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From: macrakis@harvard.ARPA (Stavros Macrakis)
Newsgroups: net.cooks,net.nlang.india
Subject: Re: Chickpeas in Tamarind Sauce
Message-ID: <428@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 6-Mar-85 12:28:45 EST
Article-I.D.: harvard.428
Posted: Wed Mar  6 12:28:45 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Mar-85 20:00:59 EST
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Thanks for the recipe: those chickpeas in tamarind sauce are one of my
favorite small dishes in Indian restaurants.  By the way, tamarind is
available in a more convenient form, already extracted from the
fibers--brandname Tamcon--which as far as I can tell is just as good and
far easier to work with than tamarind cakes.  Available around here at
Indian stores, e.g. India Tea and Spice, Belmont, MA.

You know, it might be more productive to exchange experience with
cookbooks rather than individual recipes.  For Indian ones, we can
presumably limit ourselves to those which start with individual spices
rather than curry powder.  I'll start things off with three:

    Dharamjit Sen, Indian Cookery (Penguin), cheap paperback
     Excellent!  Emphasizes method--certain tours de main make a tremendous
    difference in some dishes.  Concise but complete.  Many recipes.  No
    atmospherics (`my grandmother's kitchen', `as the sun sets over the
    bay of Bombay'...).  Some anglicisms (prawns, aubergines, ...) only a
    very few of which are opaque.  Assumes more kitchen savvy than others.

    Madhur Jaffrey, Indian Cooking (?), `quality' paperback
     Good.  Recipes are longer (but not more complete) and fewer than Sen.
    Emphasizes special dishes that are likely to appeal to American
    tastes.  Some atmospherics.

    Time-Life, Cooking of India, hardcover with spiral-bound recipes
     Good.  Strongest on atmospherics: good color photos of settings,
    dishes, ingredients; text evokes author's childhood in India.  Recipes
    quite good.  Probably a good introduction for someone with no
    background in Indian cooking.

	-s