Being in kitchen(cooking) line helps a lot in understanding the recipes, but this book does not need the required expertise to turn words into mouthwatering dishes.
Book is quite different from many fancy books with glazed pages and pictures of dishes taken by experts, this book is seriously written for cooking and cooking alone. It has recipes and some helpful hints, little anecdote by author here and there looks like sprinkled coriander leaves over the dishes.
Mr Ranjit Rai has somewhat different format of recipe designing, with masala, singe masala, follow up masala and garnishing masala. This may look like his efforts to simplify the complex recipe, but to me it looked like many recipes in one, whenever its mentioned that add singe masala to hot fat, or now put follow up masala, I hav to go back to the ingredient table and then understand whats its like, and then to check the whole recipe again that if follow up masala has ingredients repeating over anything else, may be marination or singe masala or anything else.
Boy... thats confusing to read isn’t it? Okay to simplify lemme give you all an example. If a recipe says add singe masala to hot oil (like cumin whole and coriander seeds), let it splutter and add chopped garlic, and saute well, now add follow up masala (may be tomato paste, mixed with red chilly paste, ginger paste and fenugreek powder), and bhunao for couple of minutes, now add the main commodity (like chicken, vegetable, paneer or anything else), add a little water and cover, and simmer for 15 minutes or till its done. Add follow up masala 2 (yes thats also there... like big cardamom powder and rock salt), stir well and finish the dish with garnishing masala (chopped coriander leaves and saffron threads).
in this recipe if I just say add singe masala and splutter, add followup masala and then add follow up 2 masala, finish with garnishing masala, one would just end up flipping pages to understand the masala jargon, which irritates a bit as the flow of reading and understanding the recipe jolts, its like speed breaker on fast track high way.
But nonetheless the book is good, recipes are new and innovative to a given degree, and yes it has a touch of Mr. Rai himself, known for his brilliant book called ’’Tandoor’’.
Book is very simple to read, and to keep, with paper back edition, and easy to grab language this book is one good buy.