The Ultimate Guide to Cooking Rice the Indian Way (12 page)

That’s actually an excellent suggestion from my personal
experience.

You can cook with yoghurt
: Eating yoghurt is,
of course, no big deal. Flavoured or unflavoured, frozen or thawed, plain or
fortified with probiotics, made from full cream or skimmed milk----the variety
that industrially manufactured yoghurt today comes in is simply mindboggling.

But cooking with yoghurt? You cook with cheese and wine but
yoghurt--the question would certainly stump most aficionados of European or
American or even Chinese or Thai schools of cooking.

But talk to anyone from any part of India, and you would
instantly get a whole list of regional dishes that use yoghurt in quite a “matter-of-fact”
way. This is because before tomatoes were brought to India by the Portuguese
sometimes in the 16th century, yoghurt was the main ingredient (apart from
tamarind and pomegranate seeds) that could add a little sour taste to Indian
dishes.

In Kashmir, savour the
wazwan
(a feast usually served
on special occasions like weddings) and you’d find the pride of place accorded
to
Gushtabbas
(pounded boneless meat balls cooked in yoghurt) or
Yakhni
or
Dhania Kormas
(both containing mutton pieces, with bones, cooked in
yoghurt, with different spices).

In western Indian states of Maharashtra or Gujarat,
Kadhi
(made from yoghurt or butter milk with added potato, onions or vegetable
fritters) would be omnipresent in all vegetarian platters. Punjabi vegetarians
too like a slightly different version of this
Kadhi
but they actually
use copious amounts of yoghurt in their popular drink
Lassi
(basically a
yoghurt shake).

The Punjabis (as well as the other North-Indian meat eaters)
also like to marinate their chicken and mutton with yoghurt before they put it
in their tandoors (earthen ovens) or barbeques, or even curries. Yoghurt in
these regions is also supposed to bring in good luck as there is a tradition of
NOT leaving your house for any long journey or an examination/interview without
having at least a spoonful of yoghurt with sugar.

The East, especially the Bengal region, is famous for
cooking their fish in yoghurt. Just check out their dishes of
Dahi-Machhli
(fish cooked in yoghurt and
garam masala
) or
Dahi-sarson
(fish
cooked in a yoghurt-mustard sauce). Their yoghurt dessert
Mishti-doi
(literally sweet yoghurt) or
Bhapa-doi
(steamed yoghurt) is simply
out-of-this-world.

The southern regions of India are so fond of yoghurt that
they usually end their meals, not with a dessert, but with curd-rice. Yoghurt
is also a very important ingredient of the south-Indian coconut chutney that
goes well with south-Indian snacks like
Idlis,
Vadas
and
Dosas
.

I dedicate this book to my dearest mom who is the original
creator of all these recipes. It is simply amazing how she despite being a
working mother (she is actually a very senior Indian Administrative Service
officer), finds time to not only cook but also experiment with food.

In her quest for experimenting with cooking, she has had the
full support of my father and me.

Most fathers generally leave their wives to cook while they
watch television or go out to play golf. However, I have often seen my father
helping my mother in the kitchen without any hesitation.

The overall objective used to be to cook meals from scratch
within 30 minutes, and it was amazing how often we succeeded in meeting this
target.

I, therefore, dedicate this book to my father too, who even
now takes time off to “advise” me on what my book should focus on, and
sometimes even gives editing suggestions.

HOME STYLE INDIAN COOKING
IN A JIFFY

 
Amazon #1 Best Seller in Indian and Professional Cooking

With an amazing compilation of over 100 delectable Indian
dishes, many of which you can’t get in any Indian restaurant for love or for
money, this is unlike any other Indian Cook book. What this book focuses on is
what Indians eat every day in their homes. It then in a step-by-step manner
makes this mysterious, never disclosed, “Home Style” Indian cooking accessible
to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of cooking and a stomach for adventure.

Prasenjeet Kumar, the corporate lawyer turned gourmand, in
this second book of his series “How to Cook everything in a Jiffy” explores the
contours of what sets Indian “Home Style” food so apart from restaurant food.
In his uniquely semi-autobiographical style, he starts with his quest for
Indian food in London, wonders why his European friends don’t have such a
“strange” debate between “Home Style” and “Restaurant” food, and learns that
the whole style of restaurant cooking in India is diametrically opposed to what
is practiced in Indian homes with respect to the same dish.

You may like this book if:

You are an Indian pining for a taste of your home food
anywhere in the world, including India.

You are an Indian, reasonably adept in your own regional
cuisine, for example, South Indian cuisine, but want to learn about the “Home
Style” culinary traditions of the Eastern and Northern India as well.

You are NOT an Indian but you love Indian cuisine and have
wondered if someone could guide you through the maze of spices that Indians
use, and help you tame down the oil and chilli levels of many of their dishes.

Recommends Amazon.com Top 100 Reviewer Mysterious
Reviewer
“There's plenty to like concerning the Home Style Indian
Cooking In a Jiffy cookbook by author Prasenjeet Kumar. Kumar has formatted the
book so each recipe links back to the interactive table of contents making
navigation easy. He's also included color photos illustrating his recipe
throughout his cookbook. Best of all Kumar offers information how to set up a
basic kitchen, a brief introduction to Indian spices and goes onto offer
various chapters covering Indian food.

His recipes offer both the standard cooking method or the
option to use a pressure cooker (when appropriate) to prepare the recipe. He
gives clear directions how to complete the task using either cooking method…”

HOW TO CREATE A COMPLETE
MEAL IN A JIFFY

Presenting a Cookbook Like No Other Cookbook in the World

From the popular website www.cookinginajiffy.com and the
author of four Amazon Bestseller cookbooks comes a cookbook that doesn’t focus
on recipes.

Instead, it shares the secret of creating a Full Meal in
around 30 minutes.

How is that possible?

With just Proper Sequencing and Parallel Processing of your
actions, is author Prasenjeet Kumar’s answer.

So if till now you didn’t know (or hadn’t thought about) as
to how with proper sequencing and parallel processing you can reduce your
drudgery by many, many fold, you have come absolutely to the right place.

In that background, the Book presents around 40 dishes
grouped into 10 Full Meals consisting of: two “concepts” of breakfasts, four
Indian meals, one Thai meal, one Japanese meal, and two Western meals.

HOW TO COOK IN A JIFFY EVEN
IF YOU HAVE NEVER BOILED AN EGG BEFORE

Introducing “How To Cook In A Jiffy”— The Easiest
Cookbook On Earth From The Author Of The Hugely Popular Website
www.cookinginajiffy.com 

Never boiled an egg before but want to learn the magic art
of cooking? Then don’t leave home without this Survival Cookbook. Be it healthy
college cooking, or cooking for a single person or even outdoor cooking---this
easiest cookbook on earth teaches you to survive all situations with ease.

Where this book scores over other “How To” cookbooks is the
structured manner in which it follows a step by step “graduation” process.

Most uniquely, the book teaches the concept of “sequencing
and parallel processing” in cooking to enable busy people to create a 3-4
course meal in less than 30 minutes.

The book is fun and entertaining to read with the author
sharing his own personal story of bumbling about in the wonderlands of cooking,
with wit and humour.

Recommends Amazon.com reviewer B. Farrell
“This is a good informative book for someone starting out in the adventure of
cooking. This would make a great gift for a young bride just starting out with
her new duties of cooking or a single person getting out on their own.” 

HEALTHY COOKING IN A JIFFY:
THE COMPLETE NO FAD NO DIET HANDBOOK

Amazon #1 in Hot New Releases in Health, Fitness &
Dieting> Special Diets> Healthy

Amazon #3 Best Seller in Health, Fitness &
Dieting> Special Diets> Healthy 

If you have ever wondered how you can be healthy without
dieting, following any peculiar fads, eating any esoteric foods, injecting any
hormones or downing any pills, potions or supplements, you have come absolutely
to the right place.

In fact, without bothering about the risk of sounding so old
fashioned, author Prasenjeet Kumar (of the celebrated website
cookinginajiffy.com and the writer of the “How to Cook Everything in a Jiffy”
series of cookbooks) declares that he does not think that anyone should be on a
perpetual diet to stay healthy. In this book, therefore, he recommends that you
do not follow any of the rather peculiar diet regimes such as a low carb high
protein diet, low fat diet, Vegan diet (unless you truly believe in the vegan
philosophy) or any kind of crash diets. From his own experience, he says that
that they will all do you more harm than good.

Instead, the author recommends going to the basics that of
following a balanced diet regime. In that background, the book presents a
veritable cornucopia of easy recipes to give you an idea of what you can cook
to achieve your target of having regularly a balanced diet. You will find ideas
on how to cook your vegetables in a simple and tasty manner, how to handle
pasta recipes, chicken recipes, fish recipes, mutton recipes, milk shakes (even
if you hate drinking plain milk), breakfast recipes, lunch and dinner recipes
and some Asian recipes when you feel the need to have something different and
exciting.

Surprisingly, you will find some supposedly “unhealthy”
recipes as waffles, pancakes, French toasts, lasagne and lamb moussaka too in
this “healthy” cookbook. The author’s short answer is, that the wonderful taste
of these dishes makes you happy and being happy (and full of serotonin) is more
than half way to being healthy. Moreover, as the author believes, any sensible
person will have these dishes only once-in-a-while when you are bored eating
your regular stuff.

Again, quite boldly, the author declares that personally he
does not count calories in his diet, oops recipes. He feels that counting
calories can actually drive you mad. This book celebrates exactly this very
viewpoint and deliberately with some justifiable pride eschews providing any
calorific or nutritional information for the listed recipes. If you want to
still count calories, feel free to do so by taking advantage of so many tools
that are readily available on the internet, the author advises.

At the end of this book, there are tips relating to how you
can manage to have five to six small meals a day, regardless of your busy
schedule, how you can exercise even if you are not a “gym person”, how to
freeze and preserve leftovers and finally how to sequence and parallel process
your actions so that you save time while cooking your meals.

So if you are sick of dieting, counting calories, or gorging
on supplements, do consider investing in this book of simply sensible cooking
and get on to a journey of eternal joy and happiness.