If I had access to fresh curry leaves (and I don’t live within 100 miles of anywhere that’s likely to have them), I might be tempted to try most everything in Chetna’s Indian Feasts. Even though she didn’t win her season of Great British Bake Off, the author seems to have done pretty well in setting herself up in the food world. I know she’s done several cookbooks before this one; I might be tracking down one or two of those.
Indian Feasts is as the title suggests a recipe book geared towards shared dishes, with each section essentially being a spread based on a general theme, like Friday night takeaway, Feasts for two, Barbecue, Picnic, Sunday brunch, and a few others. Most recipes serve 4, with a few scattered exceptions that serve 2 (side dishes often, like “spicy, sour and sweet dal” or “garlic chili corn”) or up to 8-10 (such as “Chocolate and cardamom caramel cake”). Obviously, you can make or combine individual recipes and the book points this out directly, occasionally with a few pairing suggestions. Even though this is seemingly a batch size book, none of the recipes actually look like they end up with too much. I’m guessing it’s the spread concept which assumes you’d be trying a little bit of many things, so you wouldn’t need a lot of any one thing.
Most everything looks pretty doable for your average home cook, even if you’re not totally expert with Indian cuisine, and there is not an overabundance of personal narrative the way there can be sometimes; it’s present in the headers, but not overwhelmingly long. There is a good deal of frying though, and that’s not something I do a lot of personally, mostly because I’m not cooking for a group most of the time, and frying is a hassle for small batches. There is also a good bit of vegetarian emphasis, which I appreciate.
I also find it mildly funny that there’s a “Glossary of UK/US terms” in the back. I get why that is there, but some of the definitions are odd. UK ‘barbecue’ = US “grill”, UK ‘cider vinegar’ = US “apple cider vinegar”, while UK ‘cocoa powder’ = US “unsweetened cocoa powder”, and UK ‘gram flour’ = US “chickpea flour”. That last one strikes more as an Indian to US thing, even though the same glossary page also includes UK ‘chickpea’ = US “garbanzo bean”. I feel a little like someone was a little too nervous about potential cultural confusion. Things like ‘courgette’, ‘hob’, or ‘plain flour’ makes some sense, but how one might confuse ‘beetroot’ for anything other than “beet”, or ‘frying pan’ for “skillet” is a little overkill IMHO. If it was me, I’d be more likely to include the measurement conversions instead.