Spices & Seasons - Rinku Bhattacharya
Book Synopsis: Rinku Bhattacharya combines her two great loves--Indian cooking and sustainable living--to give readers a simple, accessible way to cook seasonally, locally, and flavorfully. Inspired by the bounty of local produce, mostly from her own backyard, Rinku set out to create recipes for busy, time-strapped home cooks who want to blend Indian flavors into nutritious family meals. Arranged in chapters from appetizers through desserts, the cookbook includes everything from small bites, soups, seafood, meat and poultry, and vegetables, to condiments, breads, and sweets. You'll find recipes for tempting fare like "Mango and Goat Cheese Mini Crisps," "Roasted Red Pepper Chutney," "Crisped Okra with Dry Spice Rub," "Smoky Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Puree," and "Red Harvest Masala Cornish Hens," to name a few. As exotic and enticing as these recipes sound, the ingredients are easily found and the instructions are simple. Rinku encourages readers to explore the bounty of their local farms and markets, and embrace the rich flavors of India to cook food that is nutritious, healthy, seasonal and most importantly, delicious.
About The Author:
Rinku Bhattacharya, the Spices & Seasons blogger, is a daytime financial professional, who spends the rest of her time immersed in food. Rinku is the author of the blog, Cooking in Westchester, where she shares her life experiences, original recipes that combine Indian spices with produce from her backyard and local farmers markets. Rinku is blessed with a gardener husband, who always surprises her with a prolific and fresh supply of produce to keep her creative instincts flowing. Rinku has been teaching recreational cooking classes for the past six years, and her newly released cookbook the Bengali Five Spice Chronicles, highlights and offers many simple recipes from Eastern India. Rinku can be found on Facebook.
Firstly, a big thank you to Rachel's Random Resources and the publisher Hippocrene Books for gifting me a free print copy of this book in exchange for an honest in-depth review.
A little known fact about me: I love Indian food, and food in general, I also like to experiment in the kitchen and cook. As soon as this book was delivered to me, I was eager to flip through to the recipes!
To get a better idea of how I was going to review this cookbook, I started to bookmark a few pages of recipes that I definitely wanted to try out. The results that I yielded were amazingly delicious, truly restaurant quality dishes that my whole family loved.
With the available ingredients that I already possessed at home, I tried a recipe featuring Fragrant Shrimp. Honestly, I couldn't believe how easy the steps were to follow and how clear and concise the directions are. Needless to say, it was one of the highlights of the meal and I will 100% be cooking this dish again.
This book is advertised as a fun, easy to follow cookbook for the whole family to enjoy. It was clear that Rinku Bhattacharya, an acclaimed chef and culinary educator really made sure that the recipes are authentic and easy to reproduce from the comfort of your own kitchen.
There is something for every kind of diet and eater in this book - from appetizers to entrees to desserts and drinks, there is a recipe just waiting to be made. What I really found helpful in this book was that Rinku Bhattacharya illustrates that you can adjust certain ingredients to suit your palate and heat levels accordingly.
You can find a copy of this book by purchasing it on Amazon.com or you can find it in a local bookstore. Just type in Spices & Seasons or Rinku Bhattacharya's name in the search bar. My review is a totally honest and unbarred, and unbiased first look at this cookbook - you should try it for yourself to see.
Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5 Stars!