Review: WARNING! NOT for Beginners and Only if You Have a Food Scale
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 6, 2013
First the Pros:1) I love cook books that shows the writer's personality. Cooking is something personal and I really like it when the writer shares what they like about the recipe. Chef Ban does a great job of educating the reader on the history of the food (personal and cultural) as well as the health benefits of the ingredients/dish.2) The book is illustrated with pictures. Granted, the pictures are hard to see on my kindle touch but most self published cook books are just words after words.3) All the recipes include a yield and cooking time. I know it sounds minor but a lot of self published cook book authors forget these valuable information.Now some of the opportunities... Well no, not opportunities but rather a heads up...1) This is not a book full of curry recipes. A lot of the dishes in here will probably be unfamiliar to most people (they were to me). For example, the first few dishes in the book are chicken and broad beans gravy, multi-flavored raw mango dip, hot tomato and pepper water, and beef mince gravy.2) All the measurements (with the exception of teaspoon and tablespoon) are in grams. I have been cooking for a long time but I will admit that I have no idea what 100 gram of chopped tomato looks like.3) Some of the words and names are not colloquial. For example, "refined oil"... not sure what that is... Splutter?4) Unless you live in an area with an Indian grocery store some of the ingredients are going to be impossible to find off line. Asafetida? Toor Dhal? Fenugreek?