S. Abbas RazaPakistani & North Indian Cooking: A Complete Guide for Students & Beginners

Wow. This cook book is pure wizardry. Be careful if your religious beliefs punish you for dabbling in magic. Because if you read the words contained in this book, and follow the supremely clear instructions for ingredients and processes, your hands will be imbued with the culinary skills of a North Indian / Pakistani grandmother. The kind of grandmother that all the villagers know for her cooking and warm charm (which this book's author has an abundance of!).I'm seriously shocked at the level of flavor and authenticicty that comes out of these dishes that my pale white hands managed to cook. Your friends will eat these dishes and look up at you with a blank stare, internally wondering why their friend would take the time to pay someone to cook this well and claim it as their own. The dishes taste better than anything you'll get at a Pakistani / Indian restaurant. I wouldn't even put it in the same category as restaurant food in fact, because these dishes all have a home-cooked feel to them that I have never been able to pay money to enjoy. The second your fork-fulls of perfectly cooked aromatic spicy shrimp, explosively flavorful kebab patties, or subtlety sophisticated masoor daal begins to disperse themselves onto the surface area of your taste buds, you'll realize this purchase was simply one of the best you've ever made in your life.TL;DR Highly recommended. Happy cooking!

When I first left India for graduate school in the U.S., my cooking skills were almost nil. I had to learn everything the hard way. I asked around and experimented (finding myself all alone on my 30th birthday, I even baked myself a cake rather than suffer in silence). Eventually I developed a modest repertoire of dishes I could cook well. I wish I had a guidebook like this back then. In the early days, to borrow Abbas's description of his own early experiments, “I probably should have been arrested for some of the meals I made”. :-)In his foreword, Robin Varghese, also a founding editor of 3 Quarks Daily (who is apparently an excellent cook himself), notes the importance of getting the basics right in order to reliably reproduce dishes that taste just right. Abbas focuses on those basics. His attention to detail is meticulous. Every recipe in his final draft was tested by his Italian wife. I also like his unpretentious approach to food. "I stand resolutely against the gourmandizing spirit,” he writes. “I have eaten at some of the best and fanciest restaurants in the world and can honestly say that I prefer tacos from a good food truck to most of the courses I have had there.” If you’re a lover of Pakistani and North Indian food, definitely give this a try.

I've tried several recipes from this book so far, and I enjoy the author's style of writing which makes it feel like a teacher or mentor is helping you along. I find a lot of the vocabulary and terminology he uses is similar to things I've heard from my mom and grandma. I find the recommended use of oil and turmeric a bit heavy handed and my mom felt the food became a bit too heavy for every day eating, so I'm going to use less oil the next time I make some of the recipes. I found the formatting and print quality of the book to be the biggest problem - it's printer quality paper with a glossy craft paper cover. The pictures are not sharp, and have the appearance of something you'd print on your friendly old home printer. I find the aesthetics of it a bit embarrassing and will probably rebind it into something a bit more hardy and useful for the future. All the recipes I've made so far have been delicious, so this really is a classic don't judge the book by its cover situation!

After Coke Studio, this book is one of the best things to come out of Pakistan! As someone who has spent nearly a decade living away from Pakistan and switching countries often, I have spent many a day missing the gastronomic delights of the desi bawarchikhana (South Asian kitchen). Eventually I decided to (literally) take matters into my own hands. Thanks to 3 Quarks Daily, I was fortunate to know of Abbas's book, and it has been an excellent investment. Recipes are crisply written, easy to follow, and often accompanied by interesting anecdotes (Obama makes a great queema!). Moreover, the book will assist even a novice to get a South Asian kitchen up and running in a short period. Abbas, this is a life-saver for young professionals with an interest in South Asian cooking. For me, it has meant that one can take Pakistan - in the form of its unmatched cuisine - along no matter where one may be. On behalf of all young Pakistanis in exile, I salute your superb contribution to the world of culinary writing!

I love this cookbook. I am very comfortable in the kitchen - a 20 year home "veteran"- and own the Modernist Cuisine series among another shelf of fantastic books. I cook by pressure, sous vide, charcoal grill, etc. etc. But no other recipe have I cooked have I been so proud.The problem with my review is that I love the first recipe I made *so* much that I am afraid to make anything else for fear of disappointment. The chicken Karahi recipe is literally *to die for* and absolutely the quality of a restaurant entree. Oh, and did I mention that it is simple? with clear instructions? I have also made the Raita and and Masoor Daal. Both - wonderful. Right now I am simmering Bhunay Naryal and it smells fantastic. I think that is a sign I will have to break out and try more of the brilliance in this book. I saw 'spicy shrimp' as I scrolled thru looking for the name of a few recipes. Why haven't I tried that yet?