Cookbook Review: Quick Fix Indian by Ruta Kahate

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing

This book is the latest by Ruta Kahate who earlier wrote 5 Spices, 50 dishes. All of the recipes mentioned in the book are said to take just 30 minutes to get ready including the time involved for soaking and marinating. She introduces the concept of Quick fix Indian pantry that has ingredients which are used in Indian recipes. The Shortcut shelf segment has 8 recipes for recurring homemade items that can be refrigerated and helps in cooking faster.

Its interesting to note that Ruta mentions blender, electric coffee blender for grinding fresh spices and a small pestle and mortar for grinding less quantities as the only special equipments required for the recipes.

Also the recipes mostly dont have the cooking time mentioned as importance is given to the food being well cooked which may take less or more than the time mentioned.

Apart from mentioning the ingredients in general for all the recipes, there is a segment dedicated to introduction about a few essential ingredients. The importance and health benefits of these ingredients are also mentioned wherever possible.

Every recipe begins with a small introduction about it, serving suggestions, number of servings and there are special notes, variations and tips mentioned wherever possible.

There is a huge influence of Goa's food culture in the recipes where the author keeps travelling.

The recipes are classified into

1. Brisk breakfasts
2. Lightning Lunches
3. Swift soups
4. Speedy salads and Raitas
5. Mains in minutes
6. Express veggies
7. Snappy staples
8. Curries and dals in a hurry
9. Rapid relishes
10.Zippy snacks
11.Double quick desserts
12.Last minute libations

In all there are 125 recipes with more of non-vegetarian recipes. In the end the metric conversions and equivalents for common ingredients have also been published.

There are some amazing pictures of the ingredients involved in Indian cooking in the book. However, the absence of pictures of cooked food is the only thing missing in the book.

In all, the book would be of great help when there is very less time to cook food at home and the short cut shelf concept given here would also help in cooking other varieties of Indian food..