and have made quite a few curries from it and they have all turned out nice. Raghavan Iyer is an American Indian and as such the recipes in the book are americanised, so you may have to translate some of the ingredients. My wife doesn't enjoy the book as much as I do because there are no illustrations other than the first few pages. If you are expecting to see pictures of the curries that you will be making there aren't any, although that isn't such a bad thing, as I have found most of the glossy curry books show lovely pictures of the finished product, but when you try to re-create the same curry they never look the...

United Kingdom on Dec 03, 2009