Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian: More Than 650 Meatless Recipes from Around the World: A Cookbook

`World Vegetarian' by leading authority on Indian cooking, Madhur Jaffrey is one of those books you can tell after reading a page or two that it is worth your time and money if you are interested in learning new things about food. It is important to note that the notion of `vegetarian' in the title does not mean that the book is all about vegetables, just as a vegetarian is not a person who eats only vegetables. A vegan or vegetarian is someone who avoids meat and, to some extent, products derived from animals. Some people whose vegetarianism is based on respect for animal life go so far as to avoid vegetables like root vegetables whose harvest may entail the death of insects or worms or other subterranean living animals. Ms. Jaffrey is a partial vegetarian, based more on Indian culture and tradition than anything else. And, her book includes major chapters on dairy products derived from milk and eggs. This is a very big book, with very long chapters on all the big vegetarian topics. These are: Dried Beans, Dried Peas, Lentils, and Nuts -122 pages Vegetables - 200 pages Grains - 186 pages Dairy - 64 pages Soups, Salads, and Drinks - 82 pages Sauces and Added Flavorings - 54 pages plus Equipment, Glossary, and Resources - 32 pages Even with 200 pages and 200 recipes, this very large section does not match the depth of books dedicated entirely to vegetables such as Jack Bishop's `Vegetables Every Day' or Elizabeth Schneider's encyclopedic `Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini'. In fact, Ms. Jaffrey has just 31 sections dedicated to different vegetables, while Ms. Schneider covers over 130 different named vegetables, but Ms. Jaffrey gives us some insights on vegetable cookery which I believe cannot be found elsewhere. It may not be that other books don't cover the same thing, but Ms. Jaffrey seems to have a way of putting things which makes them stick in your memory a lot more firmly than other writers' coverage does. For example, in dealing with the baking of red beet roots, Ms. Jaffrey says that baking white potatoes in tin foil leads to thoroughly unpleasant soggy skins and dry flesh, but the same technique is exactly what you want to do with beets, as the skin of beets in inedible. Another way in which her facts are presented in an effective manner is when the section on greens discusses fourteen (14) different varieties of greens together so that similarities and differences between methods appropriate to each variety can be discussed. Ms. Jaffrey is certainly true to her book title in that her recipes come from all over the world. She gives us the service of stating beside each recipe name the country or cuisine from which the recipe grew. While this may only be important to nitpickers like myself, she is careful to point out when recipes are from a purely Italian or Chinese source or from a hybrid recipe developed by Italians or Chinese who are transplanted to the United States. The chapter on `Grains' is dedicated as much or more to dishes made with flour grains and meals, as in noodles and porridges as to the grains themselves, as in rice dishes. One of the clearest signs of Ms. Jaffrey's background is the fact that very little space is dedicated to yeast breads. Only five (5) recipes contain yeast and two of those are for pancakes. All other bread recipes are for flatbreads or breads with a chemical leavener. These recipes are welcome, as few appear in conventional books on bread, and I do not miss a fuller discussion of breads, as there are easily a dozen excellent books on bread which come to mind. The other side of the coin is in the dairy chapter that includes recipes for homemade cheeses which I simply have not seen anywhere outside of Diane Kennedy's most recent book on the Mexican pantry. Among these recipes are homemade Indian cheese, unflavored and flavored with pepper or herbs; Latin American cheese (`Queso Blanco'), Italian mascarpone cheese and Syrian Cheese. And, just to be sure none of this effort is wasted, there are several recipes giving us things to do with our homemade Indian cheese. This chapter also contains a wealth of egg recipes that you will simply not see anywhere outside of a book dedicated to egg recipes or a large book on Indian cuisine. With a rather long headnoted homage to Julia Child, Ms. Jaffrey gives us an excellent recipe for the classic French omelet. You will succeed with this recipe, but mastering the technique may require a consult with Ms. Child's book or Jacques Pepin's book on technique. All this means is that Ms. Jaffrey's decisions on what to include in this book and what to leave out is impeccable. It may seem presumptions on my part to evaluate Ms. Jaffrey's recipes, but I did check out her vegetable stock recipe and found it agreed with all my experts' opinions on how and for how long to cook a vegetable stock. The only deviation from classic doctrine is that she includes a diced potato, but not until the broth has been brought to a boil and reduced to a simmer, so, I suspect the spud has no chance to make the stock cloudy. In a sense, this book fulfills the promise of Jeanne Lemlin's `Vegetarian Classics' without padding it with cliched recipes for macaroni and cheese and pasta Puttanesca. Very, very few recipes in this book are familiar to me, in spite of the fact that I have walked my way through close to 400 cookbooks in the last 18 months. This book is highly recommended for your armchair library when you are out of the kitchen, searching for new ideas and dishes.

I cannot begin to express just how much I have fallen in love with this cookbook. It sits prominently on my kitchen shelf on one of those book helpers that keep books standing upright and open. I came across this cookbook when visiting a friend, and after leafing through the passionate and well-explained, simple dishes, I knew I had to buy it for myself. I have only recently started discovering the delicious flavors not just of Indian food but Middle Eastern and African dishes, and have long wanted to try my hand at them. So far, everything that I have cooked from this book has been absolutely delicious and definitely do-able! Palestinian Lentils and Rice, Sliced Tomatoes in Tomato Sauce, Fennel and Orange Salad, Sri Lankan Sweet Potatoes with Chile and Cardamom, Green Beans and Shallots, Chickpea and Spinach Stew. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of all the possibilities. I truly feel like I am traveling the world with Jaffrey's storyteller-like descriptions of how she came to get to know and fall in love with each recipe. There are already dishes I remake several times, and I have to discipline myself to keep exposing myself to new recipes within the book instead of falling back on old favorites. One of the reviewers mentioned that this is one of the only cookbooks you need (even for non-vegetarians), and I completely agree. The diversity and explosion of tastes that come out of these simple recipes is enough to create a full array of dishes for simple weeknight dinners and entertaining parties. I love Jaffrey's personal recommendations on how to pair dishes.

I am a meat-eater with a decent-sized collection of cookbooks (70+ books) and Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian has been my favorite since I cooked my first few recipes from it 8 years ago. The recipes are interesting, original and consistently delicious-- and there are so many recipes that eight years later it is still easy to find new ones I am excited to try. I'm still learning from this book, which gives delightful small bits of new information with each section and with nearly every recipe. I'd never had a spelt berry or a curry leaf before this book -- a shame! I'd certainly never heard of a "Double," a delicious Trinidadian chickpea-based burger sandwich, and I doubt I would have ever been so adventurous as to try an egg curry (in fact, the idea of an egg curry used to seem quite unappealing to me). But the Doubles, the Goan Egg Curry, the Winter Squash Stuffed with Spelt Berries, and Figs with Mustard Seeds and Curry Leaves are some of my favorite recipes in the book. Other favorites include: a Chinese "Bean Curd with Tomatoes and Cilantro," "Sri Lankan Eggplant Curry," a French inspired "Mushroom and Potato Stew" and "Israeli Couscous with Asparagus and Fresh Mushrooms" with fresh morel mushrooms--mmmm! I could go on and on, but I hope this list gives a sense of the wonderful variety in this book. Some of the recipes are time-consuming but many are relatively quick, taking sensible short cuts that do not compromise quality. My husband and I have found recipes in other cookbooks for some of the Indian dishes in World Vegetarian, and those of the other books seem much more complicated and daunting. This book is also a great one for entertaining. The recipes range from very elegant to casual, and Jaffrey often gives suggestions for what to serve with each dish. My husband and I have received a number of compliments at dinner parties (oh, I know one usually does, but these guests seemed sincere and went back for seconds and thirds) and we've just been really pleased. The book is also consistent in quality. I'd say 92% of the recipes we've made in the book have been A or A+s. The rest are mainly B/B+ and the lowest score has been a B-. No duds! I don't have another cookbook that scores nearly that well-- usually I encounter at least one or two recipes that just don't work and feel like they were just thrown in as filler. I own a few other Jaffrey cookbooks: Quick and Easy Indian, Indian Cooking and World of the East. They are very good, and I continue to cook from them, but if I could only have one Jaffrey book (or only one cookbook for that matter) it would be World Vegetarian. It is an absolute masterpiece. I highly recommend it.

I've used this book for years now, and made many, many delicious recipes - the tomato sambal and cilantro-mint chutney, especially, are favorites. This vegetarian compendium is a mainstay in my kitchen, because of a wealth of vegetarian recipes that don't rely on unhealthy dairy products and eggs, like the great majority of American vegetarian cookbooks do. Many of these recipes will be very spicy, and in fact I often use less chillies or chili powder than called for, but I always heap the tablespoons and teaspoons of spices called for - if I don't, some of the recipes end up a bit too bland for my tastes. Also, on most recipes I decrease the amount of oil and salt called for by 1/3 - 1/2; I suspect that Jaffrey has developed a stronger taste for salts and oils that is all-too common in the restaurant and cooking industries, although really not necessary to make a delicious meal. Try anything and everything in this book, and don't be shy of adding more than the recommended spice amounts!

This is my favorite cookbook, hands down. The recipes are as fun to page through and fantasize about cooking and eating as they are to actually cook and eat. Plus, you can feel good about what you've eaten afterwards, because the recipes are (with the exception of a few of the drinks) all very nutritious. We all know that this is not the case with all cookbooks! The organization (by main ingreient) makes it easy to find a way to use up those cannelini beans that have been sitting in your cupboard for a few years, or that head of cabbage that you need to get rid of quickly to make space in the fridge for something else. The recipes themselves are great for a number of reasons: 1) They're very clear and easy-to-follow. 2) Very few require special equipment. 3) Most recipes make about four servings (great for a two-person household). 4) They are EXCELLENT to eat! I feel like I'm at a restaurant every night! One reviewer mentioned that ingredients are hard to find. If you're shopping at a very conventional U.S. grocery store, this might be the case, but I live near a tiny (we're talking about 1,000 square feet here) natural foods co-op which hasn't failed me yet in my quest for ingredients (most of what is considered "unusual" are spices or legumes), so if you have access to such a store, you should be in business. The thing that cinches this book's "Best Yet" title is the menu suggestions Jaffrey offers. Even if you yourself don't know how to construct a nutritionally complete meal (I know I don't know all the rules on this!), you can be sure that Jaffrey will suggest meals which are both balanced and which reveal her genius with flavor-combinations.

We always have loved vegetable dishes but were running low on interesting ways to cook them. Normally I would cook them in Korean way (blanch them and toss with garlic and sesame oil) or in Italian way (garlic and olive oil) but I thought there should be more out there. So I looked around for vegetable recipes and bought several books. This book is the one I go back every weekend planning the meals and sometimes I find myself poring over the book with equal intensity as I would read Harry Potter or reaserch articles. The book is good for simple recipes that can be used when I have to finish cooking the whole meal in half an hour, and is also good for more extravagant dishes that I take as a challenge and fun to broaden my horizon. The quality of recipe? It is really perfect. I was trying to reduce meat intake of our family and my husband was resisting, arguing that the veggie dishes are not substantial and all similar. With the bean dishes from this book, we're having so much fun and wholesome meals that my husband compliments often and is happily almost vegetarian. As many others review pointed out, learning about food has never been more fun than with this book. This book is one of the best purchase I have ever made!

This is a very comprehensive cookbook that includes tons of recipes together with extensive descriptions of all the common ingredients used and how they are usually treated. The recipes are well organized, making it easy to look for a specific one and the instructions are clear and easy to follow. Each recipe also mentions which country it originates from, showing the truly diverse set of recipes included. A sizable proportion (about 30%) of the recipes are Indian, which is unsurprising considering Madhur Jaffrey's ethnicity but also because India has the highest number of vegetarians amongst the world's countries and thus has some of the best vegetarian food. An incredibly helpful resource for all cooks, vegetarian or not.

I bought this years ago when trying to go vegetarian and used it a little bit, but had trouble getting the recipes to turn out. I chalked it up to inexperience and recipes being difficult or foreign to me, delicious as they sounded, At the time, I found other "favorite" cookbooks to use instead. In the intervening time I have become far more comfortable in the kitchen. I recently went back to this cookbook and - once again - following the recipes precisely doesn't produce great results. The difference is now I know how to play with them to produce a good result. If you have reasonable practice in the kitchen, this book is an incredible inspiration. Her stories and conversational tone are a delight. The encyclopedic sections on ingredients are an excellent reference. Three stars because it is first and foremost a cookbook, and I would expect better-tested recipes overall.

This possibly sounds like a weak excuse, but after reading her autobiography and finding out she couldn't cook as an adult, I lost faith in her as a writer of cookbooks.

Eines der besten für indische Küche aus meiner zugegebenermaßen beschränkten weil europäischen Perspektive. Aber die Gerichte schmecken hervorragend und gelingen immer.

This book was given to me by a friend who was disappointed in the recipes. She must have been in a mood! I love vegetables and vegetarian and this book is simply amazing! It contains recipes from India, Turkey, Persia, Italy, Hong Kong -- you name it. The recipes are simple; the vegetables and spices are readily available if you live in a multicultural community. Carrots with potatoes and peas are delectable with garam masala and tumeric! Sweet potatoes with raisins and cinnamon -- I would feel guilty if I didnt know it was vegetables! This book never leaves my kitchen and I cook from it almost every day. I slow down at bus stops and recommend it to people. I mailed a copy to my sister. If you are vegetarian, or just like veggies, do yourself a favour and buy this book.

If you're considering buying this book, buy it immediately. I purchased this after cooking my way through 30 tasty, well-explained recipes in Madhur Jaffrey's Flavors of India but wanting more ideas for vegetable dishes. The book is well organized, has hundreds of masters recipes and hundreds of variations on those. Great care is given to explaining the fundamental cooking principles for each type of food and each step in the cooking process. Recipes span the globe but the focus is Indian (just like mine!). If you are scared off by Indian ingredients, there are pictures and names in the book, so write out what you need, bring it to an Indian grocer (there are 5 within 200 meters of Shin-Okubo station), then leave with bags full of dry supplies that will last you months. The recipes themselves are authentic, simple, and unassuming. The book has an abundance of flavors but they are balanced in each recipe. Everyone will find a favorite (or 100 favorites) in here. Also, while there are free recipes on the internet, every chef has different tastes and writes recipes in different proportions and styles. The consistency found by starting with one master's (and Jaffrey is a master) ideas and tweaking them into one's your own means you won't end up with many duds. The only reason I would give someone not to buy the book is that there are only a handful of photos and no picture diagrams, so if you cannot stand unillustrated recipes, find another book. Otherwise, let her explanations and stories prompt your imagination and her recipes astonish you and your guests.

I already have an old copy of this book, and this was offered as a present. It is one of the most useful books for vegetarians and vegans; the variety of sauces, ideas, spice mixes, as well as the recipes, cannot be found elsewhere. It is a very dense book and one I often turn to. Madhur Jaffrey's 'chef d'oeuvre'!