I like Indian food, though admittedly it’s outside my sphere of expertise. I’ve never attempted cooking anything Indian as I’ve no sense of it, and really – making a curry from over 20 ingredients seems a bit daunting time consuming. Can you do it in less? Like name that tune… Monisha Bharadwaj says, ‘I can do kozhi kadhi in six.’ The recipe for the south Indian chicken and potato stew appears in her latest tome, Indian in 6: 100 Irresistible Recipes That Use Six Ingredients or Less (Kyle Books $19.95). Note that Bharadwaj gives herself three wild cards (sunflower oil, salt and ginger-garlic paste), so some recipes could have as many as nine ingredients.
I gave the kozhi kadhi and a couple other dishes a test-drive one Sunday night. Results were enthusiastically consumed by my professional focus group of one. I liked the book and will make room for it on the shelf – but before you do the same, a word of caution: Bharadwaj’s recipes are deceptively simple. She has indeed streamlined the number of ingredients and steps, but to follow them you’d better be a good cook. There aren’t any temperatures and very few cooking times listed to guide you along. Many of the recipes simply say “heat the oil in a skillet” and “cover and cook until done.” Fine if you know what you’re doing, maybe not so much for a beginner, or for one of those cooks who meticulously follows recipes without any deviation. (Which must be a difficult and oft-disappointing way to cook, given the number of books whose recipes don’t work. But that’s another story altogether.)
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