Reddit mentions of 660 Curries

I had a lot of luck with this book. https://www.amazon.com/660-Curries-Raghavan-Iyer/dp/0761137874

Between that and hours of watching grannies on YouTube, I can now make indian food without recipes that tastes pretty legit.

For Indian, I love Raghavan Iyer's 660 Curries. (Ugly mobile link: http://www.amazon.com/660-Curries-Raghavan-Iyer/dp/0761137874/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449666007&sr=8-1&keywords=660+curries+raghavan+iyer ).

It has an almost ludicrous number of recipes from across India, including much more than just curries. He has how-to guides for naan, paneer, ghee, a ton of spice mixes; all the hard to source ingredients that are simple to make. It also has nice explanations of techniques that are not common in European cuisine, an awesome glossary of food, tools, and tech, and a substitutions guide to replace ingredients you might have a tough time finding. I've used it to cook for several Indian friends, who have all been complimentary of the authenticity (and deliciousness) of the recipes.

The term curry describes a vast array of dishes, it would be comparable to say casserole. A curry is basically any dish in a spiced sauce. There are many commonly used spices but you don't have to use a certain one for it to be a curry.

My personnel favorite cook book for this is 660 Curries.

There are many kinds of chicken curry. Some well known ones would be Chicken Vindaloo (spices and vinegar), and the British curry Chicken Tikka Masala.

Get a book on curries.

Divorce yourself from everything you think a curry is because the word "curry" has practically no meaning beyond "sauce". Curry is the European term for every regional dish of a-thing-in-sauce the imperialists managed to encounter. This is why you have to specify "Madras curry" or "Punjabi curry" - they use entirely different regional ingredients. Colors have no relation to spiciness, in the same way you can make a red chili hotter than a white or green chili but the flavor profiles are different.

dude. one book.

http://www.amazon.com/660-Curries-Raghavan-Iyer/dp/0761137874

that's it. I'm Pakistani. this is what friends in the states use for their cooking, and it is awesome.

EDIT: curry mixes wise, SHAAN is your go to. the ones you get in the states are actually better quality.

660 curries by Raghavan Iyer is great. It has a whole chapter dedicated to spice blends, as well as pastes and other building blocks you can pre make to make cooking take less time. A very useful book, I cook out of it about 5-6 times a month.

I bought the book 660 curries and it's been working out great. There is enough variety that you can start with more familiar things (using fewer hard-to-buy spices) and gradually ramp up to more difficult curries. A spice blender is a plus: you'll be able to make your own garam masala.

I got a book called 660 curries that has made my indian cooking drastically improve and I now kind of "get" it. I highly recommend it - I use it probably more than any other cookbook I have.

660 Curries is a great way to learn about the various spices and ingredients used in Indian cuisine, as well as common spice blends (masalas) that are used. Iyer breaks them down in a really great conversational way that makes complex recipes much more approachable.

This recipe comes from the EXCELLENT (and very large!) cookbook, "660 Curries" by Raghavan Iyer. I got it this past Christmas and have been trying new recipes out almost every week. It's not a vegetarian/vegan cookbook, and has plenty of non-veg recipes... but wow, there are a TON of veggie ones. Like hundreds of pages. It's been a really great resource, and tons of fun/very instructive to work through. This recipe has become a regular in our rotation, because it's such a delicious way to pack in the veggies. We've been using sweet potato/cabbage/carrot (and we use vegetable oil instead of ghee), but I'm looking to switch it up for spring next time we make it.

Edit: Sorry, I don't think I'll be able to put up a recipe format before it's removed. I have tendinitis in both my hands atm and it hurt a ton to type up the above paragraph - I will edit it tomorrow morning after they've had a day to rest.

My go to place for Indian recipes has become Manjula's Kitchen. That lady is like the Indian grandmother I never had. Here's a few noteworth recipes:

Paneer, this homemade cheese is really, realy easy to make and used for a lot of stuff.

Palak Paneer: Very quick and easy diesh that is very good.

Achari Paneer, I know, more paneer, but it is good stuff.

The spices in most of Manjulla's recipes are pretty basic, too. With the exception of asafetida you can find everything else easily at a local big box store.

If you would prefer a cook book, 660 Curries is also a great way to get started.

If you like Indian cooking, there's a pile of these in 660 Curries.

My favourite is Panch Phoron:

• 2 tsp fennel seeds
  
• 1 tsp mustard seeds (yellow or black)
  
• 1 tsp of nigella seeds
  
• 1 tsp fenugreek seeds
  
• 1 tsp cummin seeds
  
  Mix and then use in recipes as needed.
  
  My favourite recipe with it:
  
  Heat 2 tbls oil. Fry 1 tbls Panch Phoron + 4 dried chillies for 30 seconds. add 1lb chopped potatoes. fry on medium high for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  
  Add 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp turmeric, mix well. Add 1 can of coconut milk. Stir thoroughly, bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
  
  Stir in 6-8oz of fresh spinach, cover and simmer for 2-3 minutes until spinach wilts.
  
  edit: added chillies.
  

660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer is comprehensive. You can also try Indian Cooking Unfolded by him but it has only 100 recipes.

I'd suggest the book 660 curries - Raghavan Iyer as it covers all of the "spice blends" as well as having many many dishes that do not include mustard seeds in the blends. For those that do simply omitting them should suffice. He also has a section in the back where it explains the purpose of various spices, bitter, sweet, umami, etc. so you might be able to locate substitutes for mustard seeds as they are there to impart bitter.

that was a person who just weighed in to link one of the definitive texts on the many, many variations of curries.

and i am a truly competent cook, please never speak ill again u lil shit

Yamuna Devi or Ragivan Iyer. The former is a true classic, and I've cooked nearly every recipe over the past 20 years. The later is a more recent book, but the recipes are every bit as classic (and delicious).

You can't go wrong with Raghavan's "660 Curries". It's where I started, 4 years ago. Since then I've probably only cooked ~20-25 of the recipes but every. single. one. has been amazing and incredibly authentic. I'm Caucasian and I've had Indian friends tell me I put their mothers to shame.

I was a little unsure of the quality available when you throw 660 curries into one book - but the quality is there. More importantly however, the book goes over how to cook and prepare each and every type of ingredient. There are huuuuge chapters catering to legumes of all varieties, your chickpea craving will be easily fixed. You're close to an international food market so you'll be in heaven.

Regarding not being able to stock a full indian / us / thai pantry. Know that stocking most spices required for Indian food is incredibly cheap. For ~$20 (provided your store is fairly priced), you should be able to stock 1 packet of each commonly used spice (go big on Cumin and Coriander seeds, they're used a lot). I've had some of the same spices for close to 18 months now as they're used infrequently. So do not fear cost, once you've outlaid for the starter spices, you'll be very low on cost.

Without further delay: http://www.amazon.com/660-Curries-Raghavan-Iyer/dp/0761137874/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406560477&sr=8-1&keywords=660+curries

And here happens to be two curries I cooked from the book this weekend! Stewed duck with Black Cardamon and Cherries, with Curried Eggs. The onions in the back (katta salan) are from vahrehvah.com, another great resource although the recipes can be difficult to follow as they're a little scattered.

When looking for inspiration for Indian food I always reach for Raghavan Iyer's 660 Curries or Monisha Bharadwaj's The Indian Cooking Course.

The latter has become a house favourite. We ended up buying 5 extra copies to gift friends and family.

Glad I can help! Like I said, if you decide on a specific recipe and want some tips, I can help more - I just don't know your or his food preferences, or if he'll eat garlic - which isn't used in some forms of Brahmin vegetarian cooking - etc. Otherwise I could drop a few more specifics.

From a historical perspective, it's interesting how Indian cooking benefited from/was influenced by the Columbian exchange. Pre-contact dishes were apparently primarily flavored with pepper and tamarind - the tomatoes and chilis came with the exchange.

A few good kitchen staples which will let you cook a large number of dishes from this part of the subcontinent are whole mustard seeds, urad dal (split black lentils - which are actually white), curry leaves, tamarind, garam masala, turmeric powder, coriander powder, chili powder, garlic and ginger (whole or in pastes). Some recipes will also call for cumin powder, cashews, dried red chilis, or ground coconut. 660 Curries is written by a Tamil Brahmin which might be a decent place to start - I personally don't put coconut in all my curries, but that's the style of some communities. Also, he cooks his meat, puts it aside, and then cooks the spices, mixing in the meat at the end - I'd personally cook the spices, and then cook the meat in the spices so it absorbs the flavors.

Just dont get a mortar thats too small (I use an 8"). I also use a mortar and pestle and its wonderful for everything from grinding spices and making curry pastes to making guacamole and pesto. Got it from Import Food at the recommendation of Mark Bittman. Should OP go for one, I highly recommend that she also season it for him as this will take a bit of time. These instructions are similar to how I remember seasoning mine.

Maybe OP can give him an Indian cookbook to go with it as well as whole dried spices to go with the book. My favorite is 660 Curries by Raghaven Iyer. Some common spices used frequently in the book include coriander seeds, cumin seeds, black mustard seeds, whole cloves, fenugreek seeds, black peppercorns, ground turmeric, black cardamom, cinnamon sticks, as well as many others. Pages 24-40 lists some spice blends used throughout the book, should OP wish to get it. I like the Spice House for spices. Penzey's is great too. If OP is in the NYC area, I just go to Kalustyan's around 28th and Lex which probably has the best quality spices in the city. They give a discount for paying in cash.

I advise against getting random spices for him as it will just sit on the shelf which is why I recommend a cookbook to give him reason to use them. Give him the spices that are used in that book. Personally, I avoid dried herbs like dried basil or dried thyme and prefer fresh.The only dried herbs I use are oregano, herbes de provence, and bay leaves. I am NOT a fan of premade spice blends at all as I prefer to have more control. For example, I cant help but cringe whenever I hear "taco seasoning" get mentioned on this subreddit as it often does. I had no idea it was so popular until coming here.

I highly recommend the book 660 Curries for beginners.
Where I grew up, there was only one Indian restaurant and a very very small number of people from that part of the world. I loved the food, but had never visited a home that cooked it, so the methods and conventions of Indian cooking were completely invisible to me.

"660 Curries" took me from that state of absolutely zero knowledge to knowing a good thing or two about curry. Since it has 660 recipes, it can seem quite daunting at first, but if you start from the beginning, you'll be eased into it. If you end up getting the book, PM me and I'll point you toward a few of my favorite recipes and elaborate further on how I started out.

660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer is my favorite curry book.

My favorite Thai curry paste is Mae Ploy. My favorite Japanese curry is House Brand.

I have this one and I really like it. The recipes are authentic, but the author is also aware of the realities of North American cooks making curry, so he offers suggestions for alternatives to the harder to find ingredients that are sometimes in the recipes. Plus it's really inexpensive for the number of recipes that it has.

Add this to your library

660 Curries by Raghaven Iyer is my favorite. Madhur Jaffrey also has some good books too.

I love making Indian food! Don't give up! I love this cookbook so so much. My boyfriend and I try a new recipe out of it almost every week, there is an excellent variety of flavors and bases (chicken, beef, veggie, potato, lentil, rice etc). We've had a couple that were meh but for the most part they are very tasty and quite a few have just blown us away. The spices are a bit of an investment but well worth it if you want good results. We have found it much cheaper to buy them whole from penzeys.com than from our local grocery store and a necessity for spices that they don't stock at all (I'm looking at you, fenugreek).

I guess to someone who has eaten Indian food their whole lives the recipes might not be so amazing but I have eaten at quite a few Indian restaurants and a couple of these recipes blew anything else I have tried right out of the water.

I started with 660 Curries. Written from the perspective of an American supermarket with an Indian market occasionally. Lots of simple recipes to get a feel while you build your spice collection.

Probably my favorite:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0761137874/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511546773&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=660+curries+by+raghavan+iyer

Easy, delicious recipes and after cooking a number of them, you won't even need a cookbook anymore!!

You should check out this cookbook! It's one of my favorites. I really enjoy cooking Indian food.

There isn't one Indian cuisine. There's a few dozen, at least.
For a somewhat US focused book:
http://www.amazon.com/660-Curries-Raghavan-Iyer/dp/0761137874

For a somewhat worse printing, with better recipes: http://www.amazon.com/India-Cookbook-Pushpesh-Pant/dp/0714859028

Reading the reviews will probably help.

I like the "Essential Cookbook" series from Penguin. These are definitely closer to what I would eat at home than the recipes in the more popular cookbooks.

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Kerala-Cookbook-Vijayan-Kannampilly/dp/0143029509

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Marathi-Cookbook-Kaumudi-Marathe/dp/0143068024

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Andhra-Cookbook-Hyderabadi-Bilkees/dp/0140271848

http://www.amazon.com/The-Pondicherry-Kitchen-Lourdes-Tirouvanziam-Louis/dp/9381626995

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Sindhi-Cookbook-Aroona-Reejhsinghani/dp/0143032011

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Cookbook-Maria-Teresa-Menezes/dp/0141000872

http://www.amazon.com/The-Essential-North-East-Cookbook/dp/0143030272

http://www.amazon.com/Saraswat-Mahila-Rasachandrika-Second-Paperback/dp/B00RWSJ7M0

SAMAITHU PAR (vol 1-4) is a book aimed at Tamil Iyer vegetarian cooking.

If you want authors more aimed at an occidental cook, I would suggest Madhur Jaffrey, Sanjeev Kapoor, Tarla Dalal, Vikas Khanna and Julie Sawhney

I've been using Iyer's 660 Curries. Loads of information and a really cheap book

This is the best book.

Are you referring to this book? How do you like it?

Madhur Jaffrey is really the source for Indian cookbooks. But I'd actually like to mention two others as well:

660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer is a big one, with recipes covering all levels of complexity. Some are great, some aren't, but there's just so much content in this book that it's hard to beat for the price.

[The New Indian Slow Cooker by Neela Paniz] (http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Indian-Slow-Cooker/dp/1607746190/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411415629&sr=8-1&keywords=neela+paniz) is a brand new book, but I've had access to a couple of the recipes for a few months now and here's the deal: Neela's recipes are occasionally complex. I've taken a few cooking classes from her and her "normal" vindaloo, for example, is really too long for anyone to do unless you have the whole afternoon to devote to it. But this book, due to its "slow cooker" focus, dumbs down a lot of steps without sacrificing much of the flavor, so it's a good compromise. What's more, even though it's focused for a slow cooker, you can easily convert it to a stovetop with very little effort.

After reading the reviews for that book, I think you should get this one.

660 curries is fantastic. The author is a James Beard winner as well.