Springboard to a lifetime of cooking
Customer Rating: 
Once you've cooked a few "curries" (Eastern-derived vegetable or protein stews with spice-based sauces), you will be familiar with the basic process; this will open you up to create your own endless varieties of dishes. The ingeredients listed herein are characteristic mainly of South Asia and Southeast Asia, with a few notable additions from North Africa and East Asia. However, you can successfully adapt any of Floyd's (very simple; very user-friendly) recipes to any region of the world. For example, if you take one of his potato and cauliflower curries (of South Asian derivation) and substitute, say, unripe plantain and a few different spices, you will have made a typical East African dish. You can incorporate flavors from any region of the world; spiced stews are loved the world over.
I like how Floyd included multiple methods of prep, from sauteing wet curry paste before adding veggies-meat, to dry-toasting ground spices, to boiling unspiced meat in liquid first, to starting on stove and finishing up in oven. If there's a method you particularly like from one recipe, but ingredients from another recipe which you prefer, combine method A with ingredients B.
Beware, because Floyd is a great lover of spiciness, and almost every single recipe--even the cooling yogurt raita!--calls for literal handfuls of fresh hot chilies. I am of North African extraction, and that region's cuisine (except for Tunisia) generally favors spice (aromatic, fragrant, musky) over spiciness. There's no way I'm putting in all the fresh chilies Floyd calls for; one will do me fine.
The recipes are superbly easy and require no special equipment except for the odd one calling for a steamer. Essentially, the minimum you need is a wardrobe of good spices (which every cook should have anyway), protein (either flesh, beans, or eggs), garlic, onions and tomato paste/tomatoes. Optional items but items I highly recommend you stock always are: coconut milk (my addiction--Cook's Illustrated taste-tested several and found that my fave brands Chaokoh and Kame are the best); fresh cilantro by the bunches; honey; heavy or light cream to thicken before serving.
Note: almost every single ingredient in the book--from red/green Thai curry paste in a jar, to dried Asian mushrooms-- is available in both the Midwestern suburb and the Southern small town I have lived in. The few I have had trouble finding--dried shrimp, fresh frog legs--are not required, anyway.
This book is very resonably priced and includes many lovely photos. Try to get over Floyd's constant references to food-processing as "whizzing." The tribute to his mother is suitable and predisposed me to like him. The man likes good food, made simply, and he's not afraid of flavor experimentation. I'd buy another book by him.
Reviews Send to a Friend
